Great Gamers Not Always the Best Reviewers

An editorial posted on The Adrenaline Vault posits that talented gamers are not always the best reviewers because of the necessity for those with elite skills to care as much as they do about their performance. The best reviewers, on the other hand, are generally somewhat detached from the subject material. From the article: "Spending 50 hours playing an offering when you are focused exclusively on trying to win certainly would yield very different insights than spending the same 50 hours trying to evaluate the title's strengths and weaknesses to help inform the general public about purchasing decisions." Kyle Orland's Video Game Ombudsman has further analysis on this subject.

movie reviews

[musikit]

couldn't the same be said for movie reviews?

i mean ebert and ropurt (sp) may not be the movie critic world after all.

video games are after all entertainment. so maybe reviews should be changed from

1.graphics
2.sound
3.difficulty

to
1. replay value
2. entertainment value
3. difficulty

maybe then we'll see that game reviews that give very entertaining but only worth playing once instead of these graphics and sounds are ultra-leet

Actually...

[brkello]

The same thing can said for everything in life. The best programmers may not be the best at teaching programming. The best soccer players may be awful soccer coaches. The best prostitutes may not be the best at...ok...well, not EVERYTHING...but yeah, this article is kind of a no-brainer.

Re:movie reviews

[LordOfYourPants]

I'm not so sure about Ebert. Aside from seeming that he genuinely loves movies in his reviews (ie: he'd watch 5 movies a week whether or not he's being paid anyway), he's done a lot of DVD commentary for movies like Citizen Kane and Dark City.

On top of that, he's WRITTEN a few movies.

Re:movie reviews

[Golias]

On top of that, he's WRITTEN a few movies.

Correction.

He co-wrote one movie.

It's a Russ Meyer T&A slasher flick called "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," and it stinks on ice.

Think "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with weaker jokes and fewer songs, and that's basically it.

(He also helped Meyer write "Up!" a few years earlier, but it was so bad that he wouldn't even put his name on it. He is credited under the name "Reinhold Timme.")

One of the reasons whe Siskel and Ebert hated each other so much for mo

Re:movie reviews

[kamapuaa]

It's a Russ Meyer T&A slasher flick called "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," and it stinks on ice.

Yer fucking kidding me. Have you really seen the movie? It's a camp classic. And not in the so-bad-that-it's-good kind of way, but in a so-good-that-it's-good kind of way.

SHOCKING!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Next thing you know, people will say something like great basketball players dont make the best sportscasters or announcers...

Cue footage of Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan trying to cobble together a coherant English sentence, much less a relevant or interesting one. Try telling me those guys arent intellectual powerhouses.

Obviously

[Pan T. Hose]

The best gamers are those who spend most of their time playing games so almost by definition they lack certain interpersonal communication and writing skills. This is nothing new. Great football players are not the best sport reporters either. Great politicians are not the best journalists. Not because of their inevitable bias or the lack of insight but because an expert in one field is not necessarily an expert in another. As the story goes, there is no jack of all trades.

Re:Obviously

[Mr.Dippy]

This is so true. I've seen guys at the E.P.A with Ph.D's who could describe Lake Tahoe water table data from memory but didn't know the first thing about checking/sending email. Everybody has a niche.

Re:Obviously

[Icephreak1]

The best gamers are those who spend most of their time playing games so almost by definition they lack certain interpersonal communication and writing skills.

Now there's a sweeping generalization, but you don't have to roll dice on this one. The article tossed a hail Mary at the side of a barn and scored. Illiteracy is rampant; it is absolutely everywhere.

I happen to be one of the top two best players in Tron 2.0. At the risk of sounding pompous, my spelling and grammar are stellar and I have reporte

RTFA

[happyemoticon]

The article's not focused on communication and writing skills, but rather how a particular gamer's perspective. That is, the perspective with which an elite gamer looks upon a game does not predict its enjoyment for your average gamer.

I'd describe myself as a casual to avid gamer, but I never saw the fuss about Quake 3, for example. It felt plastic. I've always been a fan of Unreal (original and tournament - 2004, which is traditionally poo-pooed on by the hardcore gamers.

