John Walker's Electronic House

Oh happy day.

A beautiful little soundbite emerges to play each and every time I read one of these legions of tards pronounce, “Reviews should be objective. Just because one person likes it, doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Edit: I would like to stress that I enjoy being proven wrong, and will willingly back down if out-argued, or concede confusion if unbalanced from my position. I say this because so often it’s assumed that someone’s stating something means that they will refuse to listen or change their mind. Also, this is not a cop-out for the below. These are my thoughts that I’ve had and are what I think at the time of writing. I currently think I’m right.

I appear to have forgotten how to go to sleep, and so after two hours of lying still, wide awake, I got up and flicked around the internet, and noticed that Kieron had finally posted a response to the idiotic ramblings of some failed writer on Slashdot about how he doesn’t like any videogames journalism.

Which has broken the damn for the thought I’ve been throwing against the wall for the last few weeks, biting my tongue on, but now tired and pissed off, will share.

For those who haven’t followed the current eruption of the idiot volcano, it has become the terribly in thing to respond to any piece of videogames writing with, “well, it’s just one person’s opinion, and opinions are subjective…” Now, of course this is a thick seam of nonsense that constantly bubbles around under the ground, but it’s recently that I’ve noticed the caps blowing of the mountains as this lazy non-thought is spouted on every forum, blog and comments thread.

There are two key responses. One most people will refuse to stop and consider for even a second, the other I hope will receive some, “Ooh – yes”s.

1) We’ve killed the expert

People bandy around the phrase ‘post-modernism’ with little thought. I had entire modules of my degree with the phrase in their title, despite no one giving a useful description of what was so ‘post’ about it. In fact, in a splendid display of hyper-appropriateness, it is the very nature of what people mislabel ‘post-modernism’ that leads to its mislabelling as such. It has to be something New. Post-enlightenment, Modernism required that we search for the New; replace the previous and out-moded religious and authoritarian regimes with the emerging authority of science and the specific expert. Beliefs and opinions were no longer subjected upon you by a self-enforced higher power (of whatever form), but by seeking the thoughts of the educated and learned expert on the matter. Glorious times. But the value of the Expert was not the inherent nature of Modernism. Modernism was merely the drive to replace the current with the New. And so that which is identified as ‘post’ Modernism is merely Modernism continuing its usual pattern. We’re replacing the current with the New, and this time the current is the Expert, and the replacement the Individual.

It is manifested in multifarious forms, all-encompassing and suffocatingly prevalent. Take medicine. Modernism began by giving us the trained and qualified Doctor, from whom we sought medical attention for our ailments. But now, as Modernism recycles itself (let’s call it Mod2, although I’m sure one could identify many other previous stages), the Doctor is pushed into a small corner, his opinion merely that, and the opinions of many to be taken on board before the Individual decides which is ‘right for them’. This is how we now have flim-flam and con-artistry like homeopathy – whereby an ailment is treated by giving a substance that causes the ailment in a healthy person, diluted down until it doesn’t exist any more, to the ill person, in return for vast sums of money (these substances used to be known as ‘snake oil’) – accepted as equals. Yes, we’ll seek the advice of the specialist who has trained for eight years to become a doctor then spent twenty years in his specialty, but we’ll also ask the person who wants to sell us water, the lady who will wave magnets near us, and the man who pokes our toes. So what if none of these ‘alternative medicines’ have never been shown to have any demonstrable effect above placebo in any tests ever – that’s testing by OLD Science methods. We’ll decide which one we think is right.

This is one example amongst a million, and also within that collection appears games criticism. Oh yes, that’s right – I’m about to argue that I’m an Expert. Quickly, reject his statements, where’s his modesty?! How dare he! Please note: this is the reaction of Mod2 in action. The action of one person claiming Expert is now understood as a threatening attempt to rob the Individual. If I am Expert over you, then your opinion, you the Individual, are challenged for your Holy Status. Another’s Expert status is an affront on the Individualist totalitarianism. And this is the first reason the ridiculous argument is dragged out on every occasion.

My claim is hardly immense. I suggest Expertise in whether adventure games are good or bad. It can hardly be considered boasting. Having played almost every available adventure game of the last fifteen years, I claim training and knowledge, and from this, some authority on the subject. Others are more Expert than me on the subject. I look up to them, and seek to learn more from them. Richard Cobbett springs immediately to mind.

But this notion remains intolerable – it is to suggest that the Individual should listen to the Expert, and we’ve killed the Expert.

2) We won’t admit we like something bad

I hope this gets a more positive reaction. It follows on from the previous example, but to prevent the tiresome suggestion that this is self-aggrandisation, I shall leap genres and Experts.

I consider Tim Stone to be an Expert on strategy games. I don’t know strategy games at all well, and don’t especially enjoy playing them. Were I to play a strategy game that is widely considered amongst strategy game Experts to be extremely good, I would be very unlikely to get pleasure from playing it. Were I to apply the logic of stage 1, I should be able to categorically state, without fear of the possibility of contradiction, that this game is a bad game. It fails to entertain me, and so it is not good. Nevermind Tim’s extensive knowledge, experience and understanding of the genre, and his educated ability to identify its strengths and performance – I disagree, and I, the Individual, cannot be questioned or challenged. But that is still stage 1.

Stage 2 becomes relevant when I find a strategy game that is widely considered by Experts in the matter to be very poor, but I enjoy it very much. Stage 2 suggests that they are wrong to think it a bad strategy game, because I, the Individual, am getting pleasure from playing it, and therefore it must be good.

What I am missing is that it’s very possible that I might be getting pleasure from playing a bad game.

This, also, is intolerable to the Individual. It threatens the totalitarian regime. It suggests that faults exist. It at once accepts that the Individual’s response to something might not dictate its inherent quality, and suggests that the Expert’s alternative response might be right.

I hope that an example of this is more immediately palatable via pop music. Take The Corrs’, ‘Play It On The Radio’. Someone might well enjoy this song. They might associate it with happy memories, or simply derive pleasure from the painstakingly simplistic structure. It’s immediately accessible, it’s instantly possible to sing along with, and it’s so astonishingly cynically titled that it will receive endless, eternal radio play. Thus it will gain familiarity, popularity, and enjoyment. But does that make it a good piece of music? Does it merit 95% when measured against all music? Could you put it alongside Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and say, “these two are equally as good”?

I would hope all ridiculous protests would be dropped this far in, and one could say, “No, it’s not as good. But I still really enjoy it and want to listen to it.”

And good. That is very good. In this particular case, with this particular song, it makes me worry for you, and the entire music industry, but good. Because we’ve reached a point where we can accept that even though one might rather drill their ears than listen to Mozart, and like nothing better than dancing around our room singing the voice-synthesised harmonies of Westlife into our hairbrushes, they might still recognise that Mozart is a better composer than Ronan Keating.

So is it then not equally possible that while I might enjoy playing this woeful RTS, and yet get nothing out of a game of Rome: Total War, it’s perfectly acceptable for me to recognise that one is not better than the other simply because of my visceral response, and that I should trust the Expert on this matter over my own ill-informed and under-educated reaction?

Conclusion

People are reacting angrily to every review they read, and indeed the simple existence of reviews, because they are now perceived as threats against their Individualist Holiness.

For one last time, in case it has not been clear, this is not a piece to say: ‘Everyone should listen to me because I’m an Expert and they’re idiots who don’t know anything’. This is a piece to say: Recognise those who are Experts, and accept that their Expertise is not a threat to you, that your Individualism is your lonely death, and that enjoying something bad does not make it good.

So we can get rid of comment threads on reviews now, can’t we?