The big Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian discussion thread

kunst nugget

anonyanony wrote: »

It was lower then the average granted it was not as big of a hit as the bayanetta 2 review polygon did but still was unwarranted, if they knew going in they would have issues with the game they should have excused themselves let others review instead.

What's unwarranted about it? If I read a review I like to know what the reviewer's personal experience of the game/movie/book/album is.

anonyanony

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

This is a ridiculous statement. Likely to have no issue is just as much a bias as likely to have an issue, and neither is invalid. If someone has a problem with something, they should be allowed comment on it. We don't have to agree with it - I found the Bayonetta 2 review on Polygon a shallow reading of the character - but that does not mean it's any more worthless. I'd rather he articulate his views in a more convincing way, but I have no doubt he was being honest either.

I just don't get this view that a review should go to the person most likely to be wildly positive about it (bearing in mind 9/10 is pretty wildly positive :pac:). Dissent is something the gaming community at large needs to learn to accept as perfectly valid - there's too much of a rush towards consensus when talking about games, and this plays out time and time again when someone says something that differs from the norm.

kunst nugget wrote: »

What's unwarranted about it? If I read a review I like to know what the reviewer's personal experience of the game/movie/book/album is.

They should do as christcenteredgamer do give the game an objective review score then give their opinion and moral bias another, if a christian game site can be more objective and fair then big sites something is very wrong

johnny_ultimate

Your issue there is believing a review should be objective.

I want a review to be personal, subjective, colourful and honest, not this: http://www.objectivegamereviews.com/resogun-review/

anonyanony

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Your issue there is believing a review should be objective.

I want a review to be personal, subjective, colourful and honest, not this

Then remove scores altogether, a score should be objective, if you don't want that do the review without a score and let reader decide if they have the same opinions as the reviewer, one of the main reason I like total biscuit is he does not give a score he let you decide on what he says.

Links234

And here's another gripe I have with gamergate and the supposed crusade for ethics in games journalism. We know the incident of someone being fired over a review of Kane & Lynch 2, and it is important that reviewers should be free to criticize and rate games how they honestly believe they deserve without interference from big name publishers. That's a pretty good thing. Yet it just doesn't seem to gel with Carolyn Petit's review of GTA:V, after petitions to have her fired because of it and the fact that people are still raging over what was an overwhelmingly positive review, where's the ideals of journalistic integrity gone? The idea that if a reviewer didn't give a title the review publishers were happy with they should be replaced with someone who will... That's not very ethical.

anonyanony

Links234 wrote: »

And here's another gripe I have with gamergate and the supposed crusade for ethics in games journalism. We know the incident of someone being fired over a review of Kane & Lynch 2, and it is important that reviewers should be free to criticize and rate games how they honestly believe they deserve without interference from big name publishers. That's a pretty good thing. Yet it just doesn't seem to gel with Carolyn Petit's review of GTA:V, after petitions to have her fired because of it and the fact that people are still raging over what was an overwhelmingly positive review, where's the ideals of journalistic integrity gone? The idea that if a reviewer didn't give a title the review publishers were happy with they should be replaced with someone who will... That's not very ethical.

One gave a reduced score due to the gameplay and mechanics, the other due to their own moral bias. You know if there was no score on the gta review I would not care, putting a score on it means the moral bias needs to removed score it on the game.

kunst nugget

anonyanony wrote: »

One gave a reduced score due to the gameplay and mechanics, the other due to their own moral bias. You know if there was no score on the gta review I would not care, putting a score on it means the moral bias needs to removed score it on the game.

Bullshít. She can score whatever way she wants. Despite what you might think, putting a score on a game doesn't mean it has to comply to some government sanctioned board of objectivity. The score acted as a guide for people to see how good the reviewer felt the game was overall. She scored the game 9 out of 10 and yet people lost their shít over it because she mentioned some small issues she had with the game which given the high score of the game were obviously minor quibbles.

anonyanony

kunst nugget wrote: »

Bullshít. She can score whatever way she wants. Despite what you might think, putting a score on a game doesn't mean it has to comply to some government sanctioned board of objectivity. The score acted as a guide for people to see how good the reviewer felt the game was overall. She scored the game 9 out of 10 and yet people lost their shít over it because she mentioned some small issues she had with the game which given the high score of the game were obviously minor quibbles.

