It seems that in every game site, in every comment section/forum there's people saying that this game is good or bad depending if they liked the game or not.
I hate many above average games, and i love many average games.
Just because you like a game, that doesn't make the game good and vice versa. How isn't this clear for most gamers?
Even" professional" reviewers make this mistake all the time.
Thoughts please.
So are you saying there is an objective basis for quality?
there are some aspects that are objective, for example frame rate, screen tearing, controls, etc.
The importance one puts on those attributes vary from person to person. And again, there are the non-objective attributes that probably make way more of a difference than a technical attribute like frame rate.
of course, im just stating their are some aspects of a game that IMHO are objective. For instance if a game simply doesnt work (Steel Battalion). But those are extreme cases.
No, what you described are things that are measurable. That still doesn't address how much value (if any) to give to that attribute.
For example, would you argue that having a higher player count is a good thing, all else held equal? Say for Battlefield 4, 24 players on the current gen consoles and 64 players on the next gen.
If you say yes, have you considered things like how big the maps are or how the game will play out?
And again, a lot of the measurable things you mentioned come with a trade off. Pixels for framerate for example. How much weight do you give to each of those things?
While if you have the same exact game (all else held equal) then it'll be easy to assess the "quality" of a game with the objective measurments you gave. So that might work for something like multiplats (and it has been going on). But when we try to assess quality for the game itself, or the game relative to other games, then those measurable attributes just fall into something subjective again.
i havent played BF and to be honest i dont plan too so im the wrong person to ask for that. I was talking basic mechanical things that are apparent in games across th board. For example controls. Would you argue that if the controls of a game flat out suck and therefore bring the quality of the game down? I mean a video game MUST control well or it becomes unplayable, but what the hell Just dance doesnt even work really but people love it so you're probably right in the end.
Controls are subjective as well (I'm thinking looking sensitivity for FPSs, although same applies for button placement).
I mean, is LBP's controls bad or good? Some might say it's bad because they're used to Mario's snappy ones, while others might like LBP's controls.
I mean, where's the objectivity in this guy's assessment of a game's controls?
i was thinking more in the way of say a Steel Battalion where the game simply does not work, can you say something is subjective when it doesnt even function? Thats like trying to judge a computer and it doesnt work
Right, but again, it still becomes hard how much value to attribute to a bug.
If you're comparing a game relative to another game, how much do you ding one game for having a bug?
If you're looking at a game in isolation, you could say that the game has "less quality" by saying it has a bug, but how much "less"? And again, when you're looking at a game in isolation (as opposed to say comparing two versions of the same game), you have the subjective stuff to worry about to assess overall quality.
Basically, the whole idea of an whole objective basis for quality, which suggest the ability to have some kind of objective assessment (i.e. a number score) for a game is just kind of silly.
