Gaming Journalism Hurts the Industry Again. Also, It's Wednesday.

[cmlancas]

You sure? I heard that they proposed a huge comeback of claymation. Guess that flopped.  :-D

[UnSub]

Yeah - I know the idea of turning f13 into some quasi-volunteer force of MMO violators probably wasn't going to fly; too many issues to deal with.

However, if you really want to see if this could work, the next MMO you've been playing that announces feature lock and drops the NDA, write the review as though they'd paid you $1000 to do it. Predict the score for the game on release. Adjust it if they patch up some things as necessary. Since it's meant to be for a private business audience, keep the rant terms to a minimum.

If you can successfully write that first review and people see what is offered, that may just be your start, Schild. However, don't expect those people who get off on gaming rants - which is really gaming journalism's younger cousin who suffers from tourettes - to like it.

[Xanthippe]

Schild, I think you'd make a marvelous consultant.  The hard part is selling yourself to people on them believing they need your services.

The game industry desperately needs outside consultants such as you describe.  I assume (without really knowing what the problem is ) that there is way too much incest and asskissing between game "journalists" and game companies.  Not all game journalists are game "journalists" but enough are that I pretty much ignore everything I read elsewhere, and come to F13 to read the unvarnished bullshit.  I can read varnished bullshit everywhere else - the more polished the site the more bullshit it produces.

[Margalis]

I don't think people here are correctly identifying the problem.

Feedback is not the issue. The issue is licensing, executives, corporate goals and plans, resource allocation, personel, personality issues, etc.

Developers already have access to tons of virtually free feedback from target consumers.

[driph]

The game industry desperately needs outside consultants such as you describe.

Game design is a pretty subjective thing. I'm not sure I'd want all my movies made by movie critics.

Still, if a developer can't separate themselves from their product (or if the publisher won't let em), maybe that's the sort of thing that'd help.

[schild]

Developers already have access to tons of virtually free feedback from target consumers.

Good f'ing luck finding untainted souls in the TARGET consumer market who can provide quality feedback. Of course, if they're not from the target market they don't have the skillset in place to judge or have any frame of reference. Basically, the only way you're going to get someone who's going to be honest is pay them - a lot - to rip your game apart.

It takes more paid manhours to dig through the SHIT you get from "virtually free feedback" than a professional internal reviewer type that I just don't see it  as cost or time effective - especially in this industry..

[Signe]

Schild even has the perfect voice for telling people that their shitty POS game is a shitty POS when necessary.  Especially when it comes to console games.  I guess because he loves them so much.

By the way, I rarely read any publication that gives away a "Game of the Year Award."  This leaves me with a HUGE empty space next to the toilet which is the only place I think is suitable for that sort of rag. 

[Xanthippe]

The game industry desperately needs outside consultants such as you describe.

Game design is a pretty subjective thing. I'm not sure I'd want all my movies made by movie critics.

No, but you want your movies edited by movie editors rather than directors. 

Peter Jackson's King Kong is an example of a movie that needed a good editor.  Every single scene was too long.  The most reasonable explanation I've thought of is that Jackson was so successful that he believed in his own greatness and exercised too much control over the editing.

[JoeTF]

You're borderline silly Shild.
First, whoring yourself on frontpage (rant or not, it really sounded lame), then claiming that you don't have money.
Well, get a job at McDonalds for two weeks, that should pay off the paperwork.
Also, we want to see your 0-day reviews - that would be the ultimate test on whether you can really walk the talk. (so far you failed with NGE and 30 days of daily reviews thingy)

[schild]

You're borderline illiterate, Joe.

1. People without money whore themselves out.
2. I don't have the money to pay a part time, let alone a full time employee (1 person) to start such an endeavor. I have money to support myself and f13 itself, not even mentioning the actual staff at f13.
3. What does this have to do with paperwork?
4. Zero day reviews are things FUNDED sites get. Hell, sites that don't even do reviews that are funded get review copies of nearly everything (sup Kotaku). I have ins at very few companies compared to the whole, I'll readily admit that. But when I get reviews in time, particularly with games people care about, I tend to get them up before zero day - like Disgaea 2 and Persona 3. Though I think I posted Persona 3 on the original launch day.

