The Point of Reviews

A little over a month ago, Jeff posted what was ostensibly a review of Halo Infinite to the site. More resolutely, it was an article about the obsolescence of professional reviews in a world where games like Halo Infinite are effectively free. Or at least, part of them is free, and part of them is the cherry on top of an affordable subscription service that critics would already recommend. Jeff argued that where reviews were once there to demystify whether a game was worth your money, they now serve to explore the social context around games, conclude whether they're worth your time, and for internet weirdos to siphon fuel for their flame wars.

If you're reading this, you're probably someone with an acute interest in games writing, and me too. Meaning that it's worth us reflecting on what it would mean to read, or in my case, write about video games on the internet in a post-product reviews era. The start of a new year is a prime opportunity for figuring out what exactly you're doing with your time, or so I hear.

We should start with some clarifications: Halo Infinite and its fun-loving friends on the Xbox Game Pass come at a trivial cost, but most games aren't tied to a cheap-as-chips subscription service. You're likely to be paying about £15-£60 for a PC or console game, depending on where it sits on the spectrum from humble indie title to AAA dreadnought. A lot of those games go on sale, eventually getting their price slashed to a fraction of their RRP. Services such as The Epic Store and Xbox LIVE Gold also frequently distribute free and well sought-after games. Therefore, we could say the point stands that even F2P and Game Pass aside, product reviews are headed for the trash can of history. If you're considering burning £50 on a game, it's worth reading a brief article first. Less so if you're putting down £4.

But £4 isn't nothing, and there are still all sorts of contexts in which people splash a lot more than that on a game. Some games and their DLC never drop dramatically in price: look at the first-party Switch releases or any Paradox Interactive expansion packs. Additionally, a lot of players want to buy games at launch instead of waiting for a price drop. And when it comes to F2P games, one consumer could spend $0 on one, and another could spend $50. For some of these games, it's not even clear what product and pricing options you have from the outside. They're a cat's cradle of multi-tier subscriptions, funny money, microtransactions, and premium passes.

As Jeff said, we also invest minutes or hours into a game, not just cash. There's more cheap media in the heap than ever, and so, a dizzying number of pitches on where to spend your leisure time. You'd think that between that and many games still laying heavy on peoples' wallets, we'd see as much, if not more demand, for reviews from stalwart publications. And it would make sense that you'd begin to see reviews refocus around those games which draw more income from a certain segment of the population or are more complicated to understand as value prospects. Neither of which has happened at the Polygons and IGNs of the world. Reviews still feel like a secondary priority for many major outlets, or at best, one of multiple primary projects, and they roughly cover the same kinds of games they did ten years ago.

So, here's our question: where is this influx of new reviews we should be seeing? There's no one answer, but it would make sense that video game megafans might retreat from reviews as extended video previews of games have become the norm. Games tend to have play loops that are much easier to understand and assess by seeing them in action rather than reading an explanation of them. Video reviews can demo the audio and visual components of video games. However, they still chop up games footage and attempt to summarise the experience rather than letting them play out in front of the prospective player. I think this is why Jeff says that Quick Looks are a preferable means for Giant Bomb to communicate what a game is, and even why this site started recording them, in the first place.

I hasten to add that watching a game is very different from playing one. If you have a Final Fantasy-length story or DotA-deep mechanics, even an hour-long recording of the game will fail to represent the long-term journey with it. However, most of the titles that sell aren't fifty hour-long JRPGs or baffling strategy brainteasers. There's also a general lack of game design education that can obscure the relevance of first-hand gameplay experiences for wider audiences.

We can further explain the diminishment of pro reviews by noting that entertainment is more popular than non-fiction, and media with a personal touch is more popular than that stuffed with dry facts. So, a general audience will be more interested in games entertainment than games education. They turn to Twitch streams, Twitter feeds, and personalities clowning about on YouTube rather than the latest Eurogamer write-ups. When they do rely on informative games media, they prefer it to come in a package that has a human face and some fun factor. Again, Quick Looks fit the profile here.

And people may have more confidence in games now than they did thirty or forty years ago, suggesting they'd deprioritise quality checks. When consoles were first getting off the ground, the market was rife was with shocking clunkers and cash grab clones. For a long while after, substandard licensed games were everywhere, and plenty of releases from eminent studios were okay affairs that could fill ten or so hours. Many were the kind of titles we called 7/10, but that critics might have called 5/10 if scores had been evenly distributed along the scale. I'm not saying that reviews should have been scored that way, just that they could have been.

There have been some memorabledisappointments from prominent studios in recent years. The major upsets are likely to have some effect on how people think about and buy interactive entertainment, and I would argue that they represent a need to check in more often with reviewers. However, most headline games today are made to what the public would call a high degree of technical and aesthetic competency. Plus, a lot of them guarantee tens, if not hundreds of hours, of playtime.

