? About Negative Review Ethics

Devin Faraci on criticism:

Film criticism is not consumer advocacy. The intention of the best film criticism is not to tell you how to spend your money come Friday night. The best film criticism exists to explore cinematic art and to contextualize it. All criticism is biased, and that's because part of criticism is opinion. But it isn't the only part of criticism.

You can easily apply this line to any form of media criticism.

What's more, criticism can be fun to read! I read critics with whom I disagree because of their crackling prose, their great humor or their terrific insight. I'd rather read a well-written pan of a movie I love than an incoherent embrace of the same film. I'd rather be challenged to defend my own thoughts on the film than have my notions held up. And I'd rather have that challenge come in the form of really great, evocative writing.

I rarely agree with Devin. Too often he's a contradictory reviewer who is interested in trolling fans of certain movies, but I agree with him on the role of criticism. Any reviewer, professional or otherwise, should be appalled by the notion of asking permission to give a negative opinion. By only giving a positive opinion or nothing at all, you do a disservice to the community discussion. You might as well call yourself Billy Mays and start selling Super Putty as opposed to reviewing games.

I've never tried writing a review of a game. The lexicon and structure tends to put me at a distance from the topic. Too often, I'm afraid that what I have to offer to the conversation isn't relevant or worthy of discussion. Although, as a consumer of both reviews and games, I don't think it's hypocritical to ask for reviews that merit discussion. It's disingenuous to insist that if you want depth from a review to write it yourself.

Source: badassdigest.com/2012/07/18/the-devins-a...fend-film-criticism/

ldsdbomber wrote: My thesis is that this kind of review, here by our very own Jesse Dean
boardgamegeek.com/thread/829911/getting-in-on-the-ground-floor

...bitch moan bitch moan bah humbug

Lee, that's almost EXACTLY what I told Jesse, privately. This wasn't a review, it was a PR piece. He needs to not do "impressions" and talk about substance, or he's just fuelling the fire.

Thanks Pete, I agree, if youre going to style yourself as some kind of higher level commenter (and JD is being disingenuous if he says that's not how he sees himself) then he needs to be a lot more selective about whtat he puts out there. Knowing how to describe mechanics in 3 sentences containing words clipped from Julian clary Lawrence's book of asperger game words should not be used to hide what is the eurosnoot equivalent of a Tom vasel puff piece (tom is at least honest about what he puts out there, and I respect his efforts). I just think this kind of meh meh review passed off as critical review is onlŷ sending the wrong messages in so many ways. First, it's not much more than puff piece, I wonder how many times he's played it, he says he's not going to play it again, it's dressed up like something to aspire to when it's not, and I think this hand wringing going on and as you see here with the start of this thread, everyone starts getting held up to these imaginary standards . Theres no shame in writing a puff piece on a free game, or writing a crap review cos you're excited, or illiterate or both. Let's stop trying to make everyone conform to this fucking idealistic bullshit, it's like when I say this everyone assumes I'm not interested in quality output. Well fuck yeah, I am, please show me where it is, I don't want to read abut the moaning, I don't want everyone to feel compelled to get on board, let everyone feel they can get involved, we as readers can decide who is relevant to us or not. I'm just so tired of this almost cliquey like feeling going on now, but hey I'm just a miserable old git so don't worry about it

good call Idsdbomber.

I actually i find reviews like the one linked to useful not because of what they do say explicitly, but because of what they leave out, or put between the lines as you say. But i agree, for your average consumer this kind of review isn't useful.

sfunk37 wrote: This right here is a problem with people's perceptions of reviews in gaming culture (board and video games) as I think both industries have evolved to the point where most games aren't actually bad. People recognize enough about game design and mechanics to not design a truly terrible game but since gamers have been playing games for so long good isn't good enough. The game you linked to sounds like an utterly generic worker placement game. Because we have seen Caylus, Stone Age, Lords of Waterdeep, The Manhattan Project, etc. come and go Ground Floor fails to stand out from the crowd. I highly doubt it's an unenjoyable experience but it's definitely not novel nor innovative. If it had been the second worker placement game ever made I'm sure we'd all be hearing much more positive press.

That's why one has to read reviews critically much as you have done here. Read between the lines to see what's really being said about a game. The reviewer is not being disingenuous by saying the game is good. It is technically a fine game. Your experience (and the author himself) is telling you that it's not a particularly great game.

I think this is the most interesting thing to come out of this discussion. If a game is derivative or has a pasted on theme but is still fun to play, does that make it a bad game? I tend to like most board games, with some exceptions. I like some more than others, but I still have a good time playing just about anything. For this reason, I should probably never write reviews, as I'll be just like all those other random TOSsers.

I think we could solve this debate by simply separating "product reviews" from "critical analysis" and simply walk away. So long as you know which one you're reading, you can take what you need from them.

Totally not true, CD. All reviews are helpful if they're honest, readable, and most importantly, tell WHY you thought a game was X.

I like the use of the word honesty. I might be completely wrong but some people come across to me as not being honest, i.e the writing feels like they're more interested in almost advertising themselves as Professors of Game Analysis rather than being brutally honest about the game. I get the need for an objective and detached lexicon and vocabulary to be able to describe a game without getting caught up too much in subjectivity (though as Michaels article pointed out, is there much point in that, really?, at the end of the day the game WILL be played by real people who WILL contribute their own subjectivity to it), it's just that some people seem to want to use this to look down on everything else, and worst of all, seem to think they're special elites who can figure it all out on 3 plays of a preview copy.

But then there's definitely a difference between a review (consumer oriented) and analysis. I just don't think the latter should be elbowing the former out of the way with its nose in the air when in reality, it's all smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, nobody will be talking about Ground Floor next year. Rinse. Repeat.