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AngryLittleAlchemist on 13 October 2017
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Shaunodon said:

Video game reviews are not politics. Just having the best argument doesn't mean what you're saying will actually hold true for most people.


You could make the most compelling argument for why the QTEs in Resident Evil 6 actually aided the immersion and made that game a masterpiece, and the people reading could totally buy into it. But once they actually play the game and 90% of them realise the argument was total BS, they're probably not gonna feel like the review did them justice.

And I already made the point that perfect objectivity can never be achieved, but it is their job to be as close as possible. There are universal truths that most lifelong gamers can agree to e.g. 30fps is obviously worse than 60fps(not accounting for resolution and genre etc.); yet some publications/developers have even tried to make arguments against that, and some 'gamers' even bought into it.

Objectivity is not a myth, and even though perfect objectivity can never be reached (cause we haven't all had the same experience and history in gaming), it should still be the job of a reviewer to try and get as close as possible.

I don't even mind if they add personal sides notes into their reviews, as long as they make sure it's known that's only their opinion, or whether they feel it actually has an objective affect on the quality of the game. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I expect them to try. It is their job to be knowledgable on the subject.

Holding true for most people is not what the concept of objectivity is, though. Objectivity is popularized as a concept for holding games to a certain merit that can be seemingly qualified as factual. It's taking art(and before you say "games aren't art", i'm just substituting art for media) and trying to defuse it down to a quantifible science.

Which is ridiculous and obviously can't be done, because the perception of media in the first place requires a bias. We don't percieve media neutrally, we build a bias towards things based on preferences that become established, and over time we learn what we like and don't.

The entire problem with the objective merit is this : People's objective merit is created by a bias in and of itself. It's an opinion that you institute into your system as fact. You can't qualify an objective merit until you decide what standard games should be held up to, and that in and of itself is an opinion.

The example I highlighted is an appeal to popularity. I don't suppose you consider Justin Beiber to be worthy of praise? Your response to this will be "But anyone who knows anything about music will know that Justin Beiber sucks!" but that's just an appeal to authority. None of those appeals are inherently right.

I agree with you that objectivity isn't a myth. I've actually said so on this forum before, though I don't believe I said it in this thread(correct me if i'm wrong). Saying that isn't really meant to be literal. Concepts are concepts by themselves. The objective merit, which is supposed to be a qualifible way of judging art, is a myth in modern application.

I agree with the attitude that a reviewer should try to be as fair as possible. To be as objective as possible is a slippery slope but people seem to use those words as synonym, so I guess I can agree with that. If objectivity was real though and reviewers could all get as close to objectivity as possible, could you imagine how boring reviews would be? It would essentially be multiple reviewers saying the same thing.