What crawled up your ass?

[JoeTF]

I'm not a native English speaker, so please bear with my language skills. Never realized that such endevador would absolutely require hiring an employee just for the paperwork. Tax system in US must be really horrible.

Now, I really like f13 and your writing, I was just pointing out that before people will be willing to pay 1k$, they might want to see a sample of your work. Get yourself pre-release access (you already got one closed beta offer in this thread), write your thing and publish it after game gets published (devs pay you 0$, so they whould go for this). People will see if your review score predictions were really within 1 point.

[Trippy]

Developers already have access to tons of virtually free feedback from target consumers.

Good f'ing luck finding untainted souls in the TARGET consumer market who can provide quality feedback.

What the fuck is an "untainted soul"?

It takes more paid manhours to dig through the SHIT you get from "virtually free feedback" than a professional internal reviewer type that I just don't see it  as cost or time effective - especially in this industry..

Okay now you are just being an idiot. Alpha feedback posted on the forum or through bug reports and feedback is nothing like what you get in the later stages where it's 99.9% noise and .1% signal.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Ha, this thread is getting silly. I honestly can't say whether this would work well or not. It's like you would be a Public Reception Forecaster. That is what I would have to describe it as. I think that companies should just hire better designers. Let's just nip this shit in the bud.

[schild]

I think that companies should just hire better designers. Let's just nip this shit in the bud.

Well, yea, but we've seen how that works out.

Nepotism is a bitch, yo.

What the fuck is an "untainted soul"?

Someone that isn't a fanboi, friend of a developer, another developer, or part of the publisher. Or idiot. I just chose some grandiose words to describe something mundane. Which is to say...

Okay now you are just being an idiot. Alpha feedback posted on the forum or through bug reports and feedback is nothing like what you get in the later stages where it's 99.9% noise and .1% signal.

I've read alpha feedback. For many, many of the recent games. And you're right, it's about .5% signal instead. Still crap. And it's mostly because of the type of person that's trusted to be in an Alpha, which usually ends up being a trustworthy but ineffective tester. Bug reports be damned by the way, I'm not even talking about that at all.

[Margalis]

People here have a bad tendancy to misdiagnose problems in the game industry. Yes many games suck, but few here understand *why* that is the case. Again feedback is simply NOT the problem. Developers run focus groups, they show games off to other departments and divisions, they get feedback during previews and alpha/beta.

It's fairly easy to get stats on what people like and don't like. How to fix it is much trickier as it is entirely subjective. And even if that advice on how to fix it is good often the means and willingness aren't there.

To fix problems you have to identify what they are, not what you imagine them to be.

[Amaron]

Schild in case you were wondering some people already do this for a living.  Richard Bartle was (not sure if he still is) doing it for sure.  Although I'm betting he gets paid regular consulting wages.  I remember reading an amusing comment by him about how he often couldn't play beta's because the NDA had some line about "you have to give us your opinion if we ask for it".

In general though you'll find that giving them good feedback rarely allows them to act on it.  The industry is heavily flawed and merely knowing what to make will not allow them to actually make it (Margalis says some good points about this).

Still though you're correct it's very hard to get good feedback.  I've worked with the issue before and frankly even when there are plenty of people who can spot obvious flaws they lack the articulation and background knowledge to turn that info into something useful to the developer.  The ones that do have the background knowledge and the articulation necessary to explain themselves almost always lack the objectivity to look at the situation in a way that sees the maximum profit.

When you finally find yourself a person who has all the qualities necessary then you often have to deal with problems like the employees having poor communication skills or also lacking objectivity.  This can cause all attempts at quality feedback to fail completely (i.e. Brad McQuaid).   That sort of situation is actually incredibly common.  Your rant on "artists" lends me to believe you've already seen quite a bit of this?

