Idle Thumbs 101: Introduction to Video Games

[castorp]

Just look at how things turned out when Porpentine of Rock Paper Shotgun dared to recommend a game where you play as a lesbian a while back, and that's on a site that's already pretty left-wing as far as gaming journalism goes.

Your link is broken I think (and it redirects to a cat story somehow). Was curious and I guess you meant this comment-thread (some horribly stupid stuff, but the RPS-readers handle it quite okay I'd say - but still, the stupid tends to emotionally outweigh the good for me in those cases, so people, read at your own risk).

 

Edit: Okay, I just noticed that in the above quote the link works. Äh, I'm not the only one who sees the cat in the F.E.A.R. 2 outfit, am I? What, crazy, no.

[Berzee]

Regarding "Wuxtry" -- all I can find about this word is that it was shouted by ragamuffin newspaper children of olden times. Is there any deeper link between "Wuxtry" and "Video Games Podcast Introductory Theme", or was that just chosen as the name because it was its destiny?

[Jake]

I can't remember why we called it Wuxtry. I know old pre-cast Thumbs was obsessed with that word, especially in the context of "Wuxtry! Joker pulls boner of the year!" but who knows why it applies to the main Thumbs theme. Wuxtry: Let The Games Begin (Love Theme to Idle Thumbs) is the full title I think. That's in part because we had an idea early on that songs from episodes should share that episode's name, and because 'let the games begin' sounded like a funny name for a podcast theme song. Then Chris and I started bolting extra titles and words and extra names onto it the more we talked about it, until it was ruined. In that way, the title of that song is a microcosm for Idle Thumbs.

[thestalkinghead]

i would say i have played enough games, that an hour is enough to know if the game is good, not the story (in complete form) but the game mechanics and feel of the game, but i think reviewers should just say they didn't like it enough to complete it or they haven't but will complete it if this is the case

[Berzee]

[a tide of historical enlightment]

In that way, the title of that song is a microcosm for Idle Thumbs.

 

Thanks! Now the mystery fits together, and I can rest easy having completed my quest for knowledge.

[axemtitanium]

i would say i have played enough games, that an hour is enough to know if the game is good, not the story (in complete form) but the game mechanics and feel of the game, but i think reviewers should just say they didn't like it enough to complete it or they haven't but will complete it if this is the case

 

Sounds like you've independently reconceptualized Wolpaw's law.

 

As for the representation in games discussion, I recently had a chat with my cousin who just got into college. While we were talking about affirmative action in admissions, I realized that it was actually surprisingly relevant to this debate. I had long been opposed to any sort of affirmative action and preferred a purely merit-based admissions process (being Asian and male, I am in one of the only demographics that affirmative action is purely detrimental towards). However, after finishing college and looking back, I actually think there is something (perhaps intangible) of value that I would not have had access to under a pure merit system. Merely existing in a space, be it workplace or college or whatever, in which people of different backgrounds are represented is good and enriching in itself, and you as a person reap the benefits so long as you don't go out of your way to avoid it. I think it's the same in games as well. The mere existence of diversity in game protagonists is enriching to the medium because most people won't go out of their way to avoid it and consequently will have a chance to experience something other than white middle American male. No one has to like it (though that would be a plus), its mere existence and consumption is enough. Unfortunately, there's a chicken and egg problem here where no one wants to make a game starring someone other than a white male because a market doesn't exist for it, hence the need for this debate and the potential "affirmative action"-ing up game protagonists.

[tegan]

On the subject of "should a critic have to finish a game before reviewing it," does anyone remember the issue with Super Mario 3D Land reviews? For some reason, Nintendo outright told critics that they weren't allowed to talk about or even reveal the existence of the second half of the game at all, which is significantly better than the first. That's nuts to me.

[elmuerte]

I think a reviewer should play as much of the game as (s)he thinks is relevant to give a proper and honest review. If the reviewer can't bare to play more than 10% of the game because it's a PITA, then that's it.

Then again, if the reviewer only played 10% of a game like Skyrim, which would be around 10 hours, then I think the reviewer has a good idea about the game.

[thestalkinghead]

audio books are better than books in games but they both still suck, wouldn't a better structured story and characters in game be a more natural way of delivering information.

 

representation in games is generally similar to the representation in adverts, they are more aspirational than representative, even a game like the sims which seems completely customisable everyone usually ends up looking quite beautiful but generic like a ken/barbie doll, and no matter how hard i try i make the action hero fantasy version of myself in mass effect, so generally even as a straight white male i am rarely represented personally (ben TWDG represents me), except in a way that represent my aspirations eg. strong, brave, good, hero and i am guessing that these things are generally universal.

