Ya movie reviews are way harsher in general.

Maybe its because a movie doesnt change when you see it a second time. But video games inherently dont play the same because the user always does different styles/tactics, etc.

Movie reviews have always been absolute garbage. Movie reviewers are all about being niche, sophisticated and pretentious and they have an overly strong integrity towards big budgets, marketing and the mass market.

Therefore Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars can only get 3/5 max.

But gaming reviewers on the other hand lack sophistication and integrity. Half of them probably haven't even reflected on these matters.

Therefore GTA and Call of Duty are able to get 95%.

In general both are bad but a gaming review I can at least have some use for. Movie reviews are useless and just piss me off.

I think you made a good point about the time spent and everything that goes into reviewing a game versus a movie, but that said, there is a lot of steps to be taken before gaming journalism can or should be taken seriously.

The rating system is simply different, nothing to do with leniency. Jim Sterling seems to the only one who applies a film critic perspective to his reviews in that he never seems to imply that games he give 3 or 4/10 should be avoided at all costs. Whereas if a game gets a 5 from the likes of IGN or Gamespot I imagine most gamer's wouldn't touch it. Can't articulate myself as well I would like tonight but essentially game reviews and film reviews are deceptive in that they may appear to be functionally equivalent, whereas the reality is quite the opposite.

So almost any game with a high budget (AAA games...) automatically gets at least a 6 since it isn't shovelware? Am I reading that point in your article correctly? Big budget doesn't mean quality in either films or games. Sorry, that kind of proves that gaming reviewers are far more lenient than film reviewers. Film reviewers will come right out and admit that John Carter is crap despite it's huge buget.

Not because it isn't shovelware, but because they need access to interviews and hands-ons for the next COD or GTA or Assassin's Creed. Access that they aren't likely to get if they review the game too harshly.

That's why it actually happens, anyway. I didn't RTFA.

I think this paragraph shows the strength and the weakness of the argument:

Perhaps the most interesting difference between movie and game reviews is that game critics/reviewers actually tend to be closer to their audience than film critics. How often have you seen old, disenfranchised film critics reviewing stuff that's strictly for kids, or giving poor scores to situational movies such as horrors that are clearly not their cup of tea. Gaming is still a relatively new hobby, so even the older game reviewers are still comfortably within the 18-34 year age demographic, and a game review site tends to hire or enlist the help of people who spread their tastes amongst all genres; it would be silly to make someone who only plays RPG's play a racing or sports game, yet we see that in film review all the time. It's not uncommon for a movie reviewer to have absolutely no interest in the movie he's reviewing but still have to put their head in the mindset of the intended audience, and it often backfires and in the end the film's review scores are completely out of touch with the intended audience. Adam Sandler movies regularly get poor or flat out atrocious reviews, yet almost every one of his comedies has been a blockbuster.

The difference between movie and game critics is consistency. Both have biases. But if you read/follow the same movie critic for a period of time, you learn what their scores mean and can filter them accordingly. Meanwhile, few game reviewers tend not to be there for enough time to build up a track record to follow (or because of the sheer number of games that have to be reviewed compared to other media, you get different critics reviews even from the same source).

That being said, gaming (and gaming reviews) tend not to be aware that its audience is not just males 18-34. The average age of a video game player in the US last year was 37 (http://www.govtech.com/newsletters/Question-of-the-Day-for-101211.html) according to NPD research. That is outside of the target demographic listed. And reviews tend to play to that demographic and even a subset of it which like certain types of games/productions.
Related to that, games which may target a different or wider audience often can be more harshly judged, especially if it is not done in the same style/motif as other games (see some of the critiques of Wii games.)

Finally, I don't think there has been a recent case of a movie reviewer being fired for giving a blockbuster a deserved less than stellar review. Video games cannot say the same thing.

Mike from Morgantown

Good point but even if you beat a game on easy you invest more time with it then if you only watch a movie once.  Also a lot of times game reviewers get a copy of a game that is not all the way complete.  Movie reviewers pretty much always review the final (complete) version of a film.

Only the original three Star Wars movies are critically acclaimed.  The first Priates movie is somewhat critically acclaimed but its Metascore of 63/100 is probably a more acurate reflection of the overall quality of the film

The only reason I think that Episode 3 is the most watchable of the prequels is because of its over the top bad overacting.