Im not sure working with journalists to do this is a good idea though.  To some degree if you've got a pigheaded Dev giving you crap being able to tell him IGN says he's a fucking retard is quite useful.  In general though I don't think it's a good idea simply because it does open a can of worms and using game journalists isn't likely to get you any better feedback due to objectivity issues.   It's also amazing how often "journalists" lack articulation skills even though they clearly should have them for their work.

[Typhon]

No. Especially not with books; you're a tool for saying this. This may have been the case in 1971 when Adrienne Rich wrote "When We Dead Awaken" and presented it at whichever conference it was, but not anymore. I can't stand to see completely misinformed douchebags tell me and my fellow colleagues that we don't listen to new opinions. It just isn't true. I'm a goddamn undergrad presenting at a conference with what in the gaming industry would be the equivalent of Raph. And our (those of us without MAs or PhDs) opinions are worthless? Fuck you. I know you said vast majority, but you're part of the misinformed majority that perpetuates the myth in our sphere.

This is just hysterical.  I know that you have no concept as to why this is hysterical, and you may never know why it's hysterical (which makes me a little sad).

Try this - at the next conference where you are listening to someone present, try to listen to what the presenter is saying, rather then the style, the form, the references or the allusions the presenter uses.  Listen to the substance.  Then ask yourself if the presenter really believes what he's saying.

Or you could just go back to trying to insert your head up schilds ass, seems like you are enjoying that.  You should pick another thread though, he's so blatantly wrong in this thread that I don't even think he really believes it.  Good intentions aren't enough to overcome all that is wrong with this idea.

[Murgos]

No. Especially not with books; you're a tool for saying this. This may have been the case in 1971 when Adrienne Rich wrote "When We Dead Awaken" and presented it at whichever conference it was, but not anymore. I can't stand to see completely misinformed douchebags tell me and my fellow colleagues that we don't listen to new opinions. It just isn't true. I'm a goddamn undergrad presenting at a conference with what in the gaming industry would be the equivalent of Raph. And our (those of us without MAs or PhDs) opinions are worthless? Fuck you. I know you said vast majority, but you're part of the misinformed majority that perpetuates the myth in our sphere.

This is just hysterical.  I know that you have no concept as to why this is hysterical, and you may never know why it's hysterical (which makes me a little sad).

Try this - at the next conference where you are listening to someone present, try to listen to what the presenter is saying, rather then the style, the form, the references or the allusions the presenter uses.  Listen to the substance.  Then ask yourself if the presenter really believes what he's saying.

Or you could just go back to trying to insert your head up schilds ass, seems like you are enjoying that.  You should pick another thread though, he's so blatantly wrong in this thread that I don't even think he really believes it.  Good intentions aren't enough to overcome all that is wrong with this idea.

I'm kind of curious.  What method do you think should replace the mechanism of having people familiar with a concept present their ideas on that concept to other people familiar with that concept for critique?  Since that method is such a self-indulgent circle jerk that produces no results worth mentioning?

[cmlancas]

This is just hysterical.  I know that you have no concept as to why this is hysterical, and you may never know why it's hysterical (which makes me a little sad).

Neg. I know what you are saying, but it just isn't true anymore. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that others don't too. Literary Criticism is much, much different than it used to be.

Try this - at the next conference where you are listening to someone present, try to listen to what the presenter is saying, rather then the style, the form, the references or the allusions the presenter uses.  Listen to the substance.  Then ask yourself if the presenter really believes what he's saying.

I've been there. It is more about substance now than it is about big words. There is a reason why they are panel discussions nowadays instead of lectures -- the ideas are given in a conversational style instead of a prosaic one.

Or you could just go back to trying to insert your head up schilds ass, seems like you are enjoying that.  You should pick another thread though, he's so blatantly wrong in this thread that I don't even think he really believes it.  Good intentions aren't enough to overcome all that is wrong with this idea.

