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Critiquing a Media Critic

Video Game Critics




The biggest thing anyone needs to know before looking at a review on a videogame is the truth behind gaming critics: Videogame critics don't play videogames like regular fans and player bases do.

Grinding for Gear

Take a game that has non-linear focus: games like No Man's Sky and Destiny 2 could both fall under this scenario. These games are full of grinding and looking for materials to the point where playing can feel more like work instead of what gaming should be: fun.

Minecraft was is an excellent parallel to judge other free roaming/grinding games by. Minecraft has you set in a world where everything is destructible. You mine some cobblestone, you get cobblestone. There are small exceptions, like having an iron pickax to mine diamonds or a diamond pickax to mine obsidian, but these things were quickly learned and developed into a system of understanding that players accepted and enjoyed.

The problem with a game like Destiny 2 is that players receive items through a system of luck and killing enemies and bosses. The item you get can be random, and in many cases, you can find yourself restarting multiple boss fights in order to get the item you want. Psychologically speaking, this system does not complete a good cost-benefit or reward system that benefits players. I know the concept is for the game to keep people playing by not giving them exactly what they want on the first go, but at the same time, they are losing their player base and receiving negative reviews from fans because of this. Critics, unfortunately, have overlooked grinding as a schematic for review and instead looked at graphics quality and gameplay movement - which don't get me wrong, these things are nice for a game - but adamantly look over the aspect of time spent playing the game in order to get the gear you want or need.

Loot Boxes




Loot boxes are the new source of a gambling system that has hit the gaming community. In short - you win every time you receive a loot box, but it may not get the items you want. The issues with loot boxes are the fact that they target individuals to spend real-world currency in order to get items for the videogame, often times for a videogame that they have already spent $60 or more on. Critics don't look at loot boxes as a system to measure a games score, which drastically increases the sales of a game if critics give it a good score.

When a game has a pay to win system, that means any person with enough real-world currency can purchase items or characters that are stronger than the average player, which then puts other players at a statistical disadvantage against them. Critics should take the measurement of loot boxes being in a videogame and establish a forefront for what we should look out for and expect. If these loot boxes can be purchased with in-game currency that you can earn over the course of playing AND if they only contain cosmetic items, that could be a system that gamers would understand and accept, especially if the game was made free to play.

My Guess?

My belief is that with the high volume of games being brought forward into the market, critics can't spend the same amount of time on a game that players do. Also, incentives from larger gaming companies can provoke critics into a sense that they MUST give the company's games a good review rather than blatantly give the audience what they can expect from the title.

We are in a day where Triple A titles (games that come from highly successful gaming companies) that get hundreds of sales are hit with horrible user reviews and indie games are getting great reviews from users but moderate reviews from critics. In the end, user enjoyment is what should come from a videogame. We just don't want anyone lying to us about how wonderful the game is, to find out we had wasted $60 on a half-finished product. 

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