Скачать или смотреть Why Game Critics Suck | Video Game Philosophy #2

Why are video game critics so bad? In this video, the second episode in the "Philosophy of Video Games" series, we explore why video game critics fall short.

Video games are great. Reviews of video games, not so much.

In a medium marching toward the future, the body of ideas surrounding that medium are way behind. In fact, the best criticism of gaming is the criticism of gaming. What does it say about video games that the surrounding criticism and theory is so shallow?

To be fair, there are problems with media and journalism as a whole, but the situation is still uniquely bad with video games.

It’s not as if the industry isn’t filled with brilliant people. Many of the video game journalists are clearly smart, educated people, but most of the intellectual firepower is directed toward the technical specifications of a game. In place of theory, we get discussions regarding frame rates, polygons and pixels. This is definitely an important aspect of the medium, but imagine a movie review that spent a third of it’s time talking about the lighting or the type of green used on a soundstage greenscreen to shoot the last Avengers movie? It’s cool but how relevant is it?

If we want to know why the reviews are this way, we need to take a look at the media industry.

The term video game journalist is simultaneously ridiculous and relevant. When we compare video game journalism in it’s modern state to the noble ideal of what journalism should be; for instance, speaking truth to power, light in the darkness, etc.— the comparison is pretty silly. One blogs about physics engines in a war game, the other dodges bullets or risks capture, torture, and decapitation to report on real wars. But this higher form of journalism is largely out shadowed by the type of journalism we mostly have.

Now, the comparison makes sense.

So, what are some of the ideas and theories from media studies concerning journalism which could apply to video games journalism?

Noam Chomsky is one of the most important intellectuals of our time. He began his career by revolutionizing the field of linguistics earning the title “the father of modern linguistics.” But if his work overturning entire sciences wasn’t enough, he also wrote a critique of modern media. In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, his influential book written with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky shows how even the “free press” of Western societies become “system-supportive.”

The book focuses on five major factors, or filters, which deeply influence major media platforms. Let’s review three of those and see how they work with modern journalism and specifically video game journalism.

The first and maybe the most important factor is that media outlets are companies, or in most cases, a smaller piece of a major conglomerate. Fox News is part of the Fox Corporation. CNN is part of TimeWarner. IGN is a subsidiary of j2 Global. And Gamespot is a subsidiary of CNET Networks, a subsidiary of CBS Interactive, which is a subsidiary of CBS Entertainment Group, which is one of four major units of ViacomCBS. What do all these companies have in common? The profit motive.

Corporations will naturally gravitate to less critical, less thoughtful, less provoking content in order to minimize their risk, to keep the overall profit potential healthy, and to keep the customer happy. And the customer here is the key, because with major media companies, it’s not the viewers who are the customers. Advertisers are the customers. Viewers are the product.

Again, this is not automatically cynical or conspiratorial. It’s a natural result of systematic factors, not personal ones. So the next time you see a really bad, totally empty review from IGN, take solace in knowing it’s not bad because that person is bought off, but instead, it’s bad because they actually believe what they are saying. That’s better, right?

0:42 Part I - The Sublime Weapon
5:47 Part II - Manufacturing Consent


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