Kill yourself. Just because I agree with a point of view that someone has doesn't mean that I'm trying to become his/her next lover. I think he's right, you think he's wrong -- fine, I'll debate with you. But when you start spouting nonsense about a field of study where you obviously know nothing, I'll call you out on it every time. Especially when it is my field of study and I know something about it.


Edit: Woo! 500! Shame it's a flame though.

[Margalis]

I find literary criticism an interesting topic.

Typhon, why don't you post some links to examples of what you find objectionable?

[Typhon]

I'm kind of curious.  What method do you think should replace the mechanism of having people familiar with a concept present their ideas on that concept to other people familiar with that concept for critique?  Since that method is such a self-indulgent circle jerk that produces no results worth mentioning?

If it wasn't clear from the "Art/Music/Book/Play" portion of my post that I was talking about artistic endeavours.  I think, for most concepts of a technical or philosophical nature that that method is tried and true.  I'm kind of curious why you broadened my context to include any concept under the sun?

For artistic endeavours, hell, let's call it plain old entertainment, I think these types of discussions mostly fail to achieve the desired result - where the desired result is in identifying whether something is or will be entertaining.  I think Art is so emotional and personal for the person creating it and the person consuming it that you cannot absolutely distill down into a dry dissertation why it is or isn't entertaining.  I think the dry dissertation and analysis can get you 60%, maybe 70% of the way there, but that's the outer 60-70%.  The heart is pure emotion.

Where do I get that opinion from?  From having to listen to self-important babble when I was in college/grad school (I finished with grad school in 1992), and again listening to conversations my daughter had with and about the dramaturgy majors and professors she was going to school with (she was in graduate school at the time).  (To show you where my bias is - I'm really pleased that she has stopped spending her time discussing other peoples criticisms of other peoples work and has started producing her own screenplays.  Of course I'm biased, but I think she is very talented).  And the occasional reading of movie, music and book reviews.

I think that there can be decent discussion about technique.  How someone uses a camera.  How someone uses a paint brush.  However, my experience has been that when these critical discussions are put to the task of determing whether something is entertaining they end up missing the boat.  I just assumed that it was because the critic had become so focused on theory they miss the forest for the trees.  As a consumer of books, movies and music looking for something entertaining (and willing to be awed or moved by the same) I have found that the more serious critics are the ones that I disagree with the most on whether something is entertaining or not.

[cmlancas]

I think that there can be decent discussion about technique.  How someone uses a camera.  How someone uses a paint brush.  However, my experience has been that when these critical discussions are put to the task of determing whether something is entertaining they end up missing the boat. 

The red part is way different than the orange part. Siskel and Ebert or the New York Times do the orange part. Scholars do the first part. Trying to compare the two is much like comparing apples to oranges (hooray for color!). Now, if you have a qualm about the second part, I'm with you. My tastes, especially in movies, are almost completely contrary to every 'movie critic' in the media. However, when it comes to analyzing textual usage of 'pooling of consciousness' or 'stream of consciousness' or 'insert literary technique here,' I can agree with any of the arguments. Literary criticism, in my opinion, is something to further your thought on a certain piece. It is almost like the "editor's cut" of a particular piece of literature. Maybe you disagree -- and that's fine -- but it is much farther from self-fulfilling circle-jerking (which you have strayed from in your last post).

Edit: Colors are hard.

Double Edit: To reinforce my point, I just got done watching Pan's Labyrinth on On Demand -- really didn't live up to the hype. It was okay, but I thought it was going to be more than what was there -- a lot like 300.

[Murgos]

If it wasn't clear from the "Art/Music/Book/Play" portion of my post that I was talking about artistic endeavours.  I think, for most concepts of a technical or philosophical nature that that method is tried and true.  I'm kind of curious why you broadened my context to include any concept under the sun?

Because it's a tried and true method of creating advancement in, um, every single field of human understanding?

[Margalis]

Nobody can tell you what you find entertaining.

The best thing a reviewer can do is establish a fairly consistent outlook that you know how to interpret. For example you might find that Ebert rates action movies much lower than you would, and nostalgic dramas much higher.