 

when it comes to relationships being represented in games though, i do think games like mass effect are trying hard to represent something quite complex, like how they give you the choice of your love interest instead of just deciding that this is the female you shall love, choosing Tali seemed personal to me where as a railroaded cut scene with "what's her name" and "great ass" would have been boring, and i would imagine it feels a lot more personal choosing your own sexual preference over generic couple 1

 

so even though most games don't actually represent me visually i think personal and moral choices makes a game feel like it represents me way more than the look, sex or sexual preference of the character does, but saying that i think if a game did railroad me into a same sex relationship i would be more on edge (critically speaking) and have all these side issues running through my head like "is this just pandering?" "would the GLBT community like this more, or less than me?" and " i like this couple but are they just a straight couple in a gay couples body" (while knowing it was both irrational and insane and dismissing these ideas) whereas with a different sex couple i would either be "yawn" or "yay". i feel like i have a pretty open mind about who people love but i know it would have to be handled very well for everybody playing to have to have a same sex relationship in a game

[Zederick]

I've seen this argument elsewhere, and I think it's a misunderstanding/misrepresentation of what the ending is actually presenting.

 

They're not just moving to another reality, but actually replacing Booker at the moment he undergoes the baptism and chooses to become Comstock. When he's drowned instead, that choice is never made and no universe containing Comstock is ever produced to branch into a quantum infinity of Comstock-universes. The tears are, after all, repeatedly presented as also accessing other times, particularly when it comes to music, but also in, say, the scene where Elizabeth opens one onto a movie theater advertising a Star Wars film. But they have to have a Booker that's willing to make that choice.

 

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it hangs together well enough. Insofar as these sorts of stories ever do.

 

On an unrelated note, I highly second the earlier recommendation of Nier. That game is fantastic.

 

Perhaps we should move this to the Bioshock: Infinite thread. There's some good conversation going on here about representation in games and I don't really want to derail it by posting a billion spoiler tags.

 

I'll post a reply there.

[feelthedarkness]

For IT book keeping obsessiveness, I believe you talked about the FNick & Chris Starcraft 2 competitive bender during the progresscasts. 

[malkav11]

*fist bump*

 

and the music in that game oh my goodness

 

 

Oh yes. I'll just leave a link to this remix album that's equally fantastic:

 

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUlbZL01G8mqupTxoCs6quzYPEeSvXFM9

 

(I didn't upload the videos, but I rearranged them into album order.)

[Urthman]

I definitely agree that the best kind of game review is when you get to know an individual critic.  She can just write about whatever interests her about a game, and that can give you a better idea of whether it's worthwhile than most regular reviews.  Idle Thumbs plays that role for a lot of us, even though you guys probably don't consider yourselves game reviewers.  And if for some reason you feel the need for a more "objective" rundown of the basics of the game, there's already dozens or hundreds of those for most games.

But Metacritic is one of the many stumbling blocks to allowing a critic to write this way.  Look at Tom Chick.  He basically writes reviews like Ebert did.  He reviews a wide variety of stuff, both AAA and niche games, and will write a long, comprehensive review or just a couple paragraphs depending on how much he has to say about a game.  But then Metacritic picks up his review, assigns a percentage score to it, and if the result is an unusually low score for a AAA game, he gets hundreds of angry fanboys showing up in his comment section who have no context for reading his reviews and just want to yell at him and accuse him of being a troll.  (As if Tom were posting inflammatory drive-by comments on the Metacritic site rather than the other way around.)

Now Tom has been around a long time and has a devoted readership and community at quartertothree, so the flack he gets from Metacritic readers is more amusing than anything else, but for a new game writer to try the same thing would be a lot harder.  Metacritic basically tries to repackage every review as if it were an IGN Consumer Reports style article that kicks the game's tires and gives it separate ratings for "Sound," "Replay Value," and "Mouth Feel."

 

(Although now I really love the idea of Metacritic scraping the list of "games discussed" from the descriptions of Idle Thumbs episodes and then trying to assign a percentage score based on what you guys say about it.)

[chummer]

I definitely agree that the best kind of game review is when you get to know an individual critic.  She can just write about whatever interests her about a game, and that can give you a better idea of whether it's worthwhile than most regular reviews.  Idle Thumbs plays that role for a lot of us, even though you guys probably don't consider yourselves game reviewers.

I agree with this. I find that listening to the Thumbs critique a game from personal experience is far more informative and interesting than reading a breakdown that tries to review everything about a game. This is why I find Giant Bomb's Quick Looks so useful- while they may not provide lots of critical thought, footage of the game is of much more use to me for forming opinion. I use Metacritic as a last resort when I can't find thoughts on a game through either of these venues or RPS.