It sad when the Christian's site can give a more objective score based review then major sites review. The reviewer brought in objections to the game instead of being objective overall.

kunst nugget

anonyanony wrote: »

It sad when the Christian's site can give a more objective score based review then major sites review. The reviewer brought in objections to the game instead of being objective overall.

But she's not writing an objective review, she's writing a subjective one. If you want the objective, knock yourself out on the Christian site.

anonyanony

kunst nugget wrote: »

But she's not writing an objective review, she's writing a subjective one. If you want the objective, knock yourself out on the Christian site.

Don't worry I don't go to sites like gamespot even once they started to fix there bias they have not proved they have got neutral yet but I guess gamespot found the reviewer to be no good as they removed them.

e_e

Every gamer has certain biases. I get the sense that when people complain about biases and agendas it's more railing against a bias and agenda is not their own. Just a reminder that being vocally against politics in video games is a political position and agenda in and of itself. It's so bloody ironic that this was in response to a game (GTA) that wears its politics on its sleeve too.

Gamespot's rebuttal was amusing and really highlighted the absurdity of the whole situation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W95xiSksIq0

e_e

What I've still to understand is why political discussion in video games is such a big deal to some that they need to try to shut it out entirely and get people fired over it. I mean... why not just follow a reviewer who focuses solely on technical aspects instead? Nobody's forcing you to listen to these people.

You'd swear Carolyn rated GTA 0/10 and partook in publically burning of copies of the game the way some people go on about her review.

anonyanony

e_e wrote: »

What I've still to understand is why political discussion in video games is such a big deal to some that they need to try to shut it out entirely and get people fired over it. I mean... why not just follow a reviewer who focuses solely on technical aspects instead? Nobody's forcing you to listen to these people.

The problem is metacritic, when scores are so important to bonus and dev's not getting fired the metacritic so is so important, if a group of reviewers bring in bias nothing to do with the game and lower the score there is a chance the dev's might loose their jobs. Now to counter this they might censor themselves and change it even though they don't want to. Try to picture a gta game that was made not to piss off anita, macintosh and Jack Thompson it would no longer be gta and all cause reviewers cannot keep objective in a review.

johnny_ultimate

As long as readers demand 'objective' reviews, much games writing will remain infantalised, simplistic, dull and unworthy of the bandwidth it takes to download. It honestly baffles and saddens me how many times I've seen the objective reviews argument rolled out (Forbes published an article recently decrying the trend - that it had to be published at all speaks volumes). I fully agree the obsession with scores is a negative and would welcome more publications doing away with them, but it's absurd to suggest a reviewer should step away from offering an honest, personal critique because 'a developer might lose their job because of a bad metacritic average' or because of a 'moral bias' (???). We all respond to media differently, and the best writers can articulate their own response in an interesting and enlightening way (even if we disagree). Modern games - especially one like GTA, which actively wants to provoke a response - are loaded with cultural, social and political commentary and contexts. I genuinely cannot understand how anybody could play GTA without recognising them and having a response to them. It would be downright dishonest for a reviewer to ignore them.

In short: F**k objective reviews. If some people want them, go ahead, I'm sure some sites - Christian or otherwise - will serve that purpose. But I want reviews that are passionate, angry, enthusiastic, witty, articulate, inspired, provocative, insightful, interesting, illuminating, distinctive, challenging. There is no place for any of that in an 'objective' review.

anonyanony

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I want reviews that are passionate, angry, enthusiastic, witty, articulate, inspired, provocative, insightful, interesting, illuminating, distinctive, challenging. There is no place for any of that in an 'objective' review.

None of them can be defined of a number out of ten at the end, I am all for them reviews just stop putting numbers at the end of them, hell total biscuit reviews very much like that and one I use the most to judge to get a game but I would not be unhappy if he put a game as 6/10 cause the game ran at 30fps and his bias for 60fps.

kunst nugget

anonyanony wrote: »

None of them can be defined of a number out of ten at the end, I am all for them reviews just stop putting numbers at the end of them, hell total biscuit reviews very much like that and one I use the most to judge to get a game but I would not be unhappy if he put a game as 6/10 cause the game ran at 30fps and his bias for 60fps.