Most criticism doesn't focus on whether or not something is entertaining, because that is entirely subjective.

[Ironwood]

I don't understand the point of the Front Page Post, nor the resulting 4 page thread.

The whole thing is quite nonsensical.

Schild, if you wanna whore yourself, do it on your own website.

I worry a little though;  almost everyone in this thread is wrong and talking nonsense, so I'm worried that merely posting here will make my post come out exactly the same.

Hey, you know what would be keen ?  If you took the energy writing that shitty rant and actually put up an incisive and interesting review of a game/soon to be game  that actually made an critical sense and had a valid point.  Seriously.

[schild]

Hey, you know what would be keen ?  If you took the energy writing that shitty rant and actually put up an incisive and interesting review of a game/soon to be game  that actually made an critical sense and had a valid point.  Seriously.

Making a good point in a game that's about to be released is pointless. You can either recommend it or not recommend it, you know why? It's gonna be released no matter what you say and other developers will mostly just point and laugh and not learn anything.

[Margalis]

It would have the effect of demonstrating a competence in evaluating design decisions, rather than saying "I are serious expert."

You play a lot of games and you claim to have good taste. We get it. That makes you no different from ten thousand gamefaqs morons. If you have some sort of great acumen in evaluating games you should demonstrate it, along with your superior communication skills.

Right now what you've written sounds a lot like "I can tell you how to fix your game - after all I did save the princess!"

[Ironwood]

 :-D

[Ironwood]

Hey, you know what would be keen ?  If you took the energy writing that shitty rant and actually put up an incisive and interesting review of a game/soon to be game  that actually made an critical sense and had a valid point.  Seriously.

Making a good point in a game that's about to be released is pointless. You can either recommend it or not recommend it, you know why? It's gonna be released no matter what you say and other developers will mostly just point and laugh and not learn anything.

Yeah.  You learned that one the hard way.

Look, I may agree with some points you put forward, but at the end of the day your rant is completely pointless because you're putting YOURSELF forward as credible.

You're not.

Also, I find it interesting in this reply that you're basically agreeing with what Roac said quite a while ago :  By the time they're bringing you in as Teh 'Eavy 'Itter you're pretty much too late to change anything.

The solution, methinks, is to get designers and developers that don't suck.  And, if you don't agree that that little fact seems possible, then what's the point ?  Take your sequel games to the last one you enjoyed and sit down.

Of course, then they'll consolise it and you'll still end up fucked.

 

[schild]

The solution, methinks, is to get designers and developers that don't suck.  And, if you don't agree that that little fact seems possible, then what's the point ?  Take your sequel games to the last one you enjoyed and sit down.

Oh, I agree, I just don't think the bad lead designers and directors in the industry - particularly MMORPGs - are willing to believe they need some help. Not when it comes to their vision of what the game should be at least.

I don't care about the consolization of games. Just the bad consolization of games.

Look, I may agree with some points you put forward, but at the end of the day your rant is completely pointless because you're putting YOURSELF forward as credible.

You're not.

I don't disagree that I'm probably not credible enough. The point was that compared to many people in the industry, I'm amateur hour, and even *I* see some base fucking problems in games that are too far along in the dev process to be fixed. Things that should have been nipped months or years ago.

But, if you don't mind me asking, who's more credible? Because, honestly, if anyone is That Much More Credible, they should really be MAKING GAMES.

[Sairon]

Part of the problem is that a lot of the old designers has gotten out of touch with the vast majority of the gamers. Also, I know that in even a lot of large game companies all sorts of muppets gets to have their say in the design proccess, I think there's fairly few game designers that have total controll over the whole game design.

[Typhon]

I think that there can be decent discussion about technique.  How someone uses a camera.  How someone uses a paint brush.  However, my experience has been that when these critical discussions are put to the task of determing whether something is entertaining they end up missing the boat. 

