I think this brings up an interesting point and a point that Patrick brought up on Waypoint Radio “The God of War Minit” that he hates writing reviews due to acknowledging that he has his own blind spots and therefore might not know what text or subtext he missed or overlooked in a game.
I can definitely relate to that feeling, and it’s a bummer reviews have for such a long time dominated the industry as a “this the final thoughts and critical analysis of a game” when really I think it should be as described by Patrick and others here: “Here are my thoughts (more or less) immediately after finishing the game.”
I think to a certain extent a “review” should be done exclusively with the opinion of the initial reviewer, but that yes, certainly that review is not the end all be all for that reviewer’s opinion of the game and they should continue to expand and challenge their initial opinion as time goes on.
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But this looks at critique as if it falls into “This is good/bad” and those are the only two takeaways?
Patrick isn’t saying “I liked it but maybe I was wrong to like it because other people I respect didn’t like it and I must agree with them.”
He’s saying “My initial takeaway is I really liked this game, talking with other people shows me some areas I didn’t acknowledge or maybe even know about due to my worldview and particular blindspots. So IF I learn something about a game that affects me in such a way that it changes the perspective I have on it, then that would then affect my overall opinion of that game going forward.”
The latter of which is a nuance that is sorely lacking in review media and especially in the games industry.
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I hearted your reply to JohnnyLawz because it’s much more succinct than Patrick’s original article, and I think very valid.
And it’s hard to put that thought into a headline 
Then write something later on why your opinion changed. I do not think preemptively undermining your own criticism is the right approach and, fairly or unfairly, does come off like hes nervous “people I respect didn’t like it.”
Rather than defend his criticism hes bending over backwards to say that it might not be worth anything.
I can see what you’re saying for sure. From that perspective it definitely seems a little like hedging, so I understand your takeaway.
I think the reason I see it differently is that we don’t often even acknowledge that you can go back and re-examine something, so I kind of see Patrick’s article as like “Hey if 2 years from now I’m on a podcast talking about the problems with this game don’t quote this review at me as evidence for why I’m a hypocrite.” It’s more about acknowledging the change of opinions after gaining more information, and this game is just being used as a focal point example of that concept.
I think I’ve been thinking about this concept more recently myself - looking back on old games, shows, movies I used to like and realizing that maybe they weren’t that great for a variety of different reasons, mostly due to how my perspective has changed. So maybe that’s why I read into it more the second way.
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It’s important to note that the alternative to being open to changing your mind isn’t necessarily “this is what I think, and I’m sticking to it.” Flawed humans like us have malleable memories, and if we’re unwilling to acknowledge that we changed our mind, we can sometimes end up deciding that our new opinion was where we always stood. That’s why I’ve been taking notes lately on the media I consume: even if I don’t publish it anywhere, I want to have a record of my thoughts.
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You’re looking at Patrick’s review as a product review when it’s fundamentally not that. He wrote about the things that he liked and he did not like about God of War. He knows that he has fundamental blind spots towards toxic masculinity as a cis dude. He’s excited to learn from other people’s perspectives and, I think, is writing articles like this to encourage his readers to have that same interest. That doesn’t retroactively make God of War bad actually, it’s about understanding games on a deeper level and a broader sociological perspective.
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Exactly. And I think this gets back to the idea that has been so pervasive for decades in games that is only starting to change in recent years which is that “product review” and “critical analysis” were considered the same thing, while most of what was really going on was just the former.
I think that’s why Patrick wanted to bring this up in the first place because a lot of people seem to think that once you make your statement on a thing, that is now your opinion forever and you can’t take it back.
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Sure, and I guess I take that sentiment for granted at an non-scoring place like waypoint, that things can always be revised and likely will be.
I admit alot of my feelings are also based on the podcast too, where it really sounded like patrick immediately deferred to Austin’s take and sounded almost embarrassed. This combined with the Waypoint’s twitter clique going super harsh on gow, it all rubs me the wrong way.
Again its fine to hate the game. But this shouldn’t be a community where someone can only like a big popular thing if they immediately jump in a foxhole.
You’re looking at Patrick’s review as a product review
I am actually doing the opposite. If he wants to change his opinion at a later time he can do that, hes not even tied to any score. But this article is telling us not to take his critique seriously in the first place.
One thing Patrick sort of flew past was the concept of sequestering yourself during a review. It’s always been my understanding that the purpose of this was to prevent a single powerful or particluarly persuasive voice from influencing reviews from a variety of outlets. You think reviews are monolithic now? Imagine a scenario where an extremely charming or persistent reviewer is causing the conversation to be standardized before it even starts.
I’m sure I’ve heard stories, probably on the Bombcast, where things like this would happen at review events. Or at least, people tried, whether they were successful or not. My instinct would be that this is less likely today, but groupthink is a powerful thing.
