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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why can't gamers diferentiate between their personal taste and quality.

theprof00 on 26 December 2013

Pretentious thread. Quality is inherently subjective. How are we supposed to define quality?
I could theorize that the quality of a game is directly proportionate to how much I enjoyed it, and if it's the most enjoyable game I've ever played, then that should be the metric for the best game. An argument like that explains exactly what's wrong with the OP.



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Veknoid_Outcast on 26 December 2013
Captain_Tom said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

It's one thing to hate a game and acknowledge its influence. It's quite another to personally dislike a game and "objectively" love it. If a game matches my personal criteria for greatness, it IS great. Why should I bother trying to guess what others will think. I can only judge something against my own standards, my own personal truth. If you think you can identify some objective, universal truth, you're fooling yourself.


-It is universal that Demon's Souls suffered from a needlessly choppy framerate at times

-It is universal that TLoU combined a great and unique combat system with storytelling that put 90% of survival movies to shame.

-I is universal that Halo simplified the weapon system, added third person vehicles, introduced a form of regenerating health, and put it in a package anyone can pick up and enjoy.  

 

No one is saying you have to "Love" the game; just look at it and realize that it does do certain things well and then weight that with what most people expect from games.  Is it unique?  Does it do things people love better?  

So the OP is asking:  "Why is it so hard for YOU to do these things?"  Answer that.

That's not what the OP is asking. I agree it's possible to dislike a product or piece of art and still recognize why others might like it. But the OP isn't asking us to be open-minded or empathetic. He's asking us to identify a reality informed by objective truth, divorced from own own personal standards, rules, and priorities. It's impossible. 

The OP says just because you like a game doesn't make it good. I would argue that's the only thing that makes it good.



Captain_Tom on 27 December 2013
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Captain_Tom said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

It's one thing to hate a game and acknowledge its influence. It's quite another to personally dislike a game and "objectively" love it. If a game matches my personal criteria for greatness, it IS great. Why should I bother trying to guess what others will think. I can only judge something against my own standards, my own personal truth. If you think you can identify some objective, universal truth, you're fooling yourself.


-It is universal that Demon's Souls suffered from a needlessly choppy framerate at times

-It is universal that TLoU combined a great and unique combat system with storytelling that put 90% of survival movies to shame.

-I is universal that Halo simplified the weapon system, added third person vehicles, introduced a form of regenerating health, and put it in a package anyone can pick up and enjoy.  

 

No one is saying you have to "Love" the game; just look at it and realize that it does do certain things well and then weight that with what most people expect from games.  Is it unique?  Does it do things people love better?  

So the OP is asking:  "Why is it so hard for YOU to do these things?"  Answer that.

That's not what the OP is asking. I agree it's possible to dislike a product or piece of art and still recognize why others might like it. But the OP isn't asking us to be open-minded or empathetic. He's asking us to identify a reality informed by objective truth, divorced from own own personal standards, rules, and priorities. It's impossible. 

The OP says just because you like a game doesn't make it good. I would argue that's the only thing that makes it good.

But there are things in a game that made it good for you.  The OP is saying you sould be able to identify those things in any game, even if they aren't good for you.



ice on 27 December 2013

I've wondered the same thing, I don't like Uncharted much but I recognize it as a quality game.



oniyide on 27 December 2013
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
stlwtng4Dmdrxip said:

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



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Serious_frusting on 27 December 2013

So your telling people not to have an opinion?



I can play a game people like and think to myself well i aint playing this anymore it is complete crap.

Just because i say that about a game does not mean I cant see its appeal. It just is not a game I can enjoy. I am sure many other people think like this and not in the black and white context your putting it in.



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F0X on 27 December 2013

Personal taste is but one subjective measure of quality, no?

For me, I try to resolve this issue by saying: "by no means do I think it's a bad game, but it's certainly not for me." I
typically apply this to Gears of War, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, and a variety of similar games and franchises.

Now, I have a much harder time applying it to movies for some reason. When someone tells me that he/she enjoyed Transformers 2, I immediately want to disassociate myself from that person. Yet, some of my best friends are really into Gears, DMC, ect.



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F0X on 27 December 2013
theprof00 said:
Pretentious thread. Quality is inherently subjective. How are we supposed to define quality?
I could theorize that the quality of a game is directly proportionate to how much I enjoyed it, and if it's the most enjoyable game I've ever played, then that should be the metric for the best game. An argument like that explains exactly what's wrong with the OP.


True, but I think that it's good to recognize and perhaps even appreaciate the fact that some people like things that you have written off as "bad".



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ghettoglamour on 27 December 2013

Well, while a fly might appreciate the consistency and quality of a big smelly pile of shit, it just happens that high quality pile of shit doesn't necessarily match my taste and I don't appreciate it.

Might be an extreme example, but it's basically the same with everything else.



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Akvod on 27 December 2013
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
stlwtng4Dmdrxip said:

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.