I despute your point for the most

Shocking

[Lobishomen]

This just in:
-Film critics don't necessarily make movies.
-Book columnist not world reknown artist.

Unless you too are a good gamer...

[vhold]

I'm pretty good at games, so when I read a review by a seasoned gamer, I can more or less relate to their concepts of challenging, frustrating, repetitive, etc.

issues

[opposume]

there are inherant issues in having a super gamer reviewing games is that the challange rating for them may be MUCH lower than it would be for your casual gamer. Which may caus frustrations or misconseptions and caus' otherwise great games to fall through the cracks becaus of the super gamer saying that the game was too easy and a waste of time... But that's just my $0.02

Re:issues

[Grand]

There is also the flip side to this where the reviewer isnt very good at games and thinks the game is too hard or the learning curve is too high.

I would think a review of a good gamer would be better. Good gamer meaning they are good with a variety of games(not just one type game that they are really good at). Focusing on winning from a good gamer will bring out any imbalances in the game. Yea, you cant expect them to do the tedious tasks in some games so you wont get a very fully detailed review.

I fin

Re:issues

[opposume]

This is very true. I didn't look at it that way. When it comes time for me to buy any new games, I try to give them a "test drive" before hand. I have friends who tend to be early adapters for games and buy as soon as they come out so I'll borrow or play over to their place and deside for myself. But you do bring up a very good point about the other factors. But as the parent submission stated that some of these details may be lost on them. I wouldn't mind seeing game reviews by teams. Your gamers an

Re:issues

[AppleTRON]

The CHALLENGE rating system is very subjective, yes. But don't you trust that your "super gamer" has the experience necessary to accurately describe and rate other elements of the game? Graphics, audio, gameplay and overall value for example? I myself am an avid gamer and seem to have had an inordinately difficult time with Prince of Persia 2. Why? I couldn't tell you. But I can tell you about the stunning look and feel of the game, the great style and sound fx or the ease of combat. Though I rate the game

By that logic...

[MMaestro]

Game reviewers do not review games accurately at all. Sure someone who blows through a game is not a good reviewer (skim GameFAQs reader submitted reviews and you'll see some stating they beat the game in a short time so it must suck) but someone who may not even reach the end of the game (or simply stop as a short time) is not necessarily a good reviewer either. If someone reviewed MGS2 based on JUST the Tanker chapter, they probably would've called it game of the year (which is what most reviewers stated in their previews). But once the full game came out and people saw the Plant/Big Shell chapter, there was an uproar. Same thing in games such as GTA3 or VC. First time through, its the greatest damned thing you've ever played! After you've beaten all the missions and you're logging your hundredth hour trying to fly the airplane, the game is shallow.

Re:By that logic...

[drinkypoo]

This is why video game reviews usually cover replay value. Unfortunately, most video games these days, especially those for game consoles, tend to have very little replay value. Only a golden few (most of which get mediocre reviews) actually are fun to play over and over again.

A good review

[Telvin_3d]

Really, it is kind of silly that game reviews have tried to emulate the whole movie review system. Not only is game play a much more individual experience than movies because it depends on the player, not merely the game itself. Depending on skills or strengths, a good game fro one person is a waste of time for someone else. Personally, I think the Penny Arcade guys have it right. No rankings or stars or whatever. Just what they enjoyed, why the liked it, and what other things they have liked in the past. Really, it is the context this provides that is almost as important as anything they say about the game itself.

Re:A good review

[brkello]

The exact same thing can be said about movies. It depends on the movie goer...what genre they like, whether they want to be mentally challenged, etc. And just like game reviews, most people think movie critic's reviews are crap as well. The best thing to do is find a reviewer you like (i.e. someone who has similar tastes as you) and read their reviews (for games and movies). There would be no difference if Penny Arcade put stars or not...it's the fact that they know games, and are able to express their

Good sources.

[hal2814]

"How articulate are avid successful gamers? Well, judging by blogs and forums and reader responses of all types posted on the web, I would have to say the communication skills are not generally very high."

You know I just don't see blogs, forums, and reader responses from kiddies pretending to be l33t as a clear indicator of the communication skills of successful gamers.