Mainstream audiences will also harbour no awareness or only a passing awareness of scandals. Try asking the average Wordle user what No Man's Sky is. And a lot of the people vocally distressed about the quality of blockbuster games are pre-ordering them without reading the reviews anyway. There is an unfortunate trend now of marketers skipping the middle man and talking directly to gamers without the filter of the editorial media, and then gamers uncritically accepting their marketing as unbiased previews. It's one more bit of bad news for anyone looking to write product summaries for a living.

As one of my favourite critics, Chris Franklin, discussed back in 2019, dedicated reviews may also seem surplus to requirements for anyone browsing the absurdly successful Steam store. That platform programmatically recommends what the user plays next. It also summarises the user reaction for any one game to spit out average ratings for them like "Very Positive" or "Mixed". To add to Franklin's points, many game stores like Origin or the Xbox store also have a publisher manually suggest what the player should purchase. And with this talk of game recommendations on game platforms, we're a hair's breadth from a much simpler answer for why there isn't an unstoppable new wave of product criticism: the answer is that there is.

The internet is flooded with an embarrassment of user reviews. The critical process has been democratised, opening it up for millions who never would have otherwise been heard. The demand for the professional review is not declining because the call for media guidance has fallen silent. Ironically, it's shrinking partly because the economy worked out a way to generate tons of critical coverage for products without paying the people writing it. Systems like the "Overall Rating" on Steam exist precisely because those platforms have to help their audience make sense of the incomprehensible amount of grassroots feedback.

Most user reviews are much less descriptive, eloquent, and focused than professional reviews. Yet, they get the job done for the average reader: someone who is looking for quick, simple tips on what to buy rather than trying to satisfy a palette for reviews altered by years of reading Stephanie Sterling and Greg Miller. These user reviews tend to be much more accessible for the average customer because they don't have to go out of their way to find them; they can peep them right on the same page where they purchase the product. That might not sound like a big difference, but the suits making money off of the internet are aware that requiring an extra click or two to reach some content can be the difference between it being seen by everyone and it being seen by only the particularly hungry fans.

Users may even trust another Joe shmoe like them more than they trust someone who writes for a gaming publication, and user reviews tend to be a lot shorter than professional reviews. Gamers want to read criticism to ensure they don't waste their time. However, if time is what matters to you, then maybe you don't want to burn your precious minutes reading a long article about a game, either.

To go back to Franklin's arguments, he reflects that on social media sites, algorithms tend to promote a small number of high-profile videos at the expense of all others. The result is that a few video game entertainers are getting a lot more attention than anyone else, including many video reviewers. He goes on to reference research by FanCensus that showed while the top 10 games influencers in 2018 covered 326 games, in 2019, they showed just 28. And to weigh in personally on this one: we all know that if you want to make half a living on Twitch, there's a narrow stable of games from which you have to select.

All this is to say that talk about most of the video games that come out is no longer pulling in the eyeballs that it used to. Capital seems to be consolidating around a smaller gaggle of products, brands, and companies every year, and the games sector has not been spared. We'd also be silly not to view the drop-off of the review in the context of the waning of traditional editorial and journalistic work. Through some combination of contemporary media eating writers' lunches and investors losinginterest in anything but the most buzz-worthy content, good old-fashioned opinions-on-page authorship is no longer the moneymaker it once was.

I don't want to be overdramatic about this. Most of the dependable sites reviewing games five years ago are still doing so today. Plus, there's an ever-growing movement of smaller creators on web platforms making structured, long-form product reviews. Because there are still people who have money and time on the line and want to know they're making the right choice. Whether profitable or not, that kind of product review still has a place, even if the number of words worth committing to it may need to vary based on how long the game is or whether it's on Game Pass.

There are also a few reviewers out there that aren't part of the old guard of successful game review sites, but do well for themselves in YouTube cliques we might never have heard of. Many of Gameranx's Before You Buy video reviews have pulled in upwards of 500,000 views, with some breaking a million. Watches on Angry Joe's reviews also generally exceed a million. And as Jeff said, the body of big C "Criticism" is only growing in potential.

Criticism in that sense is not just placing games in a larger social context. Think of what "criticism" has meant to literature. It's exploring what the work is, what it's communicating, what aesthetic patterns it contains, and how it constructs its identity, message, and aesthetic. Video game Criticism can do the same thing for this creative form. However, what's more unexpected is that, like high criticism, product reviews have always served social functions beyond marshalling customers through marketplaces.

