If I proposed to you that expecting car journalists like Jeremy Clarkson to have a driver's licence is the product of elitist car fanatics that are ruining car manufacturing, you would be justified to ridicule my stupendously low standards of car critique and advise me to better understand cars. Sadly, I have found too many editorials in games journalism demanding easier experiences, condemning its readership of expectations from their medium's critics and even tried to levy the industry's insecurities against reader expectations, as if the reason the most profitable medium today is not respected as high art because it is not exclusively serving the lowest common denominator. Putting aside such an implication discredits paintings as art whenever Pollock is mentioned, this rise brought about by published journalists' poor form when their competency in any given work is judged has persuaded me to try giving some insight to the matter.
Allow me to start this piece with an explanation of the term “Ludology”. Ludology is the name of the practice of studying games and the act of playing them, while this term is not exclusive to the digital games covered on this website and others like it, said medium can be attributed to being a rather common jump on point for its enthusiasts in the modern day. Much like a film critic is expected to have studied in film studies so that their critique may grant a more productive insight for film makers and audiences, so too should game critics be expected to at least peruse the findings of Raph Koster or Steve Swink so that clarity can be brought to reader's wishing to find what didn't make this game click as well with them as the last game they played did. While film studies requests an understanding of a medium that is predominantly a visual and audio experience, Ludology also demands practical application of the user's knowledge not only of information in the context of the medium's world (for instance, knowing that in Civilization V, Scouts are typically the only unit that has no movement penalty over rough terrain) but also in interfacing with the game's outputs (for instance, knowing in a typical action game to dodge roll to the side at the moment of time where the enemy's attack will not track the player's movements and hit them during recovery animation but will also clear the player away from the initial attack). Essentially, the games critic will need to have the ability to “git gud”, but not just for the reason the game demands of its other users. The phrase “git gud” has gained some contempt from writers for its application against them by readers. The meaning behind the phrase is rather simple, “your anger towards the game is a failing on your part, please cease projecting your low performance as a flaw of the game” to parse into a more polite though far lengthier phrase. It should be clear that while not an all-encompassing definition within the digital games community (particularly with the presence of Dear Ester and its contemporaries), the first definition of “game” found in the Oxford Dictionary is “a form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules”, so naturally a level of skill to engage with any given piece is expected by users so that they can procure the experience the designer was aiming to communicate. While not the most welcoming phrase, the humbling misspelt words are the populous informing the critic that their critique needs work, hence the next reason for critic's to “git gud”. Much like how an art critic can be dismissed by observers for simply “not getting it”, a games critic who cannot dictate thoroughly the failings of a given game could be dismissed on the grounds that said critic just needs to “git gud”. Here is where From Software's “Souls” series comes in. This series received some editorials on the build up for the release of “Dark Souls 3” with writers speculating the inclusion of an “easy mode” to the game, including a few of such writers excreting nonsense that the only reason not to want an “easy mode” was elitism on the part of the fans. That discussion could have in fact been interesting by itself, a dissection of a series whose loyal fans have shielded one of its unique selling points on the grounds of it being fair, how the changes between games have faired under the “tough but fair” philosophy, whether every instalment did in fact deliver on such a premise and even a thought exercise on how an “easy mode” could be implemented to a game with a theme of crippling despair and ruin. Sadly, beyond a slew of Youtube videos like Matthewmatosis' “Dark Souls 2 Critique” two years before this, no such critique came to fruition. Had more critics came forth with a practised knowledge of Ludology and the sheer basics of the “Souls” franchise, their proposal of an easy mode may have been taken in with more interest than out-right rejection punctuated with the words “git gud”. There is not exactly an excuse for games critics to not have a developed craft for ludology enough that their play sessions punctuated by their informed insight to game mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics should provide a satisfactory information piece for their audience. No one had a gun pressed onto Arthur Gies' head to play DOOM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yYp8ZeQ-I8) and publish a video of his play session, Polygon's writing staff comprised of plenty of viable console first person shooter players who could carry themselves with the needed competency to demonstrate the game, no currently running games journalist outlet requires journalists to disclose their playtime and what options they enabled during their play-through, gamers and other such readers are all too willing to give critics the leg-room to stretch and demonstrate their knowledge in ludology and said knowledge's application to the reviews and editorials of all sorts of video games, its the critic's failing to learn such studies that is what holds them back. Frankly, I along with many others could not care if you are not in fact the next Daigo Umehara when you make a critique of Street Fighter V, as such a level of skill is not needed to understand Street Fighter V (it sure didn't stop my review, and I am self professed to being terrible at the fighting game genre). However, when you cry foul at hit stun (a status applied to a fighter when hit with an attack where they will not respond to player inputs for a predetermined number of frames) without an understanding for its function and application to the game including its relationships with other such mechanics, you prove your poor Ludology comprehension. And that, is where you need to “git gud”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
BlogThis blog is for the uploading of more text intensive materials relevant to my portfolio of work (Game Design Documents, Pitches and more) Archives
October 2020
Categories |