 

 

 

 But then Metacritic picks up his review, assigns a percentage score to it, 

Isn't Metacritic something a site has to voluntary sign up for?

[Gormongous]

Isn't Metacritic something a site has to voluntary sign up for?

 

Yeah, and Tom was asked to be on it. He's said many times that he's a big believer in Metacritic's mission and that it's part of a valuable set of tools for the gaming public to have.

 

The problem, of course, is that many (if not most) of Metacritic's users think of it as one-stop shopping. Like Tom recently said here, that's a huge failure of game criticism, not of Metacritic.

[Badfinger]

I agree with Tom's point re: Adam Sessler and keeping food off of tables based on aggregate scores, too.

 

That's one of the most egregious things I've ever heard of. Obsidian was denied bonus incentives not based on sales, not based on hitting concrete goals, but because they got an 84 aggregate score instead of an 85. And people got all up on Metacritic for that. Why? Why not get mad at 1) whoever at Obsidian agreed to base bonuses on something subjective and 2) everyone in the industry, but ESPECIALLY the publishers who think that doing something like that is an acceptable practice. I have literally NEVER heard this line of thought in a podcast/video/discussion from the professional video games media. I can't be the only one who thinks this. It honestly makes me mad. Much more mad that a horrible goal was agreed to in the first place than that they missed it by a whisker. Metacritic certainly has a place in the industry, but not as a performance metric. Imagine movies or music having metacritic performance riders. Everyone involved would, very rightfully so, pitch a fucking fit.

 

So mad.

[Salacious Snake]

 And people got all up on Metacritic for that. Why? Why not get mad at 1) whoever at Obsidian agreed to base bonuses on something subjective and 2) everyone in the industry, but ESPECIALLY the publishers who think that doing something like that is an acceptable practice.

I think at least sometimes when people bash metacritic, it's shorthand for what you're saying.

 

Speaking for myself, anyway, when I've said "Consarn that heckhole metacritic!" what I actually meant was "Dang those dadburned bean counters who use metacritic for ill!"

[Badfinger]

But that's not Metacritic's fault. Metacritic does precisely what GameRankings does except it looks like it was built by someone who wasn't doing a college project, and also has movies, music, etc. No one gets mad at Game Rankings because it wasn't the cool, trendy thing everyone was looking at. And I apologize if I come off as bashing you specifically, but you saying that is a large part of the issue.

 

What if workers at the Chrysler factory got laid off because they didn't get enough JD Power & Associates awards?

What if you got a performance review every year/half year, but then your bonus was actually tied to the number of twitter followers you had? Also you're not a salesperson or in PR, you're a web developer.

 

Whenever I think about it, it makes my blood boil. It's one of the worst things that's not literal racism or discrimination about the games industry.

[I Saw Dasein]

I don't see what the problem is. It's not that uncommon to have a bonus tied to a performance indicator, even one that is ultimately based on subjective opinions. For example, a chef might be entitled to a bonus for obtaining a Michelin star. Or a director might get a bonus based on ticket sales, which are no more an objective measure of quality than is a metacritic score. As long as both parties agree that bonuses will be tied to a performance indicator, I don't see any reason to object. At worse, you'd think tying bonuses to metacritic scores would tend to incentivize developers to produce games that appeal to critics. That's not necessarily a bad thing. 

[Salacious Snake]

But that's not Metacritic's fault.

I agree with you completely; I see no fault in metacritic itself, although I think they could be more transparent about the secret score-weighting herbs and spices.

Also the people there were very nice the couple of times I dealt with them!

[Gormongous]

At worse, you'd think tying bonuses to metacritic scores would tend to incentivize developers to produce games that appeal to critics. That's not necessarily a bad thing. 

 

Except that there's no meaningful distinction between critical and commercial success in video games at a mass-market level, plus a strong tendency for Metacritic aggregates to drift to the mean. Video games already have a huge problem with all imitating a handful of successful business models. There's no need to incentivize that.

 

I would say it's more like being a teacher and having your bonus contingent on student evaluations. You may have done a good job all around, but evals don't always reflect that, whether because of shortsightedness or other personal biases. A few minor but legitimate complaints can poison the pot completely.

[Badfinger]

I don't see what the problem is. It's not that uncommon to have a bonus tied to a performance indicator, even one that is ultimately based on subjective opinions. For example, a chef might be entitled to a bonus for obtaining a Michelin star. Or a director might get a bonus based on ticket sales, which are no more an objective measure of quality than is a metacritic score. As long as both parties agree that bonuses will be tied to a performance indicator, I don't see any reason to object. At worse, you'd think tying bonuses to metacritic scores would tend to incentivize developers to produce games that appeal to critics. That's not necessarily a bad thing. 

