Why do music critics think they aren't salespeople? etc.

But maybe it's all tap dancing here about the forms of this forum?

I guess so, but that world is so foreign to me that I just never gave it much thought.

This statement is wrong. There is a TON of authorial control in video games. Although maybe less now in some games, esp. MMOs and such. But more often than not, single-player action games are giving you the illusion of choice, not actual choice. Your choices are limited by the creators. The world and the mood and the setting is created for you. The (finite) number of actions you are enabled to make is limited by the creator. It's certainly a less linear entertaiment experience than, say, reading a book or watching a movie, but it's usually more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book than this limitless world of possibilities.

And frankly, as a game journalist I get really fucking sick of "real critics" talking down to me like I'm a child. I try my best to address the themes and artistry and how well a game is crafted and - when appropriate - how a game makes me feel, how affecting the plot is.

That said, there's a certain level of - yes - technical information that's CRUCIAL to what I do....For example...in musical terms, on a "technincal" level, the production on an old Guided By Voices record sucks. However, for a lot of people the lo-fi sound is exactly what the music needs, even adds the "magic" or whatever....There's no analog to this in games. I'm not saying that there aren't games that can overcome less than great graphics with good gameplay, art design, humor, etc (Katamari Damacy for example)....

BUT, in a first-person shooter, there's absolutely nothing about having shitty textures or pop-up or environmental fog or frame rate lag or spotty targeting that will make the experience better. This is absolutely true 100 percent of the time. Now, it could still be fun or affecting or compelling DESPITE these problems, but the problems are still detracting from the experience it could have been.

Now, if you want someone to wax all poetic about games, that's fine, but there are things that need to be communicated because the audience has to INTERACT with these games, they have to WORK on a certain level, I think that my better reviews can address both the artistry/emotion and the technical levels of games, or at least that's what I hope to do on my best days.

But to hold what we do to the same standards that are required of good music or film criticism is ludicrous, games are a different, unique art form, and the writing must be different.

All this is not to say that game writing has traditionally lagged behind the criticisms of other disciplines and I'm sure that I could do a much better job than I do.

And, with all due respect, suck my dick.

also, try reviewing six shitty Sonic the fucking Hedgehog games a year.

Next up: Pac-Man Rally, a $20 cart racing game for PS2...I wonder what post-modern themes I can divine out of this enigmatic tour de force?

Not MAJOR by any means, but this might be along the lines of what you're looking for:

http://www.gamersquarter.com/

There's good stuff in Matt's mag and Play as well. Maybe Chuck just glanced through a Gamepro or Nintendo Power or something.

O RLLY

http://www.lectures.org/images/Authors/marcusim.gif

Hmm,
"Retro" 8-bit gaming fetishism (or whatever you want to call it) is very analogous to lo-fi fetishism in music, wouldn't you say?

and when journo critics write big idea pieces they are writing sales pitches for their books.

bzzzzt

-- CDDB (cdd...), June 24th, 2006. (Dan Deluca)

sort of....I'd put it more like folk music of the early 60s, Pete Seeger, etc, sort of trying to preserve the lost arts of the past....whereas, lo-fi 4 trackers were sort of pioneering a new sound of sorts, i mean, for what it's worth, GBV or Sebadoh didn't really SOUND like stuff from the past.

And music often posits itself as "art". Music and music criticism, therefore, are informed by the broader discourse on art and culture.

Video games are different. Almost nobody buys video games as art, and almost nobody comments on video games as art. There is no active thread of critical dialogue connecting video game consumers and producers to "legitimate" artists and critical thinkers.

Sure, some critics may approach video games as pure "fine art", but they do so in a vacuum. The consumers and producers aren't listening to them, and no one who isn't getting published in [insert name of hopelessly obsure crit journal here] ever reads their writing.

That's why video game reviews are pretty much just consumer advice: very few people are concerned with the artistic & culture implications of "Splinter Cell".

Hahaha uh...Corey Archangel and the Whitney Biennial may have something to say about all that. Also, Stephen Berlin Johnson.

