Can a video game journalist also be a video game critic?

[Alex P]

I've been wondering about this for a while.

As the title suggests, do you believe a person who reports on the video gaming industry should be precluded from writing criticisms of individual games?

I'm not talking about sharing opinions or commentary in news stories or features, which I believe should be kept separate regardless.

I'm asking if a person who writes news should also be allowed to write reviews, and vice-versa, either for the same publication or another.

Do you think an inherent conflict exists? Should it be just one or the other?

Or does no conflict exist? Does one not undermine the other?

[Roderick]

I see no reason why the two should be mutually exclusive. The one doesn't compromise the ability to write the other. Or am I missing a crucial element here?

[elmuerte]

I agree with Rodi. The former reports on the development of the product, and the latter reports on the product itself.

[Ginger]

I can see a slight potential for conflict, if u want the exclusive bits of news from companies you need sources in those companies and if you are a reviewer and slate their product you may be jeopardise those sources. However I feel an individual performing both roles doesn't heighten the chance of the corruption of journalistic creditability more than two separate individuals performing the roles, the same implicit threats of a news black out or withdrawal of ad campaigns could pressure a publication to be nicer than it should be.

[elmuerte]

I don't you could consider what you describe to be journalism or even news. When you take those "bribes" you are nothing more than an extension of the PR dept. of that company. Journalism requires integrity.

[Roderick]

I don't think the video game critic versus editor-in-chief or magazine/publisher relations guy was implied in the question.

[DanJW]

I think a critic in isolation would be the worse for it. If they are also a 'journalist' or have some other insight into the industry then they know more about how games are made, how developers are run, the people who were involved, the kind of conflicts that happen behind the scenes, what went into actually making the game. Without that knowledge, the critic is just.. pulling shit out of his arse (as they say)

[Horticulture Tycoon]

Wait a minute now, if knowledge of things such as how the company is run, who the people involved were, or what events happened behind the scenes, if those things affect your review, well then almost by definition your job as a journalist is conflicting with your job as a critic. Your job is to review the game, and those things are not in the game.

Of course you can't pretend that the game exists in a vacuum, but to say that knowledge of those things is essential to review a game, I couldn't disagree more strongly with that. The reviewer's knowledge of those things should be set aside, ideally. Isolation might not be realistic, but intellectual compartmentalization should be a skill every game reviewer posesses.

[DanJW]

Oh yes, I'm not saying that a game should be marked up or down depending on what happened in its creation (if scores and reviews are what you mean by 'critic'). But I do think familiarity with such things helps deepen the understanding of games, and what they can and can't do.

[Alex P]

That was my primary concern. That by having such a close relationship with the studio responsible for a particular title over the course of its development, any objectivity when critiquing the game would go out the window.

It's akin to a film reviewer touring the sets of Apocalypse Now during its filming and delivering a verdict that was positive because "the movie took 16 months to film and almost killed Francis Ford Coppola."

Maybe knowing all the blood and sweat that went into a game shouldn't be a possible consideration when objectively critiquing a game.

[gdf]

Most of the time, they're both anyway.

That's what I want to do

It's definitely true to say that no other factors should be considered when assessing a game's merits, however knowledge of certain events could possibly be used to explain certain positives or negatives. Don't be less harsh on a shitty game because it had a turbulent development, but an awareness of the surrounding trouble would be useful to have.

Hype and internet culture have spoiled reviews to an extent; Citizen Killzone is a prime example, perhaps the most severe yet.

[Roderick]

A game, movie or whatever form of art's context shouldn't be considered? But that's ridiculous. Everything has a context, that will alter the way things are perceived. If a game is made by people I know, my actual enjoyment of the game will be increased, because it is mixed with admiration, familiarity, all sorts of things. If I know a team went through hell to do something, their achievements will ring all the trueer. Context is everything! That's what makes reviewing stuff so goddamn impossible. There is no way to objectively approach these things because there is no standard of how to experience anything.

That's why it's important for reviewers to give that context in the reviews themselves, so the reader can see how the thought process went. In the end, no one can tell you how you're going to experience something, because everyone enters from a different angle.

Sorry for the rant!

[gdf]

Good point though Rodi!

[Jake]

Yes

[Chris]

That was my primary concern. That by having such a close relationship with the studio responsible for a particular title over the course of its development, any objectivity when critiquing the game would go out the window.

It's akin to a film reviewer touring the sets of Apocalypse Now during its filming and delivering a verdict that was positive because "the movie took 16 months to film and almost killed Francis Ford Coppola."

Maybe knowing all the blood and sweat that went into a game shouldn't be a possible consideration when objectively critiquing a game.

Well, I think there's a difference between "reviews" and "criticism."

I think that criticism very well could take into account the fact that Apocalypse Now almost killed Francis Ford Coppola. Criticism isn't objective, it's holistic. Criticism, used in the context it's used in the phrase "film criticism," can really take anything into account -- the critic's own life experiences, the circumstances surrounding the creation of the work in question, and so on.

If you're reviewing something, which has a much more objective aim -- something that deals purely with a final product and usually issues some kind of recommendation to the reader, numerical or otherwise -- then ideally yes you would keep those two sides separate. That said, that's not usually practical in the games industry or most other entertainment industries, because most publications that both report on the thing and review the thing don't really have enough budget or resources to maintain dedicated separate staff for both goals.

[syntheticgerbil]

I think that criticism very well could take into account the fact that Apocalypse Now almost killed Francis Ford Coppola.

Sure it wasn't this?

[Alex P]

Good discussion here, thanks for the thoughts everyone.