Ah, but is his bias for 60fps an objective one or a moral one? This call for objective reviewing is really and seems to completely miss the point of what objective really means. Check out Jim Sterling's objective review of Final Fantasy XIII.

http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml

I don't want a review that is a list of what the game offers in terms of game modes and it's technical specifications. I want to know if the reviewer enjoyed it and what are their thoughts on the structure, gameplay and originality of the game. I want to know if they were bored to tears or if they got completely immersed by the characters and the world they inhabited. If you were autistic, I'd possibly understand the preference for objective reviews. Anyone else, I'm at a loss as to why it's so important to them.

anonyanony

kunst nugget wrote: »

Ah, but is his bias for 60fps an objective one or a moral one? This call for objective reviewing is really and seems to completely miss the point of what objective really means. Check out Jim Sterling's objective review of Final Fantasy XIII.



I don't want a review that is a list of what the game offers in terms of game modes and it's technical specifications. I want to know if the reviewer enjoyed it and what are their thoughts on the structure, gameplay and originality of the game. I want to know if they were bored to tears or if they got completely immersed by the characters and the world they inhabited. If you were autistic, I'd possibly understand the preference for objective reviews. Anyone else, I'm at a loss as to why it's so important to them.

The 60fps bias is an objective one but still a bias he has but points out it's there TB does not let moral objectives taint the videos he does.

Also you dismissal of people on the autistic spectrum is very condensing.

e_e

If anything I think there are far too many of these "This is the story. This is the game's features. etc. etc." reviews in games journalism. Anybody can do that and there's no real insight on how it made the reviewer feel or what the experience of playing it is like on a deeper level. It's almost treating games as if they're toothpaste.

Sure I think if you just want a rundown of a game's features and content then Let's Plays and Wikipedia articles will already more than have you covered. A description of the game is one thing but a review can be much more.

I actually think the only time I'd ever want an objective review of a video game was if I was getting it on PC and needed to find out how it'd run on my GPU.

anonyanony

e_e wrote: »

If anything I think there are far too many of these "This is the story. This is the game's features. etc. etc." reviews in games journalism. Anybody can do that and there's no real insight on how it made the reviewer feel or what the experience of playing it is like on a deeper level. It's almost treating games as if they're toothpaste.

Sure I think if you just want a rundown of a game's features and content then Let's Plays and Wikipedia articles will already more than have you covered. A description of the game is one thing but a review can be much more.

It sure can be but a opinionated review should not carry a score at the end, you cannot score your feelings and if you put an arbitrary number on it you might be costing dev their jobs. Sites like polygon that are the forefront of this kinda feeling reviews should stop giving scores let the review text speak for itself.

K.O.Kiki

johnny_ultimate

Hah, we're back to the outraged, alarmist JPEGs are we :pac:

You know what? Some of those comments are actually factually accurate. The GTA and studies ones seem like a big stretch, would prefer to see the context they were used in. But...

Violence is very often the only available way to interact with other characters or players. I really don't need to name any of the thousands of games where combat or tools to aid combat are the only game mechanics.

It's true that many characters would be disturbed and changed by what they see and do - take Nathan Drake as an example of a character who sees and does awful things, but the story distractingly fails to acknowledge the impact of his actions, creating an obvious dissonance between game and narrative. Spec Ops is a fascinating counterpoint to this.

Brutal violence is glamorised and celebrated in games. And if you question or comment on it? Well, the image above speaks for itself

For people so disgusted by 'moral guardians' and people 'trying to decide what people can enjoy', many members of the GamerGate crowd are incredibly quick to get morally outraged themselves. What I'd argue the real difference between a critic and a 'moral guardian' is is that one insidiously and narrow-mindedly takes action to try and restrict the freedom of everybody else based on their own code. A good critic may have some strong words and controversial readings of certain topics, but they'll also respect right to expression and freedom of speech and will not be in favour of bannings or censorship (perhaps extreme examples aside). They might call for a more inclusive environment for all and urge creators and players alike to actively consider certain issues, but to me there's a major difference between that and 'ban this sick filth!'

e_e

That's one hell of a quote mine. :P

K.O.Kiki

I remember the Jack Thompson sh*te.