Penning reviews can be a means of self-expression. There are creative decisions to make when authoring any articles and catharsis in offloading your opinions and maybe having them seen by other people. Writing reviews can be a way to converse and communicate. They start and continue conversations that reverberate through whole communities. They're part of how we codify gaming culture: a collective understanding of what games mean to us as a whole. Reviewing isn't the only way to do that, but it is a very efficient and clear communication method.

And for me, at least, writing criticism about games helps me learn more about my own opinions and the format generally. I have to take vague feelings that I might only be semi-conscious of and condense them into concrete, conscious statements about a game and why it gives me those impressions. The writing process then causes more thoughts about games to pop into my head. Plus, even for a product review, I might have to do a little bit of research which can teach me and remind me more about the medium.

I'm a devout believer that reading reviews can help people realise what they feel about a game. Sometimes you think something that you're not fully aware of until you see it typed out in front of you. Reading reviews can also be entertaining and interesting and make you feel a little more connected to the reviewer. Old-school Gamespot and IGN are proof enough that someone's personality can shine through in their product criticism. And once you've read enough reviews, you begin to learn a little something about how to assess games for yourself.

While Criticism tends to have different goals and draw from different schools of thought than product reviews, you can recognise the aforementioned effects emanating from both. In both styles of criticism, the reader and writer can learn more about games, experience expression, and establish cultural truths. "The female character design in Dead or Alive is informed by the history of sexually objectified women in media" is a Critical statement about the social context around a game. But then, so is "Temtem plays off of the nostalgia of 90s kids", and you'd find that in the average product review. "Boyfriend Dungeon made me aware of the need to set boundaries in my relationships" is a statement about how your mindset becomes a lens through which you interpret a game, but then so is "I want to taste the Bugsnax".

For my part, I'll continue talking about individual games, especially from viewpoints that are a little newer or neglected in gaming discussions. But what's really interested me in putting together this blog are the ways to talk about games that have wide-reaching ramifications. Telling people what one game is saying or what one game is worth are still highly valuable missions. However, I'm more invested in games writing's ability to teach people about how they might assess any game in the medium, bind together whole communities, and where games hook into entire societies, histories, and bodies of thought. I feel deeply thankful to be a tiny part of that exploration. Thanks for reading.

Thank you for the write-up! I think Jeff is correct about how it doesn't really make sense for the site to continue writing reviews in today's environment. I just wish they still wrote something, as I oftentimes enjoy reading more than watching a video, especially for analysis as it gives me more room to mull the ideas over and come to my own conclusion. Oh well, I guess that's what the forums are for.

That's a big topic, a long review and an even longer post...

It's also 2am where I'm at, so I'll have to come back to this one when I can do it some justice. Really glad someone made this thread, though: it's a good one!

Just to expand on this a little in a personal context, since I've occasionally thought of writing something similar in response to Jeff's Halo review as someone who blogs far too much on here, that it's my take that the value of a written review has shifted moreso than dissipated in response to the current game industry.

Specifically, we're living in an era where we have a very prominent Indie sector producing a massive number of games per annum of a certain timelessness, chiefly in the sense that most are intentional throwbacks and/or don't prioritize state-of-the-art graphics (usually out of budgetary necessity) but instead distinctive art direction. Game design continues to evolve even within the Indie sector, the ongoing influx of Souls mechanics in explormers being one such example, but most Indies either fashion themselves on archaic, ageless templates and modernize from there or try something entirely new that eludes any attempts at imitation (say, a The Return of the Obra Dinn). When I started with the Indie reviews it was mostly to force myself to write something every week, but it occurred to me that if you could come across any Indie made in the last ten years and enjoy it as if it was freshly released that weekend, reviews of same would also endure. Perusing the vast directories of Steam or PSN or the Switch eShop, especially when the sales have reduced everything to peanuts, makes a review from a name you recognize that much more valuable.

Also, when the size of these games is such that it takes longer to produce a video on one than to actually complete it, it feels like the humble written rundown is a far more efficient way of getting your thoughts out there. (Streamers sidestep the production problem, but unless they regularly archive their streams on YouTube most of those impressions become lost to time.)

Jeff could have said the same thing a decade ago with lets plays.

In a world where people have access to an nearly infinite amount of content reviews should be more important than ever, finding what to watch on Netflix can be an incredibly frustration experience but I can always watch the first 30min of a show it's a lot harder with a game.

Beyond the aggregate score weather this game is a train wreck or not most of the major sites are pretty poor at reviews, often overlooking the key part of a game review does it actually work and how well does it run.