 

Because people can accurately assess that restaurants who don't get Michelin stars didn't meet expectations, not that the rating system they agreed to in their contract was bad.

 

... Except people DO have problems with Michelin Stars, and claim bias towards French restaurants. It's similar to discussions on Idle Thumbs about how presentationally beautiful games like Anno don't ever get mentioned in discussions for end of year graphics awards. Can you imagine the production team on Anno agreeing to performance incentives depending on winning graphics category awards?

 

The other direction, imagine incentives based on E3 awards. Holy crap, I could not imagine the shit show from that. Get rich from demos. 

[I Saw Dasein]

Except that there's no meaningful distinction between critical and commercial success in video games at a mass-market level, plus a strong tendency for Metacritic aggregates to drift to the mean.

 

I would say it's more like being a teacher and having your bonus contingent on student evaluations. You may have done a good job all around, but evals don't always reflect that, whether because of shortsightedness or other personal biases. A few minor but legitimate complaints can poison the pot completely.

Well, from the perspective of a publisher, I'm not sure how a game that doesn't review well (or doesn't sell many copies) could be "good". The publisher doesn't care whether or not the developer makes an objectively good game. The publisher wants the game to make money. Games are a commercial endeavour, after all. But at least with metacritic there is some recognition of critical worth: sales figures don't capture that at all. 

 

I don't really understand what you mean by the "poisoning the pot" comment. As an aggregator, I would think that Metacritic would tend to "smooth out" outliers that are particularly high or particularly low. Even a review that is way out of line with the other reviews should only move a score a percentage or two. In some respects, that's the virtue of an aggregator. 

So I guess my question is what performance indicator a bonus should be tied to. The only other option I can think of is raw sales, but that seems like it might be even worse. 

[Gormongous]

Well, from the perspective of a publisher, I'm not sure how a game that doesn't review well (or doesn't sell many copies) could be "good". The publisher doesn't care whether or not the developer makes an objectively good game. The publisher wants the game to make money. Games are a commercial endeavour, after all. But at least with metacritic there is some recognition of critical worth: sales figures don't capture that at all. 

 

I don't really understand what you mean by the "poisoning the pot" comment. As an aggregator, I would think that Metacritic would tend to "smooth out" outliers that are particularly high or particularly low. Even a review that is way out of line with the other reviews should only move a score a percentage or two. In some respects, that's the virtue of an aggregator. 

So I guess my question is what performance indicator a bonus should be tied to. The only other option I can think of is raw sales, but that seems like it might be even worse. 

 

Raw sales would be more honest, at least. If the bonus is money, why not tie it to money? Is there some scenario you can think of where a developer doesn't deserve a bonus for making a commercially successful game?

 

What I meant by "poisoning the pot" is what you see on Tom Chick's site all the time. He gives Bioshock Infinite three stars, for perfectly legitimate reasons, but it pulls down the Metacritic aggregate six points, about which the fanboys flooding to his site rant and rave. If we all agree that the average review aggregate for a generally competent AAA game goes 70 to 90, he's singlehandedly lost the Obsidian guys their bonus, just for speaking his mind on a game that he does like. It's enormously problematic, because it discourages games that have anything at all objectionable in them, leading to the gross plastic stuff that Hollywood specializes in.

[I Saw Dasein]

I can see the attraction of a metacritic metric, for developers at least. That way if they produce a game that reviews well but sells poorly, they still get a bonus. That makes some sense because a developer in many ways has more control over reviews than they do sales: sales depend at least partly on the publisher's marketing. If the developer makes a good game but the publisher drops the ball as far as marketing is concerned, a metacritic indicator "saves" the developer's bonus. 

 

I don't really think the "Tom Chick" effect acts as a poison pill, again, because of aggregation. So take Bioshock Infinite. Imagine 30 reviewers have reviewed it, and scored it on average 95%. Then Tom Chick comes up and awards it 3 stars, which Metacritic converts into 60%. Unless my math is terrible (always a possibility), Tom's review drops the aggregate score about one percent, which is hardly a poison pill. Also, this assumes that Tom's score is weighted equally to other reviewers, which is not necessarily the case. 

 

The Obsidian thing was really just the result of a bad business decision. Obsidian agreed to a contract where if they scored 85+ they'd get all the money, and if they got under 85 they'd get none of the money. That kind of outcome is totally avoidable by having the bonus scale to score. And that kind of outcome will also occur whenever you have a firm line. Say you tie the bonus to the game selling three million copies. The game sells 299,999 copies instead. One missed sale has huge consequences in that case.