I’m sure if you’re gamer on the internet, you’ve come across this topic at least once or twice. The debate on whether or not game journalist or game reviewers need to be good on a game in order to be able to give a proper criticism. Despite this been an age old question, I want to share my own thoughts on this subject and see what you folks think about it.
As the title of this blog states, I asked whether or not a game journalist/ reviewers needs to be moderately good at a game to provide a fair and accurate criticism of a game. Many have argued that journalist don’t have to be good at a game or that these people have other priorities which prevents them to sink in the hours needed to learn the ropes of a game.
If you’re in anyway invested in the gaming community, you’d know that most game journalist don’t exactly have the best reputation among gamers. We’ve seen reviews come out in the past from large gaming media claiming that a game is hard or that the learning curve is too steep, and because of that would deduct points from it. Then when the game comes out and into the players hand, we find out that the game isn’t that hard at all and its the reviewers inability to play the game that led to his/hers frustration.
For me, I expect them to be good at the games they’re playing/reviewing. I don’t like the notion of given these reviewers who are clearly bad or have no basic understanding of the game that they’re reviewing because of this mindset that “Been good at video game means you have no life or its makes you uncool“. You get what I mean? That’s how it comes across to me. Not to mention that some of these game journalist have this weird sense of ego around them but that’s a different topic.
I’ve seen people compare reviewing games with the likes of movies and music and that in these fields you don’t have to make movies/music to review these platform so the same can be said about games. But that argument in my opinion. Gaming is a completely different market and is consumed completely differently. Unfortunately, you gotta “Git Gud” to review these games. You gotta get hands on with the game, along with visually and audibly reviewing the game. There’s no exception to it.
When I come to hear an opinion, information, or a review of a particular game, I’ll naturally assume that you’re competent enough to provide this insight on these games. That you have the ability to play this game at a moderately level. I’m not saying, that you gotta be a fucking beast at the game, but be good enough so that a certain aspect in a game that a noob would incredibly difficult, you would find normal.
What do you guys think? Share your thought with me!
