(for his recent article on Balan Wonderworld)
The hate for Stuart Gipp says a lot more about the gaming community than it does about him. If you read the full article you can tell he is someone who takes this stuff seriously. This isn’t a case of a games journalist getting facts blatantly wrong that show they have no idea what they are talking about. It isn’t even a case of a games journalist showing an inability to play games at level near the majority of their audience.
Why don’t most people realize this?
More than likely they did not read the full article. This is not a big deal. It is just an article about the overly and unfairly negative reaction to a video game that isn’t particularly fun. Making fun of it on Twitter isn’t a big deal either, though it doesn’t reflect on you particularly well.
Maybe you think you read the whole thing and have logical reasoning for why the points he made were completely ridiculous. If so, you should tell the world why, because such a thing has yet to be pushed to the top by social media.
Honesty, there were better ways to make this point than the way Stuart used. It’s not exactly fair that he should have to write in a certain way, but that is just how it is. However, some of the demands people have of games journalists and people giving their opinion in general are simply ridiculous.
All criticism is valid!
One idea that is getting spread around regarding this topic is that all criticism is valid. This sounds good but practically all it does is help biased and unreasonable opinions get pushed as gospel, which doesn’t help anybody (that deserves help, at least).
You can dislike a game for any reason. Maybe you hate a game because it uses the L button while you prefer the R button. However, if you look up what valid means, this does not fit the definition. More than likely by valid you mean valid to you. Still, that is an odd choice of words but it is obvious what it is supposed to mean.
What “all criticism is valid” really means is that you should respect other peoples’ opinions, no matter how blatantly not valid they are to a fair minded person. Some people even take respect to the point that they pretend to agree. That is fine. How nice you want to be is up to you. What isn’t nice, though, is that Balan Wonderworld now gets to be the victim of this. I guess we shouldn’t be nice to Yuji Naka and all the developers working under him, though.
Instead, we should all agree to give nonsensical criticisms to his game as the collective gaming community. Why shouldn’t we, since all criticism is valid, after all? In fact, it is even more valid if more of us say it is true. If we bully them enough, developers will finally get the message that we don’t want games that only use one button. We will finally stifle the one button game design space, saving the game industry from games that only use one button. These games are inherently bad after all, as our experience with one of them has shown us.
You are not a master game designer.
Maybe you are thinking that you never claimed to be. If you think your criticisms are valid on the basis of them being yours, and you truly believe this, that is what you are saying. No matter the reason why you might think this, it isn’t true. Not even the best game directors are immune to making frequent mistakes in the area of game design.
If you can realize this, which you should, you should also realize that if you dislike a game for a reason that you can’t or don’t defend, you are probably wrong. It is okay to be wrong if you want, but bullying others into also being as wrong as you isn’t. Demanding that games journalists blindly accept illogical complaints and instead act like they are the ones who are being illogical for disagreeing with them is not asking them to be honest or truthful. The games journalist’s first duty when giving an opinion about a game should be to give the game’s developers a fair chance. If that means telling people who are wrong that they are wrong, then it would be wrong to not do so.
If you want games to actually improve and not just bend to the pointless subjective demands of an online vocal minority, you should support people who are willing to work to get the truth and challenge unfair criticism.
If you decide to buy the not particularly fun game in question through one of the links below this blog will receive a commission.
