It's not.

Yes.

There are a number of reviewers who give movies like Transformers high marks for being a good "cornball summer action flick" or similar such designations. There are also good "turn-off-your-brain comedies" and presumably something similar might apply to romantic comedies and other generic Hollywood fare.

The dichotomy is between reviewers who rate all films as art versus reviewers who rate movies for how they serve certain markets. Pitting Action Movie A against Action Movie B, rather than comparing Action Movie A to Indie Art Film B.

The first kind of reviewer is trying to uphold what s/he sees as artistic standards, while the second is trying to provide useful information to movie watchers. Good analogy. 

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.

Not true. Review are for that potential customers that want to know if a certain product is suited for their taste or goal ( because nobody want waste money above all if you have a family ).

But if all the reviews ( about games ) are made with the point of view of core/dedicated-gamers than not all potential buyers will seek an advice suited for them and if you think that we are a minority ( niche ) you maybe realize that there is something wrong ... 

I ish agree with this I mean some games get really low scores but they review it like it was a game for 30 yrs old men... When it's a game made for kids. My cousin has some games that gets really low scores and she likes them a lot... I don't think a reviewer can put himself into a 9-10 yrs old girl...

Casual games can get reviewed by them but they have to keep in mind that the games won't be super difficult or have awesome graphics and soundtracks. It was made for quick fun and it seems reviewers often forget that.

My problem is not rating a casual game poorly if it has flaws like the Transformer analogy. It just seems to me that there is a ceiling that casual games can't get past. Carnival games got a 56 which is a little harsh. But Wii Sports and Rayman Ravin Rabbits got a 76. Those are arguably the best casual games in years and certinaly some of the best the Wii has to offer but due to certian reviewer 's bias they get a 76. Sure they had their flaws too but a similar level of flaws in a hardcore game garners a 90+.

It is much like comedies at the Academy awards. Most actors will say the hardest thing to do is make people laugh, but you have to cry or make someone cry on screen to win an award.

My other pet-peeve is that few reviewers play these games with other people. Even if they do and mention the fun then fail to have thay affect the score. But if a game has online like Halo it suddenly gets tons of bonus points for the innovative feature. Rediculous.

Roger Ebert often mentions that his thumbs rating has more to do with his belief that the target audience will enjoy it, than if it is artistic perfection. Sure perfect movies get a thumbs up but so does a lot of casual fare. I propose that game reviewers use a dual sytem. A rating and a simple thumb up or down. They can be as harsh as they feel necessary on the score but give a yes or no to people based on if the game will serve potential buyers well.

Some reviewers are changing their tone but due t the popularity of metacritic and gamerankings it takes a shift in the whole industry. Which is why I want to start a casual centered review site. WiiSports = 9.5 Halo 3 = 7.5

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.

Did they finally start just naming movies by Genre and Roman Numerals? Because I've been waiting years for them to do that.

Slightly on topic, any online retailers still have Carnival Games in stock? Amazon, Gamestop, Wal-Mart, and Toys'R'us are all out stock and my sister wants the damn thing for Christmas. -_-

How often have you heard in a movie review "This movie didn't have an orchestral soundtrack" or "This drama lacked the special effects of the Starwars movies" as excuses for lowering the overal score? I'm assuming probably never ...

How often have you heard similar statments in a videogame review? Probably pretty often ...

Consider the entire game review format for movies:

 What exactly earned that 1/10 instead of 0/10?

Guess I should actually contribute to the thread.

Someone, think it may have even been someone here, and if it was I apologize in advance for forgetting your name and if I mess up this example, but someone made a point that some point way back that most restaurant critics reviewed all restaurants of all types with the same set of expectations you’d have of fancy fine dining type.

A small mom/pop burger shop would always be rated lowly compared to some fancy diner. Even if the burger shop had excellent service and the best damn burgers and the fancy restaurant had god-awful food, high prices, and took forever to be waited on. At some point it became clear this didn’t really work.

Just because you’re a small burger shop doesn’t mean you should get marked down for not being high dining, because none of your customers or potential customers were expecting you to. And just because you’re a fancy looking diner you shouldn’t necessarily be marked up for being one when it’s just as possible your food sucks.

Again, sorry if I screwed any part of this up, but point is if you’re going to review anything, you need to approach it with the proper expectations of someone interested in whatever you’re reviewing. I didn’t walk into Hot Fuzz expecting Citizen Kane, I walked into Hot Fuzz expecting a spiritual sequel to Shawn of the Dead. (For the record, very happy with what I got.)

In the case of Carnival Games, I haven’t played it, but from what I’ve read from various customers reviews and such, it seems to generally delivers what it promises. I remember one person saying that same games that pissed him off in Carnival games where the same games that usually pissed him off at a real life Carnival. It also sounds like it doesn’t deliver much beyond that either can be occasionally buggy, but for the people who’d be interested in it as a Carnival game simulator, they'd be satisfied. As a game, I doubt the people who made Carnival Games really were trying to anything beyond that.

Current review set-ups for most forms of Gaming Media just mostly catered to suit a narrow field like-minded individuals. Mostly that might because that same group dominates the gaming scene so much, but as the market continues to expand and that niche becomes smaller there will be more and more need for a wider variety of reviewers.

Best way to start would get off these asinine scoring systems. Like HappySqurriel illustrated, it’d be just weird to see these same arbitrary score set-ups applied to movies, and I’ve said before, I feel these numerical scores are heavily in place to draw attention away from the actual review. (As well as easily appeasing paying advertisers while still actually trying to review something honestly)

1UP’s review of Assassin’s Creed was 7.0, but from what I read, the person who reviewed did generally enjoy it, but was letdown by the tedium and certain ass backwards decisions, but still fairly excited for it’s inevitable sequel. IGN’s video review more or less blasted it, stating it’s beautiful to look at it, but actually playing the game is tiring and uninspired. Their reviewer very strongly warned away from buying the game in favor of renting and stated you might not even want to finish it. Their site gave it a 7.5/7.7 (PS3/360) however.

Ars Technica reviews games as well, but we rarely hear about them because they don’t score games outside their Buy/Rent/Avoid verdict, which they don’t always use anyways. They generally try to explain what’s good for who and avoid getting too caught up in the technical aspects. How good they are at this is debatable, but as general website for techno stuff they’re trying to cater their content for a wider group of people who may be visiting.

And most importantly, does anyone know any first hand online sellers who have Carnival Games in stock? Getting annoying I can’t find it. =P 

 Poor Sports Night.  The people who watched it expected a show about sports... and the people would like it were mostly turned away by the "Sports" in the title.  The show did much better as "The West Wing" which was exactly the same thing pretty much, same writing, same pacing, same characters though they weren't as fun.  Didn't do well as Studio 51 however or whatever it was.  Well only either that or 30 rock was going to survive.