This argument crops up just about every time there's a negative review of something.
I've heard that:
1) Reviewers have no right to review anything unless they actually have written their own games. Presumably, reviewers who are also in the industry are more competent reviewers as a result.
2) Reviewers have no right to review anything unless they're paid for it . Implying that there's a screen that weeds out the crappy reviewers because they get paid.
And yet, it's become abundantly clear publishers have no such screens. They publish games without having published anything else previously. They publish games and make no money on it. There's no standards for publishing...and yet we want standards for reviewing?
Standards of reviewing beyond the most minimal basic guidelines result in biases. And of course, reviews are biased by their very nature. That's the point.
No really. That's it. The problem is when reviewers gain credibility. It's a threat to the publisher.
I've got work out for review (and more coming) at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=097080945X/michaeltrescaA/ It's been slammed on here. Ouch. However, I have a bunch of other reviews that say it's not a bad product, including some folks I highly respect. I've also had my module listed on the top ten worst D20 adventures out there -- listed by an anonymous poster in a forum:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2647&perpage=20&pagenumber=3
This is pretty much par for the course. No, it's not pleasant. But it's certainly necessary.
The Internet is not like a newspaper. Internet reviewers are not Ebert writing a review. In that newspaper, it's just Ebert -- maybe one a handful of other people.
On the Internet, it can be hundreds of reviewers. The "burden of competence" is not shared -- there's no screening process or career path to ensure that reviewers know what they're doing. On the Internet, the measure instead is the number, not the content, of the reviews.
The more good or bad reviews there are, the more likely it is that the review is accurate. This is obviously not the case with newspapers or magazines, wherein one review is all you get.
And who says those reviewers are more competent anyway? There are some reviewers at Entertainment Weekly with whom I vehemently disagree. Why? Because when a review is ultimately an opinion, no single person can possibly represent every person who reads the review.
That's important. I don't want to read a review by some idiot who's never read Lord of the Rings, who talks about how the ending "was obviously set up for a sequel." I want to read a review by a gaming geek who knows the same fantasy staples I know. In other words, I want someone with similar tastes to review movies. This is why Cinescape holds much more credibility with me than Entertainment Weekly.
This knowledge focus makes a pretty strong argument against professional reviewers. They are ultimately going to be biased by who they are -- if you're not like them, chances are you'll agree with their reviews less. Certainly, a reviewer who reviews a wide swath of genres isn't always going to be the best informed about every one of them.
Which really makes Internet reviewing quite a bit more appealing. The masses, presumably the masses who have a genuine interest in the product, spout off. Hopefully, as more and more spout off, they "truth" comes out -- as close to objectivity as you can get anyway. It's inspired by the Scientific Method -- no one person can determine the truth, but hopefully through examination and rexamination by multiple groups, a general feeling of how good a product is or isn't will emerge.
Conversely, if I am to respect those masses, I need to be able to identify them. Random, nameless "Bob"s who start slamming my work are less significant than Alan and Simon reviewing my work. Anonymity is great for battling authority, it's not so great when I want an opinion I can respect. For more on why, see:
http://read.at/tmb/thesis.htm
This thread has three words in the title, but the word "polite" showed up exactly once in the long list of responses. To me, a professional review can be very effective if the reviewer is courteous -- if the Internet sorely lacks something, something a lot of printed reviews still have over Internet scathing reviews, it's basic courtesy.
I think that's what people are really upset about.
Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://www.retromud.org
