I Criticize Because
I Care
By Carey
Martell
Originally written: 3/25/2012
The
subject of the discourse aside, I want to focus on a sub-argument that emerged
in their debate. Jim Sterling attempted to defend game critics everywhere by
explaining that whenever he points out any flaws in a game, regardless of how
mild the criticism may be, there is a vocal part of his audience who issue
slurs at him because he dared to say anything but praise, and this is common
for all videogame journalists and unique to the field. By highlighting this, Sterling
attempted to divert part of the responsibility away from reviewers and make his
readership share blame for the way reviews are written, pointing out that while
he does not tip-toe around his reader’s fanboyism he understands why many
reviewers do.
Kain
countered Sterling’s argument with, “A critic writes to express *themselves*,
not to help their subject or please their audience.”
Dwelling
on this, I have to say I completely disagree with Sterling and half-agree with
Kain. I believe authentic criticism is not sugar-coated-- if a critic’s
disappointment led to feelings of anger then those feelings should be
transmitted in the criticism delivered-- but I do not believe it is impossible
to both express oneself AND want to help both the subject and audience. Indeed,
I believe that the intent for one’s criticism to supply meaningful information
to both the audience and developer determines what kind of critic you are.
One of
my favorite quotes comes from President Theodore Roosevelt, delivered as part
of a speech he gave after his term as President ended,
"It is
not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done
better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and
comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or
shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who
spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the
triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he
fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
But
Roosevelt never talked about what happens when it is the critic who finds
himself in the arena, with his own face marred by dust and sweat and blood. This
essay serves to explain my thoughts on how that plays out for the video game
critic today.
It is
my belief that the role of the critic is to provide feedback. It is this
educated feedback that distinguishes our modern day art from that of prior
generations, and allows creators to make leaps and bounds in their fields. The
desire to “prove” the critic “wrong” by improving one’s work can be a powerful
motivator, and the musings of the critic can often provide insight for the
aspiring artists that will set the pace for future generations of that industry.
However,
there exists a type of critic whose judgments are not motivated by a desire to
see the field of their criticism improve, but instead colored by personal
demons. This class of critic is not angry at “men in the arena” because of anything
the men have done, but because the critic believes he ought to be “in the
arena” performing as they are, and he is angry that he is not. He believes with
absolute sincerity that it is he that should be in the spotlight and because
his ego will not allow him to acknowledge the inadequacies that keep him in the
shadows, he takes his frustration out on successful efforts of better men. This
is the jealous critic, he is a sad beast, and too often I see this cowardly
type gain prominence in the world of game criticism because he is able to
skillfully conceive his contempt with humor and wit.
I am
not a jealous critic. I am more than capable of working in the development side
of the videogame industry and I have already dabbled in it. I have made a
conscious decision to focus on videogame journalism because I believe the field
desperately needs people who understand the science of games in order for it to
mature. It is true that in my heart of hearts I will always be a designer but
aside from a few self-published endeavors I have little interest in working in the
mainstream world of videogame development.
This
decision was not made lightly. I have not chosen to become a journalist so I
can score free videogames and press passes to events. I do not spend any of my
convention hours flirting with booth babes. My goal as a journalist is to
improve the field of videogame journalism so that the medium that is the
videogame can one day be viewed with the same respect that other established
arts like film, music and literature are awarded. To achieve this goal I must
criticize games because there can be no constructive discussion about art
without informed criticism to guide that discussion.
As many
review shows are today, The RPG Fanatic Show is a pundit type show. I stand
before the world on my soap box and share my opinions about a game-- and oh how
opinionated I am! Woe to the poor designer who manages to trip over the things
that set me off, such as obvious grammar and spelling mistakes in dialogue
boxes, plot holes, unnecessarily long loading times and unfriendly user
interfaces. I am harsh, I am brutal and ideally I am also entertaining, but
most importantly of all I am honest.
It is
this brutally honest feedback that is my valuable contribution to the field,
for without criticism from individuals such as myself the medium will never be
recognized with the respect it so rightly deserves.
As it
is the job of the videogame developers to make games and the job of the sales
team to sell them, the burden of proving to the world that a game is high art
or low art falls upon the shoulders of the game critics. None other can do this
task, for it is the job of the salesman to sell a game at any cost regardless
of the game’s quality, and the development team-- the artists-- are too
emotionally involved in their work to fully see all its obvious imperfections
and hidden strengths.
Unfortunately,
because the medium of game criticism is so young, there is no straight-forward
route to becoming an educated game critic. You cannot yet attend a college and
study videogame theory as you can “film theory”, as attempting to enter most
any college program for “game design” will force you to choose whether to
become a 3D graphics designer or a game programmer; and neither field is wholly
appropriate for a game critic’s education. I shall explain why.
For
graphics design, while understanding how digital textures are built can be
useful, the step-by-step process on how to build the visuals of a game are as
necessary to know as the step-by-step methods carpenters use to construct film
sets. Carpentry knowledge is not used when judging the aesthetic style of a
film. Instead, as it is with games, it is vastly more important to have a firm
grasp of visual story-telling languages. Studying film cinematography and
sequential storytelling (comic books) will better arm the game critic for
dissecting the visual aesthetics of games than learning how to use Maya and 3D
Studio Max ever will.
