Specialist press outlets are playing casual games wrong

[famousringo]

sinha said:

When you answer yes to the second question, you're saying if a reviewer is rating all films/games as art and trying to uphold artistic standards, they are reviewing casual movies/games wrong?

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The article says "The average buyer of Take-Two’s dismally-reviewed $40 Carnival Games for Wii, however, isn’t going to be visiting Metacritic..."

How would the specialist press be "providing useful information" to casual movie watchers and casual gamers when those people clearly don't read those reviews and obviously are not basing their spending decisions on those reviews?

If 1up gave Carnival Games a higher rating, or the Village Voice gave Transformers a better review, would casual moviegoers and casual gamers suddenly start paying attention to those sources? Of course not.

Reviews are for the hard-core because those are the people who read reviews and care about reviews.

You've introduced a question of causality here. Are reviews for the hardcore because the hardcore are the only ones who read reviews? Or are the hardcore the only ones who read reviews because they're the only ones reviews are made for? 

Have you ever had a conversation that went something like this?

Person A: Hey, want to see Stupid Comedy X?

Person B: I dunno, I heard the reviews were terrible.

Person A: Pssh, movie critics. All they care about are snobby dramas. C'mon, it'll be fun.

dschumm brings up Roger Ebert as a great example. He gets more attention than just about any other reviewer, and he gets it by giving movies a very simple good/bad rating, while taking into account that people sometimes want to watch stupid comedies and cheesy action movies. Some of these 'bad films' are better than others, and people want to know which ones are fun and which ones are a waste of time and money.

 Perhaps game review publications need a few Roger Eberts to provide reviews for people who want some simple fun, without deep and complicated gameplay and story.