While I do agree that good game players *might* make pitiful reviewers, there are probably quite a few that could be good reviewers. Gaming and reviewing can be seen as two completely different jobs in related fields. Some people will be good at both while some will not.

Take the example of sports boradcasters. Some people are good sports announcers but not good athletes (ex. Gumbel). Some are good athletes but are terrible broadcasters (ex. Deion Sanders, who obviously can't read very well). Then there are the people who are good at both (ex. Howie).

Re:Good sources.

[zeath]

And just like sports broadcasters, the people who get good ratings are the ones that stay in the business. I don't understand why this article is news, it's just stating the obvious: people who are bad at reviewing games will write bad reviews. As they enter the foray of writing reviews, those people are eventually weeded out naturally by the number of people who do or don't read/watch their material. It's all about ratings, whether it's the Nielsens for primetime football pregame or the traffic to some kid

Does this mean..

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I suck at games, that I should be a great game reviewer?

Just Ask Jonathan Wendel

[KingBahamut]

And see what he says, Im sure , most certain actually that if Fats was to review a game, that he would have some opinion that was negative based on game performance. Of course as with the case of Fatal1ty, Combat Carl, and most of those others, Dazed420 from clan |dc, and zOdd from =V= , they run their games at lowest rez with no affects so as to get the maximum amount of frame rate and speed. So certainly any indication that a game would lax in performance theyd clearly Dog it in a heartbeat.

Re:Just Ask Jonathan Wendel

[qoa]

You have to love the Return to Castle Wolfenstein players that used a slow pc as an excuse to turn their details down so low they could see through fog and trees.
"I had to hack the .cfg to make the game run on my 333mhz Celeron."

But do gamers make good designers?

[CrazyJim1]

I argue that a hardcore gamer makes a good designer though. A hardcore gamer can't spot imbalances, and thusly change statistics on stuff to bring things to balance. Without balance, some routes in the game just aren't worth taking. Balance flaws especially show up in competitive play. Also a hardcore gamer can 'play out' a game faster than a normal player as been said in this thread. When you 'play out' a game, you can see things to add that aren't in the game. Of course, this doesn't automatically m

Re:But do gamers make good designers?

[SammyJ]

Hey Jim,

you said "a hardcore gamer makes a good designer"
then "a hardcore gamer can't spot imbalances"

I'd say those were mutually exclusive...

Even though a good game tester "plays out" a game, it doesn't necesarily mean the tester a is a "main game designer", or even good game designer... Or even intelligble, for that matter.

Typo

[CrazyJim1]

I meant to say: can spot, not can't

The reason is, the harcore gamer tries to find the best path to beat the game through analysis. Some rare games have several paths that are equal, but most games have one best path even though their instruction manual boasts many. Now given, suboptimal paths are sometimes fun, but if they can't compete in an online game it shows.

Re:Typo

[Minna Kirai]

The reason is, the harcore gamer tries to find the best path to beat the game through analysis.

One superb example is 2004's "Battlefield Vietnam". The competitive game had 10 allowable player classes, 5 per team. One of those classes was dramatically superior to all the others, as he carried both M60 and LAW weapons which could destroy any opposing infantry or vehicle easily.

The stupidity of such a lopsided design was apparent to even moderately enthusiastic players, so it's rather telling that one of

Hogwash.

[sc0ttyb]

Personally, I only read reviews by people who I know have been around the block with videogames and also play along the same level as I do if not better. I know what they have and have not played so they can make judgements based on experience with past titles, which is especially relevent with remakes or games that claim to be revolutionary. I want an actual real-life gamer's opinion (and remember, reviews ARE opinions to a great extent) of a particular title. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Ok - but what does being a 'good' gamer mean?

[Morpeth]

I think one issue with people saying I'm a 'good' gamer, is that it can mean vastly different things to different people.

To some, it's being "uber l33t killah doodz", gankers, griefers, pk'ers; which may or may not be a good thing depending on the game. Being good a twitch games (FPS) is just one kind of good.