For
game programming, the lack of necessity should be obvious. While it is highly
useful to have some knowledge about how programming languages work so one can
understand how easy or hard tweaks to the game actually are, it is impossible
for a game critic to see the raw code of a game as they play. Though we might
make assumptions, we cannot accurately deduce what language a game was coded in
based on gameplay alone, or if that code was “sloppy” or “brilliant”. All we
can see is the result and it is that result we must form our judgments upon.
As of
this moment, the proper education for a game critic is constructed in a
Frankenstein-like style by learning several distinct disciplines and
haphazardly stitching them together; script-writing, art appreciation, musical
scoring, film theory and game design theory. The audio-visual fields can be
learned from classes available from nearly any community college in the United
States, so obtaining a reasonable amount of knowledge about these fields is not
difficult to acquire.
Game
design theory is not that accessible. The only way to obtain this knowledge is
through self-education; reading books on game design, making your own games,
and playing hundreds of games (especially the bad ones, as their mistakes make
the truly good games shine ever so much brighter). Direct instruction from an
experienced teacher is rare, because experienced teachers still work in the
industry, as they are in high demand.
And
even when an individual does obtain knowledge in all these areas they are still
missing a vital component that any student of film, art or music theory would
obtain by the time they complete their Associate degree; knowledge of their
field’s history. A graphic artist might study da Vinci and a musical studies
major might study Beethoven. Game design students might study Miyamoto, but
alas they do not. There is no such thing as “Videogame Appreciation 101”.
Classes about early computer game development simply do not exist, even in the
programs offered by those few colleges that offer educations in game
development. Some pretend to by talking
briefly about the development of games like Space War and Pong, but there is
little discussion about games involving the PLATO or acknowledgment of MUDs, and discussion about
the development of the Japanese and South Korean industry are either absent or
glossed over. They do not teach the full history because few know it; while
there are a handful of books on the topic, they tend to read as brief summaries
and center around the plights of particular individuals to the exclusion of
other equally important people, and much of the true story behind how and why a
game was developed is locked up tightly behind non-disclosure agreements. You
hear whispers of it at conventions like GDC, but even at this same convention I
can find myself in an auditorium with an employee of a prominent developer who
admits she does not know who Nolan Bushnell is, as Nolan Bushnell speaks at his
own panel about his projections for the future of the industry. People dare to
whisper to one another, “Who is this guy and where does he get off thinking he
knows so much?”. Some even smugly snicker while disagreeing with his prophetic
vision of the industry’s future, and they do so having no idea Bushnell is largely
responsible for them even having an industry to work in, since he envisioned
the whole thing and made it happen. Even if they disagree with his assessment
they should not be so quickly dismissive and listening closely to every word he
says, but they do not because they don’t know him. It is like a software
engineer not knowing who Bill Gates is.
This is
tragic. It is as difficult for anyone to completely understand the design of a
game like World of Warcraft without knowing where all the mechanics used in
World of Warcraft came from and why they were invented, as it is to fully
understand the cinematic techniques at work in a Steven Spielberg film without
knowing all the pioneer film-makers who influenced Spielberg and what those
directors were seeking to do with the techniques they invented. There are many
game critics and game developers who are well versed in the language of games,
but being well versed in the use of the languages does not necessarily mean
they have any understanding of how that language developed and why certain
things are done the way they are. This dark area of their knowledge base limits
the quality of their criticism and designs.
This is
not to say that I believe the opinions of the uninformed critic are without
merit; I absolutely believe that people know what they like and don’t like. The
real question is if they fully understand all the reasons for why they like or
dislike something, and it is my belief the average gamer is not equipped with
the technical knowledge necessary to decipher those reasons. Without this vital
education the feedback the average gamer provides to game designers is of
little use, because they do not speak the same language the game developers do.
It must be translated, which requires interpretation and can result in some important
things being lost in the translation.
On the
other hand, the educated game critic not only speaks the language but is so
well versed in it they can make their own games. Just as their counterparts in
the film, literature, music and art world are capable film-makers, writers, musicians
and artists, the game critic is a competent game designer. The game critic
knows how to provide useful feedback to the developer, but their only audience
is not the developer; the audience of the game critic is also the average
gamer. Therefore the commentary must be explained in such a way that both the
developer and the average gamer will get something valuable from the criticism.
This is where the critic enters the ‘arena’; they are no longer a mere
spectator in the crowd. They have switched places with the developer, who now
takes the place of the critic who sat on the bench. It is now the critic who must perform when the
spotlight makes all their inadequacies impossible to hide, and they must
perform something that is able to please both divisions of the stadium.
Furthermore,
to enter the arena is to care enough to risk ridicule and embarrassment in your
attempt to achieve something meaningful, and this is true regardless of whether
your work is wholly original or builds upon the work of other artists. It is
also true whether you are prepared to enter that spotlight or not, where your
triumphs and follies become the subject of others criticisms.
So I do not agree with Sterling's excuses for why game
journalists should be permitted to tip-toe around. We are in the arena and what
we are doing right now will contribute to the future of this artform we all
love. We can't be so careless as to sugarcoat our criticism. To cause
true change you must be unafraid to invite the wrath of powerful voices who
disagree with the change you seek to create.
Every
critic has their own agenda and I cannot always be certain what motivation every
critic has.
Speaking
for myself, I criticize because I care.