Why would you not take his critique seriously? The entire point of this article is that there might be totally valid critiques that he didn’t notice, like the race politics in Bioshock Infinite. That doesn’t invalidate his critique and the things he liked in the game and the things that he disliked. When Austin mentioned on the podcast that the pacing was glacial in the second half and Patrick agreed, that wasn’t him giving up on his opinion, that was him realizing he hadn’t even thought about the pacing and acknowledging a blind spot. That’s all this article is about.
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When thinking about reviews and opinion, I find myself returning to the words of Tom Chick of Quarter to Three, “[reviews] are snapshots in time of my experience with something. There is a date and a byline at the top of every review for a reason”
Yes, having that initial snapshot of an experience is worth something, but experience with a game can go from playing it, to talking about it with friends, to seeing other critisism of it to hearing folks talk about it on a podcast six months later. It does not invalidate that initial snapshot, but taking in much more voices and having time away from it actively changes my reflection on that experience. Thoughts on a game months after playing it are just as valid as the ones had during the closing credits.
As this article, and the podcast two weeks ago, Patrick is just being honest about where he’s feeling right now and I always appreciate that.
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I understand your perspective more now.
I’ve definitely felt that way in Waypoint’s circle of the Internet sometimes (I haven’t finished God of War yet so I have no specific thoughts about this game other than things I’ve read relating to how far I am both positive and negative seem accurate so far.)
As far as this stuff goes I feel like I’m in a similar boat to Patrick so I see his reactions less as deferential to other’s opinions over his own, but just acknowledgement that for most of his life he hasn’t really needed to care about these kinds of minority opinions, and is trying to acknowledge it now and going forward.
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Yeah I think as a rule “reviews” do well to be focused pieces from the author’s (mostly) sole perspective, but just that a review shouldn’t be the end for an author’s critical thoughts on a game.
Because that’s exactly what the piece is asking me to do. Why would I read someones critiques seriously if they follow it up with, “who knows this could all be wrong tho.” Of course someone can always go back, thats a given.
And for the record I don’t think Patrick agreed about the pacing, at least not to the same degree that Austin felt. It wasn’t agreement so much as deferment, which is exactly how this article strikes me.
To me, someone admitting they might be wrong makes me take their words much more seriously that someone who pretends they couldn’t be. I think a lot of what Patrick talks about here are things I already assume when I read reviews (certainly reviews that tend towards criticism and away from the product review side of things). And this article is identifying particular aspects of the game that he may wish to revisit or further consider, it’s not like he’s throwing up his hands and saying “who am I to know my own opinions.”
And while you may take it as a given that people can revise and reconsider their opinions in a review, that is not the dominant mode of thinking in the games review space where the attitude “this game is a 9/10 and will be forever and I will fight you if you say it isn’t! YOLO!” is far more typical.
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You’re fundamentally misinterpreting this article. Patrick isn’t invalidating his own article, he’s broadening the lens he’s criticizing it with through with other people’s perspectives. Patrick hasn’t worked through the critical lens examining toxic masculinity the same way he hadn’t examined race politics before Bioshock Infinite. It’s a perspective he fundamentally does not have and wants to amplify voices that do have that perspective to encourage broader conversations around games criticism. It’s about adding categories, not invalidating the contents of the old ones.
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The discussions in this thread are weird here.
Game journalists and reviewers aren’t end all, be all experts, the vast majority are massively underpaid, overworked, and are expected to keep up to date with every major release out there, which all take about a hundred bloody hours to fully experience now, because of trying to stay current for the sake of views.
My work alone at HG101, which is a retro site keep in mind, is enough to inform me that I couldn’t stand writing about current games because my opinions, as with most people, shift fairly regularly and it would be expected to perfectly judge a game while I’m sill barely into its meat.
I say this article was great because it’s a rare moment where one of the more significant voices in the sphere admits to something a vast, VAST number of people do not get: judging and being critical of a work take a ton of time, so a good take probably isn’t going to happen when people are rushing to get something out right when an embargo drops.
I had to do that for Shardlight by rushing through it in a week. It was about seven or eight hours and trying to get through and write about it with confidence was one of the most draining experiences I had writing about games because I kept sacrificing my time I needed to spend on other things.
I hate how this medium doesn’t respect anyone’s time, honestly. There’s just not enough time to replay these games for a better view of the work, which is basically necessary now because of choice systems in so many of them, because they can all take up an entire work week with overtime for just a single playthrough.
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I am not misinterpreting anything and I would say you are ignoring the context in which this piece was written. The Bioshock Infinite example is actually a good illustration of exactly what I’m saying. It was reasonable for him to change his opinion based on new information, feelings etc.
That has not happened here. Should that ever happen for any reason he should write about it. But until then, he is merely preemptively undermining his own criticisms. I really don’t see how this could be described as anything but a hedge.