At least since the 1970s, rock music has entertained fantasies of its own art-hood, and so has engaged with itself as art, and even with the critical discourse in art. As a result, rock consumers often see themselves as "art lovers", with tastes informed as much by their own ideas about art, culture and meaning as by how the music functions as dancefloor fodder at the sock-hop.

Popular music often asks that its audience experience it as self-expression, as cultural commentary, as formal experimentation, and even as a response to an ongoing critical dialogue (e.g., Pavement's "Fillmore Jive"). Music concerns itself with questions of authenticity, integrity, purity and honesty of expression.

In popular music, the communcation channels between "critics", theorists, practicioners, corporate entities and audiences are open and functional in all directions. Fans, critics and theorists all approach pop music as art. Musicians, in turn, understand this and see themselves in similar terms, and the corporations involved exploit this in promoting artists and their products.

But video games just don't work that way. Given the understanding that there may be occasion exceptions, video game designers do not function with complete artistic autonomy, as "auteurs" lionized by critics and audiences who view their works as expressions of the self.

While the art-world may have ideas about video games, and while certain artists may appropriate the "video game" as object or subject, these endeavors remain totally divorced from the mainstream design, production, marketing and consumption of video games.

While the art-world may have ideas about video games, and while certain artists may appropriate the "video game" as object or subject, these endeavors remain totally divorced from the mainstream design, production, marketing and consumption of video games.

This ignores speculative fiction written about future video game scenarios and their interaction with real life, sociology studies on multiplayer online games, music made for video games that is reviewed as separate work and has influenced modern music or in fact now incorporates modern music, video installations that encourage "play" that render artworks indistinguishable from video games, among others. The concept of "play" is key among certain art fields.

Given the understanding that there may be occasion exceptions, video game designers do not function with complete artistic autonomy, as "auteurs" lionized by critics and audiences who view their works as expressions of the self.

This is true in most fields. While some movie directors are auteurs, I can look at the list of current best-selling films and find a handful of directors creating movies based on commercial properties that have strict image and plot control based on business concerns. Just as in film, there are a number of video game auteurs with particular themes. Katamari Damacy as a recent example, and I know that Rez, Lumines, and Space Channel 5 were also the brainchild of one game studio. Video games are more collaborative due to the number of people needed to create content and to code the game, but that doesn't mean that there are not teams that are built on creative vision as opposed to economic necessity.

will wright and shigeru miyamoto are two guys I can think of as legitimate legends/autuers, they both have themes and aesthetics that are really identifiable.

the brainchild of one game studio.
legends/autuers
also back in the day there was the (highly respected) game studio Treasure...they certainly had their own style/aesthetic going on, they were innovative, etc

"Retro gaming fetishism" taps into this as well, Nintendo being one example...they're constantly throwing in references to their "lo-fi" days, whether it's keeping the old 8-bit coin sound, or whatever. I'd *really* love to see this taken to an extreme! A true "guided by voices" of gaming. Something that's entirely exploitative of retro gaming fetishism (yet something new altogether). In fact I've long dreamed of this style of game...

I agree with you, but only to a limited extent. I think that we're probably in the infancy of the video game as a popular art form. In the long run, there's every reason to suppose that commercial video games might come to be seen/discussed in "fine art" terms, and even to be produced with such concerns in mind.

But that's only just barely beginning to happen, on the fringes of both "the art world" and the video game industry. For the most part, our interaction with video games is dominated by questions of functionality, entertainment value, objective "quality" and economic worth.

Not that this kind of "crit" is necessarily all that great a read, but to be honest, I wish more "real criticism" contained actual discussion of, like, the music. There seems to be allergies on both sides of this thing to appeasing the other.

...although there are people that haven't sold a lot of games that keep getting approved to do new projects...like Tim Schaefer from DoubleFine (he's done games like Escape from Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Psychonauts)...i really admire tim, he's a smart guy and has a real unique aesthetic, but dude can't move units to save his life it seems...psychonauts was criminally overlooked...he keeps working though....