The red part is way different than the orange part. Siskel and Ebert or the New York Times do the orange part. Scholars do the first part. Trying to compare the two is much like comparing apples to oranges (hooray for color!). Now, if you have a qualm about the second part, I'm with you. My tastes, especially in movies, are almost completely contrary to every 'movie critic' in the media. However, when it comes to analyzing textual usage of 'pooling of consciousness' or 'stream of consciousness' or 'insert literary technique here,' I can agree with any of the arguments. Literary criticism, in my opinion, is something to further your thought on a certain piece. It is almost like the "editor's cut" of a particular piece of literature. Maybe you disagree -- and that's fine -- but it is much farther from self-fulfilling circle-jerking (which you have strayed from in your last post).

Edit: Colors are hard.

Double Edit: To reinforce my point, I just got done watching Pan's Labyrinth on On Demand -- really didn't live up to the hype. It was okay, but I thought it was going to be more than what was there -- a lot like 300.

I definitely have a problem with the orange part (i.e. mass-market critical assessments).  And they receive the largest part of my dismissal as worthless.  But there is definitely some bleed-over because I have a problem with, as you say, scholarly analysis and mass-market analysis being apples an oranges.

I have a philosophical problem with scholarly analysis not having any (to my eye) impact on the mass-market critical assessments.  Let's assume that you are correct and the state of literary criticism has dramatically improved since the 70s.  Why then has the state of mass-market literary criticism continued to be abysmal?  What are the scholars doing to improve the state of mass-market criticism?

And a final nit: I don't think that scholarly criticism of entertainment is a self-fulfilling circle-jerk.  I think it's a reactionary circle-jerk.  I don't think scholarly analsys of entertainment media paves the way for new discoveries in entertainment media.  Equally troubling, I think its most important contributions (which I would say are the analysis of the technique that the author used to achieve the experience) can also be, at worst, destructive of the experience, and at best, deconstructive of the experience.

[cmlancas]

I have a philosophical problem with scholarly analysis not having any (to my eye) impact on the mass-market critical assessments.  Let's assume that you are correct and the state of literary criticism has dramatically improved since the 70s.  Why then has the state of mass-market literary criticism continued to be abysmal? 

Well, quite a few mass market critics are nothing short of hacks. The last true critic I saw on the cover of a book give a review was Joyce Carol Oates.

What are the scholars doing to improve the state of mass-market criticism?

Probably nothing other than writing a foreword or two.

And a final nit: I don't think that scholarly criticism of entertainment is a self-fulfilling circle-jerk.  I think it's a reactionary circle-jerk.  I don't think scholarly analsys of entertainment media paves the way for new discoveries in entertainment media.  Equally troubling, I think its most important contributions (which I would say are the analysis of the technique that the author used to achieve the experience) can also be, at worst, destructive of the experience, and at best, deconstructive of the experience.

Well, I'd disagree with you. Ever seen Memento or any other stream of consciousness film? That's a direct result of discoveries in entertainment media through scholarly analysis. I'd disagree with you on your last point only because I side with T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent." I think that all literature/criticism/whatever is constructive as opposed to deconstructive. It's more or less where my idea of criticism as a methodology to enrich art comes from.

// I like this a lot better than art fags are stupid.

[grunk]

If I could buy you for what your worth and then sell you for what you think your worth schild… id be a rich man.

You people don’t get it (nothing new here)… the real problem is that we don’t have real game designers making these mmops. Lord British was the first real designer that made a title in this genre and Blizzard was the last (got SE & WW Studios there in the middle of that time line). You would have to dig really deep, to find me a studio that had prior experience designing a triple A title outside of the mmop genre. That’s why; I get excited about Space Time Studios and w/e LB is making because outside of those guys, you have a bunch of snake oil salesmen.

When I listen to an MMO dev, all I hear about are “systems”. When he should be talking about Game play. IDC how you plan to work out grouping, don’t give a shit about your end game, could give a rats ass about your crafting… if it aint fun no one is going to play it… and GAMEPLAY = FUN.

Until we get Nintendo to make an mmo, or if blizzard would fucken realize that they use to make GAMES, then maybe we could see the genre evolve.

[Ironwood]

Uh.