For me I read reviews looking for specific call backs to games I already know. So for me the buzzwords used make a difference. I refuse to watch YouTube reviews because every shill can’t just review a game. They think that somehow their review for Mario Sunshine in 2019 is somehow going to get them out of French fry orbit. I probably only read giantbomb user reviews because it’s not the usual videogame outlet cookie cutter parody of itself. Kind of like nextlander trying to make play on words out of everything. Just not cute anymore.

I've said it before on this site, but if all you're going to say about a game is "it's on Game Pass so try it out yourself" then you're not providing any value to anybody, so that's something to keep in mind for businesses that want to continue existing. Most people don't enjoy criticizing products that someone, especially an indie developer, has poured their heart and soul into, but ultimately that is literally the job of a critic and I'm seeing a lot of that recently where a person clearly didn't enjoy a game, but they don't feel comfortable saying it and instead make excuses for the product, which is just doing a disservice to their audience will ultimately make some of them go away. I am talking about Giant Bomb specifically because that is my main source of video game information.

Even if a game is free, no matter how you acquired it, there is still a sizeable time investment to be put into a game. Back in the NES days all you did was jump and shoot so you could quickly get a feel for a game. But nowadays a typical game has hours upon hours of tutorials and world building before you actually get into the meat of the game, so there is a somewhat significant time investment for you to lose if you don't end up liking a game that you could have spent on some other game.

I have recently found that I am more likely to read reviews after completing a game than before starting it. It is as if having a conversation about the game with the reviewer, even if they don't respond. Sometimes you'll also avoid spoilers, sometimes you come across stuff you wish you had known. And you can easily see which reviews actually played and thought about a game and which ones rushed out their review for clicks.

edit: With regards to Halo Infinite, people are saying that the campaign is around 10 hours and generally in the "good but not great" territory, and the multiplayer as we all know is free separately. $60 for that game is terrible value in today's landscape and needs to be called out, even if most people play it on Game Pass. They should have sliced that price in half when the multiplayer was made separate, Microsoft made GP look good by making the alternative look awful.

@apewins: I could link to another forum post where I said there is no value in a $60 single player halo. The game is $60 when paired with multiplayer. You go free to play well then I need a price break or a fair concession is battle passes for life…

I’m like you with reading reviews after the fact. I also like to see what stood out for other people that I found irrelevant. Take nextlanders game of the year and some of the characters in gotg for character of the year potential. After listening to them I really found their synopsis more of telling about how poor characters were in other games than how good they were in gotg.

I can’t decide if I’m looking to agree or disagree with other reviews. I guess a review I agree with just leads me to read the persons reviews for other games. I go down that rabbit hole to maybe see if they recommend other games. So if 5 reviews in and I’m on the same page I might buy/play a 6th game that wasn’t on my radar and then come back and keep that chain going until it breaks.

I used to be pretty much on the Jeff G train for most games. I think his love or burnout paradise was our most divergent take. Also he loves syndicate for some reason and I couldn’t get on board with that. So I enjoyed tracking his taste in game but we are no longer drift compatible.

Good read!

My hot take is that the death of scored reviews and product-review style coverage has been a massive detriment to smaller/"indie"/obscure/non-standard/otherwise "out there" games. I think the evolution of games coverage has been very kind to those who produce "takes" about how a particular genre, scene, or demographic is not properly represented or served in the games industry. But has simultaneously removed the games themselves from view completely to all but those who actively seek them out.

I think there was a lot of misplaced worry about old-school reviewers "not getting" a particularly artsy indie game or similar in the past. But I think an unfair 5/10 is infinitely preferable to the total void of coverage most such games receive today.

Granted reviews, or the absence of reviews, aren't the only things broken about game coverage. But for me it's their absence that has really entrenched the ability of big publishers/console makers to dominate the space (and billion dollar "indie" publishers to crowd everyone else out of the rest of the tablescraps)

I ultimately agree with a lot of what you and Jeff say about written reviews. Including your point that there is still critical analysis and written content out there for people that want it. I live for that stuff, even as I nod along with Jeff's take and write this.

But, like you said, the environment has changed. The nature of online content and it's consumption just doesn't cater to long form content anymore. This is especially true for written words, but it also applies to video and audio work. There are plenty of really well done video essays and podcasts out there that just get completely ignored or avoided because of their runtime. If what you're making isn't able to be consumed in 15 minutes or less, you are already narrowing down your potential audience by a great deal.

On top of that, my hot take is that critical thinking and the interest in it has deteriorated on the whole. The obvious answer to asking yourself how you feel about a game is to dig in and really critically think about it, and reading other people's critiques can help arm you for that, but... As previously said, people are caring less about that, because the environment we live in now further encourages both old and young people to do just the opposite. I'm sure there is a whole universe of reasons why that is, but in my opinion as long as The Algorithm determines our lives to the extent it does, I don't think it will ever change.