Critics

Earlier tonight, my wife, my son, my cousin, her husband, their daughter, my other cousin's daughter, and myself, all went to see "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse". Now, as a guy, I realize that I'm not supposed to like the Twilight movies, but I do. Do I put them up there with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings? Not hardly, but I have enjoyed them so far. It seems that with each film there is more action and therefore more enjoyable to me, but the "lovey dovey" parts aren't too bad either.
So upon returning home I got curious as to how much money the film had made so far and did a quick search on Google. In my search I got to looking at what critics were saying about the movie and I must say, it wasn't nice. It wasn't as bad as "The Last Airbender", but it wasn't nice either. Which got me to thinking, if a movie makes millions and millions at the box office, but gets terrible reviews, then who's wrong? Are the millions of people that saw the movie and loved it wrong? Or are the few critics that shit all over the film wrong?
I've been gaming for a long time, and as a result of that, I've been able to recognize trends in the industry. Like with game reviews. Make no mistake about it, most game critics read each other's work. There are game critics that shield themselves from the rest of the industry until they've finished the game they are reviewing, but they are the exception and not the rule.
Most of the time game reviews are a good way to gauge a game's quality. There have been many times in my life where I had preconceived notions as to a game's quality and was pissed off when it received poor reviews. But most of the time I would play the game only to end up agreeing with those poor reviews. Now, this isn't always the case and the situation can also be reversed. A great example would be "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time".
Game critics, for the most part, are pretty reliable people who usually give good, honest views on games. I would even argue that game critics take the gravity of their positions a whole lot more seriously than film critics. But with that said, they are not infallable. The game industry, over the years, has been susceptible to gushing crushes. One fine example is the aforementioned "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time". I still remember the E3 that PoP was first shown. There seemed to be a somewhat slow burn of hype to the game, but by the time the game came out, that hype had reached epic proportions. I remember EGM saying, "Prince of Persia may not be the greatest game ever made, but it's damn close." Damn.
Fast forward to the day I bought the game and I was ecstatic to finally try this masterpiece out. After a few hours though I was beginning to feel duped. It's not that the game was bad, but between the repetitive battles and formula, I was very disappointed in what was supposed to be the best game I'd played all year.
Another example would be Grand Theft Auto IV. When GTAIV came out, the amount of perfect scores was staggering. The game's Metacritic score was insane. Yet after playing it I found it to be more of the same. I mean sure, it looked better and the shooting was better, but that wasn't enough to warrant the rampant fanboyism displayed by game critics everywhere.
A lesser example would be Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I say "lesser" because Uncharted 2 really is an incredibly good game, but the amount of gushing by industry critics was a bit saddening.
The majority of the time though, game critics get it right and seem pretty well tuned to what the general gaming community likes.
Film critics on the other hand, seem to be pretty seperated from the people they are trying to inform.
The amount of instances where a movie makes millions upon millions of dollars at the box office, yet fares terribly with critics, is pretty staggering. A fine example is "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". Here is a movie that, last I checked, had made almost a billion dollars worldwide. A billion dollars. Yet the reviews for the film were abismal. Fans everywhere loved it and film critics hated it. The Twilight films haven't fared much better, yet continue to be a phenomenon beyond comprehension.
So what do you tell yourself if your a film critic and the movie you just got through shitting all over makes a billion dollars? That all those people are dumb asses? Sounds to me like your out of touch with your base. Fortunately for us gamers this kind of thing doesn't happen very often. I'm sure there are more, but the only example I can think of where a game reviewed extremely poorly, yet sold extremely well, is "Enter The Matrix".
Unfortunately, I think it all comes back to the whole "Art" thing. I think that many film critics look at every movie from the perspective of "how does this film compare to the great films of the past", or "how does it stack up artistically?". Film critics seem incapable of comprehending the idea of a "fun movie" and as a result are losing relevance to the average movie goer. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I've heard someone say "those movie critics are idiots" or "they don't know what a good movie is". It's seems like film critics are this elite group that look down on movies from on high, or at least that's the impression they give to the average person.
So my ultimate point is more of a plea. A plea to game critics to not become too wrapped up in things like artistic value or the views of their peers. Remember what makes games fun. Leave the snobbiness to the film critics and keep doing the fine job you've been doing. Just because Roger Ebert finally conceded that video games could be (are) art, doesn't mean you should start acting like him.