This is feeling a bit like him alright.

COYVB

anonyanony wrote: »

am all for them reviews just stop putting numbers at the end of them

Started a new publication recently and that's exactly what we decided to do. Sick to death of stupid numbers. Anyone dumb enough not to be able to figure it out from the text can shag off and read something else

Potatoeman

I think the reviewer should be free to express their view but if that view strays from their readers too far they will not be seen as a reliable source and people will go elsewhere.

Its like the reviewer that had a sexchange and has a rather odd voice now. If their voice is annoying people are not going to watch a video review with them doing the audio.

kunst nugget

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Hah, we're back to the outraged, alarmist JPEGs are we :pac:

You know what? Some of those comments are actually factually accurate. The GTA and studies ones seem like a big stretch, would prefer to see the context they were used in. But...

Violence is very often the only available way to interact with other characters or players. I really don't need to name any of the thousands of games where combat or tools to aid combat are the only game mechanics.

It's true that many characters would be disturbed and changed by what they see and do - take Nathan Drake as an example of a character who sees and does awful things, but the story distractingly fails to acknowledge the impact of his actions, creating an obvious dissonance between game and narrative. Spec Ops is a fascinating counterpoint to this.

Brutal violence is glamorised and celebrated in games. And if you question or comment on it? Well, the image above speaks for itself

The thing for me, and most others, playing games where I shoot the shít out of thousands of people are purely a flights of fantasy. Giving out that the protagonist would most likely be suffering from debilitating PTSD from their experiences is a bit daft imo - these games aren't being built to address those issues. I'm all for games being developed that explore something like that but I'll be honest, if I'm playing the likes of Bulletstorm I'm not worrying about the long term effects all the shooting is going to have on my character. I've never felt it was a distraction playing games, such as Bulletstorm or the Uncharted series, where the moral implications of the character's killing of others wasn't addressed because, for a lot of games like that, they're essentially fulfilling simple hero fantasies.

While Spec Ops and I think Last of Us tried to address some of those kinds of issues, lets face it, you were still killing hundreds of people in the games. That said, I'm looking forward to seeing more complex issues being worked through in games but I see it happening pretty much as it does in Hollywood where the big studios produce the balls to the walls no brainer blockbuster and the indie movies tackle the more esoteric material. My really big issues with gamergate is people being attacked for producing these more esoteric games and others being attacked for expressing views that aren't in line with gamergate groupthink©.

Someone mentioned a homogeny that is expected from a certain section of gamers in terms of games that are produced and how scores are applied for games and God forbid anyone that doesn't toe the partyline. The thing is, if those guys win, the world of gaming would be an utterly fúcking depressing place.

kunst nugget

anonyanony wrote: »

The 60fps bias is an objective one but still a bias he has but points out it's there TB does not let moral objectives taint the videos he does.

Also you dismissal of people on the autistic spectrum is very condensing.

I wasn't dismissing Autistic people. Jesus, I give up…

e_e

kunst nugget wrote: »

Giving out that the protagonist would most likely be suffering from debilitating PTSD from their experiences is a bit daft imo - these games aren't being built to address those issues.

I don't think he's giving out about it, it's more a humorous statement about how few games use violence in a thoughtful way.

Even Bioshock Infinite (a game which is a favorite of mine) had me thinking "Okay what the hell are we doing here?" when it at the beginning sacrificed world building, character development and satire for caving people's faces in with a metal claw. In some cases there's a real dissonance between what the game wants to be about and what it actually has you doing. I think The Last of Us and Spec Ops The Line are games that use violence in a thematic and interesting way though.

kunst nugget

e_e wrote: »

I don't think he's giving out about it, it's more a humorous statement about how few games use violence in a thoughtful way.

I was talking more in relation to the Jonathan McIntosh quote in the gamergate jpeg which could quite possibly have been meant in jest but has been robbed of context in the picture. Context is something that is sadly missing a lot these days.

anonyanony

kunst nugget wrote: »

I was talking more in relation to the Jonathan McIntosh quote in the gamergate jpeg which could quite possibly have been meant in jest but has been robbed of context in the picture. Context is something that is sadly missing a lot these days.

But we have plenty of context for his twitter posts and his Anita video's. This guy hates games