To others it might be finding and completing every quest/task/mission, or exploring every map/structure, and finding every drop/treasure; regardles of how many monsters/players you kill.

In an RTS, 'good' might be resource management and strategy. To a pure RPG'er it could be great role-playing skills and character development, having a respected guild, etc.

I think it goes back to the socializer-achiever-explorer-killer categories. How you define 'good' will largely be based on how you fit into that.

But even if you say you're 'good' in all the above examples -- one person's 'good' is another person's 'annoying jack a*s' (I'm talking mainly in a multiplayer context). People have different playstyles and goals when they game, so 'good' is highly subjective and relative imo.

They are good, just for die hard gamers is all.

[freidog]

The casual gamer who plays the campaign on easy and occaionally skirmishes with the computer is going to want a review based more on 'is it fun to play' which is what you get from some one who is a journalist first and gamer second. Does it look and sound good, is it entertaining and are there any major techincal issues.

however a serious (die hard) gamer gets a very different experiance from a game.
Often issues like linear missions, minor balancing issues, cut corners on AI and pathfinding do influence the 'fun' these guys have.
When Empire Earth came out, it got solid reviews from most everyone. Great fun, epic scale, yadda yadda yadda.
As a die hard RTS fan, I was dissapointed to find about 1/2 the campaign missions were made with painful linear design, most of the ages (epochs) were terribly unbalanced (in one gameplay mode or another) and the AI was worthless, it cheated on every difficulty and had no concept of strategy.

Needless to say what the reviews were looking for a what a 'gamer' was looking for were quite different.

Re:They are good, just for die hard gamers is all.

[blahplusplus]

I disagree somewhat, There are good and bad gamers in both the casual and hardcore market. In the hardcore you have a small section of them that loves really boring repetitive grindy shit but I'd say the are in the minority since judging by game sales most hardcore gamers only buy the best of the best games. In fact I'd venture to say that hardcore gamers with years of video game playing experience are more critical of games because they have a huge library of experiences to compare it the latest games t

sounds like someone is pissed ...

[PaganRitual]

... that they were convinced to buy Ninja Gaiden because it was 9.5/10 ... and then got OWNED.

What Annoys ME About Reviews:

[Suddenly_Dead]

Reviewers often apply scores to games, while completely ignoring the game's replayability factor. Others do talk about that, but often say junk along the lines of "the game lets you be good or evil, and gives you two endings!!". Wow! It doesn't make me want to play through the whole thing a second time, but that sure is neat! I won't pay $50+ for a game that only lasts a few hours and it done. Similarily, games I play need depth (contributing to replayability), usually some sort of modding ability, and a good replayable multiplayer, skirmish, or sandbox mode. Quite often I find reviews ignoring or downplaying things like this, talking about the game as if it was a movie that one could pay $7 and watch at a theater or rent. I can rent many games, but that doesn't work so well on the PC.

Good Writing is rare enough...

[MBraynard]

without having to find someone with the coincidence of that skill along with extremely good video game skills - especially so with twitch gaming.

I wrote about 40 video game reviews for a now defunct zine. I was a pretty good writer - but not so great at the game. Without cheating or win-trading, I had a StarCraft ladder rating of 1240 or so. That's and a few moments of brilliance here and there are all I can claim.

Being a good writer is extremely imporant to writing readable reviews. I wish I could remem

A Good Reviewer, Reviews.

[kereira]

If someone who is detached from the subject material can be a better reviewer... then wouldn't it be somewhat inaccurate. Especially if they don't fully understand the concepts of or are uninterested in a particular game they have been handed :P

I think you need to be attached to the material at least, or you might give a totally lame review. Like some other people have said - games mean different things to different people.

I think a good reviewer can take every single aspect of gameplay and put it togethe

In other news,

[Westacular]

In other news, great researchers are not always the best teachers, great athletes are not always the best coaches, and great lovers are certainly not always the best parents.

Oh, wait, that's not news. That's not even remotely insightful to anyone over the age of twelve.

Personal Reviews

[xgamer04]

I think the problem in reviewing games is that the average person doesn't like all genres of videogame. I personally find MMORPGs a waste of time, but have friends who love them. I don't think it would be fair for me to review World of Warcraft while my friends are reviewing the latest 2D Castlevania.

