#GamerGate Wants Objective Video Game Reviews: What Would Roger Ebert Do?

[CosaNostra]

One of the issues raised by #GamerGate is the question of objective reviews. There is a fairly pervasive view among #GamerGate supporters that “social justice†advocacy has somehow infected video game reviews. Gone are the days of reviews focusing only on game mechanics, graphics, and other fairly quantifiable things. Now games are losing points because they have busty, scantily clad women.

On its face, this complaint strikes me as pretty silly. Criticism is a fairly personal business. If we’re bothered by what we perceive as sexism, we should convey this to our readers. If we find a game overly violent, we should report this fact. As a critic, it’s our job to write about everything that impacts our enjoyment of a game, whether we think the writing is bad, or the political message in a game is hamfisted, or whatever else.

Score!

Still, the sad reality is that everything comes down to a score, and to Metacritic’s sway over the industry. Oddly enough, prior to #GamerGate, the main complaint we heard from gamers was that reviewers only handed out reviews in the 7-10 range, and were far too generous to IPs such as Call of Duty, Mass Effect, and so forth.

Last-Boy-Scout

Now the complaint is two-fold:

First, that reviewers—with their social justice politicking—are themselves overly influential in the industry, foisting their political views on game developers and cowing them into adhering to the press’s standards for “equality†and such; and second, that indie games have somehow gained too much ground with the gaming press, and that unremarkable games are getting overhyped thanks to their politics and relationships between indie developers and the media.

These are both overly paranoid complaints. The almighty dollar still speaks the loudest, and the biggest selling games—just like the Transformers and the other “blockbuster†films—generally ignore the critics. Two things are almost always true about every Michael Bay film: Critics hate them and they make tons of money. Games and the role of game critics are no different.

Meanwhile, indie games still inspire far fewer clicks online and far less buzz than covering the biggest AAA games. Basically any coverage they can get is welcome, since it’s such a real struggle to get any attention under the shadow of AAA. This is blatantly obvious at game conferences. The AAA titles have lines out the door. Indie devs hawk their wares.

The Last Boy Scout

But what about the question of objective reviews? What about the notion that perhaps we shouldn’t let our political views too greatly influence our reviews of video games?

For this, I turn to film yet again, and to the late, great Roger Ebert. I stumbled across his review of The Last Boyscout the other day—a hugely controversial film when it came out, largely because so many viewed the film as deeply misogynistic.

Ebert was no exception. He writes that the “only consistent theme of the film is its hatred of women.â€

Still, he acknowledges that the â€material survives its own complete cynicism and somehow actually works.â€

“Watching it,†writes Ebert, “I felt like some weatherbeaten innocent from an earlier, simpler time. My distaste was irrelevant.â€

That’s an interesting line. Perhaps the greatest film critic of all time writes that his distaste for the violence and apparent hatred toward women in the film was “irrelevant.†That’s because:

    I am a reporter. I must report not only the film’s willingness to degrade women and children. I must also report the film’s slick, clever professionalism. As I said before, this film works. Despite any objection I may have felt, it plays well with an audience (although some of the people around me seemed disturbed by an extended scene in which Willis and his child curse each other).

    The movie has a lot of laughs, its action sequences are thrilling, its surprises are startling, and it shows a real ingenuity in the ways by which it gets Willis into, and out of, trouble.

Ebert masterfully reports on both the film’s unpleasant elements and his observations of the film’s quality, that it “shows a real ingenuity†and so forth.

He concludes with a conundrum familiar to anyone who has written about video games, but perhaps never quite so eloquently vocalized by anyone in the video game press:

    “The Last Boy Scout†is a superb example of what it is: a glossy, skillful, cynical, smart, utterly corrupt and vilely misogynistic action thriller. How is the critic to respond? To give it a negative review would be dishonest, because it is such a skillful and well-crafted movie. To be positive is to seem to approve its sickness about women. I’ll give it three stars. As for my thumb, I’ll use it and my forefinger to hold my nose.

To me this is easily the best example of an “objective†review I can conjure. Ebert acknowledges his own perspective, but never denies the quality of the film itself. He clearly sets out his decision regarding the number of stars he hands out (3 out of 4, or “goodâ€) and cleverly gives the film his thumbs up while at the same time holding his nose.

Perhaps this is a template for video game criticism.

Game critics need to be able to acknowledge both a game’s qualities and speak clearly about how its story or portrayal of women, etc. influences their experience of the game. The final score needs to be fair to the product’s quality as a whole, and transparently so.

Meanwhile, readers need to accept that each critic will weight his or her review differently, and that the search for the “objective†reviewer is futile. A reviewer who ignores politics or gender issues in their review entirely is simply biased in another direction. Balance is crucial.

Four Stars!

Part of the problem may be our scoring system for video games. There’s something about the four-star system that’s simpler and more honest than a ten point scale. Gone are the weird decimals. Gone is the tendency to weight scores toward the upper end of the scale. A great movie or game simply gets four stars. A good movie or game gets three. A mediocre movie or game gets two. And a bad movie or game gets one. It’s nice and tidy, and it allows reviewers to give a “good†review score to a good game while still criticizing its less savory aspects, much as Ebert does with The Last Boy Scout.

(Read my discussion of the ten-point review scale here.)

Regardless of this idea or another, the discussion is important—much as the discussion of gender and equality in video games and other entertainment is important. I may often disagree with so-called SJWs or feminists on what qualifies as misogynistic, but their critique is still valid. As are smart and well-reasoned rebuttals. I am a fan of discussion and debate. I don’t think we should be afraid of dissent and disagreement.

No system will please everyone, of course. This is impossible. Fanboys will always see a review score as too low. And haters gonna hate, as the saying goes. You can’t make everybody happy, and criticism isn’t about making people happy to begin with. But striving toward better criticism is a worthy goal.