Different audiences

[kreyg]

Casual gamers would be best served by reviews written by casual gamers. Obsessive gamers would be best served by reviews written by obsessive gamers. Each group expects and cares about different things, why a one-size-fits-all game review is even expected escapes me at the moment.

No, They're The Perfect Reviewers

[DarkZero]

I think both of these articles are a little off the mark. Rather than one type of gamer or another being "the best reviewer", I think the best reviewer is someone who is as much like the reader as possible.

The Adrenaline Vault article scoffs at the player who "brags" that they beat the game in a few hours and that they always play games in Hard Mode. Well, you know what? Unless I know a game is already very hard, I usually set the game to Hard Mode before I start playing. I also like a good, long game, because when I like a game system, I like to actually spend some time with it. So if, for instance, a reviewer says that he almost always plays games in Hard Mode, that his favorite games are Shinobi and Devil May Cry, and that the action game he's reviewing is too easy, too short, and generally sucks, then I'll probably think it sucks too. And if you generally like a short, easy game that you can just kind of relax to for a few hours, someone that likes those sorts of games is probably your perfect reviewer. That sort of reviewer would be useless to me, but then again, my kind of reviewer would be useless to you. Different views for different audiences, no different than getting your movie reviews from a daytime talk show or SlashersBloodDen.com.

Another poster under this story really hit the mark. The best type of review is the Penny Arcade style review: Here's what I'm playing, here's what I liked or didn't like about it, and these are the other games I liked. Rather than having three writers print three very generic, sterile reviews that are nearly identical to each other and make the readers wonder what terms like "too easy", "too hard", "too long", or "too short" mean for them, maybe gaming magazines should get three reviewers that actually like completely different kinds of games review the game from their own perspective.

I would love to see a "review" of Chess.

[Jagasian]

Just imagine if a "game reviewer" spent 50 hours playing Chess when it was first released hundreds of years ago. I bet these professional "game reviewers" would have bagged the game as simple, shallow, and boring... with a need for improved graphics and sound. The truth is that some games can only be properly reviewed after playing them for an extremely long time. The way Chess was played changed over the years. Similarly for many other video games.

The way people play Pacman for example, is very differ

Skills vs Fun

[JavaLord]

The Adrenaline Vault posits that talented gamers are not always the best reviewers because of the necessity for those with elite skills to care as much as they do about their performance

It's not their performance they care about, it's about being rewarded for performance. A casual gamer plays for fun, and competitive one plays to be reward for skill. For example:

Casual Fighting game fans love killer instinct, the graphics were nice, and the combos were easy to do. The "elite" players hated it, played at it's highest level the game was nothing but a turtlefest and didn't reward players based on "skill".

FPS players tend to gravitate twards counterstrike. Why? Because spamming for the most part, isn't effective. Casual gamers may love the fact that they can grab the flak cannon in the original Unreal tournament and spam it around corners in hopes for a kill, but 'elite' players hate it, because it isn't skill based.

If a skilled player wants to review a game, they have to realize what their main audience would be playing the game for, which most often is fun.

They're doing it wrong...

[Shkuey]

If a reviewer is playing a game looking to get out of it something different than the gamer does, then they're doing it wrong.

A good example would be Burnout 3. Though it got good reviews overall; I read one that blasted it for not having a grinding noise when a car touched a sidewall. Frankly, I didnt even notice it didnt make a noise until I read the review. The fact is the reviewer was looking for flaws, while the gamer was looking to have fun. Since I dont play a game to find the flaws in it, I'd muc

A Review

[NaCl]

talented gamers are not always the best reviewers

And what's the surprise here?

I don't see how above average gaming skills should help your journalistic skills, after all a review is no more than an article about a game. From a professional point of view, the reviewer should be a good analizer, have good writing skills and be somewhat intimate with the gaming world, but that's it.

Of course,it should be pointed out

[Nine Tenths of The W]

That reviewers for magazines that rely on advertising from large publishers tend not to be the best reviewers either.