I have been wanting to write something about the nature of reviews and the many ways to use and consider them as a consumer for some time. I really want to get at the heart of the matter when it comes to opinions, biases, and how perceptions are absolutely vital in both the act of reviewing and the act of reading a review. I know already that this about to get very messy so bear with me as I dig into firstly, whether or not a review is good or bad.
Whether or not a review is good or bad is already a problematic construction. It works, but 'good' and 'bad' automatically create certain ideas or feelings. We see this in the response to reviews. People are happily able to call a review they agree with good, while the folks that disagree with a review are very likely to make the claim that it was a bad review, especially if it does not fall into line with other reviews on the same product. I am going to argue that whether or not a review is good or bad is completely divorced from how people agree or disagree with a review. The useful potential of a review is key. I say potential because the failure to find use in a review is not necessarily the fault of the review.
So what does that really mean? I believe that certain factors make a review useful or have the potential to be useful. A review should contain some factual information about the product. These are the things removed from opinion such as the outline of the story, the gameplay mechanics, price, errors, UI layout, and so on. A review that does not contain this information is going to be less useful and may have trouble establishing some of its own context.
A useful review will communicate the facts, ideas, and opinions held within in a competent manner. A review that is difficult to understand is not going to be very useful. This is a point that is perhaps so obvious that I should not even bring it up. But this is breaking down what makes a review useful, and if someone were to present a review with complete disregard for how language is used to communicate ideas, then you have a very useless review. Hurrah, the easy parts of this discussion are now over. The tricky point in dealing with reviews is that the bulk of a review is an argument.
This is where the argument comes in. The argument provides insight on why the reviewer holds a certain opinion. This is, for the purpose of review, more important than what the opinion is. This decides whether or not the review is useful to you, and determines the potential usefulness of the review. To put it simply, a useful review provides insight on how the reviewer experienced a product. How their own thought process approached the product, and how it ultimately made them feel. For the consumer this is important because you can then compare the reviewers thought processes to your own. If they are very similar, then the opinions of the reviewer reflect more accurately whether or not you will enjoy the product. Does that mean that reviewers that do not think like you do not have useful reviews for you? Absolutely not. A reviewer might decide to focus on a section in a game that is particularly problematic to them. It might be a section that other reviewers thought little of and did not mention. Now the reviewer discussing it as a problem has highlighted that this part exists. Let us say it is described as a "tedious, overly-challenging platforming section that does not belong in this game." If the reviewer's arguments have given enough insight to the reviewer's thoughts, then you can extrapolate why the negative words were used. To you, that section might be a challenging and fulfilling platforming experience, and you can figure that out by comparing your own thoughts and views to those of the reviewer. Cool, huh? And that is what makes the argument so vital to a useful review whether you agree with the opinion or not.
I am not done arguing about argument here though. You cannot engage it without messing around with one of the scariest words in reviewing and opinion: bias. I think it is fair to say that people try to discern if someone is being biased or not, and that people believe being biased is a naughty thing. Well here comes the shocker of this article perhaps: bias is not necessarily a bad thing, and is inherent in almost everything we do to varying degrees. Now that aside, some people think of bias in terms of some kind of secret agreement between a reviewer and a producer. I want to talk first about how there is nothing inherently wrong about bias when dealing with opinion.
Bias is one of the major driving forces behind argument. Bias is present in major academic works by well respected scholars. The construction of an argument tends to be a biased affair, though it is extremely subtle in the best arguments. If you want to make a strong point, you do not want to dilute it be combining it with all sorts of counter-arguments or doubts about the subject. Often some items like that are included for the sake of claiming that the argument is not biased, but even that is a bit problematic, is it not? It is like admitting the bias, but then saying look I did something about it...right? That being said things that are left out are usually not enough to deny the entirety of the argument being made, and are generally usable as talking points to keep the discussion of that topic open. You run into trouble when your argument is very clearly refuted by some logic or evidence and you make the argument anyway. Reviews are not academia, they are not researching a theory or event (though they often use research in their arguments), they are opinion. This simply means that it is far more difficult, not impossible, for the bias in a review to be problematic. If a reviewer believes the product is good, then the arguments will focus mostly on what makes it good. Reviews are not long comprehensive monographs, and so various points are going to be left out. Small issues are going to be overlooked. It comes down to what the reviewer is looking for when arguing the opinion. If they believed it to be average, they will likely mix up the arguments, if they believe it to be good there will be more positive arguments, if they believe it to be bad they will make more negative arguments. Usually there will be some notes here or there about certain aspects of it. Positive reviews point out problems because that is constructive criticism at work. Negative reviews point out things done well to compare to and to push for in the future. All of that works within the framework of that bias. A reviewer is biased towards the things that they feel give a project merit, and they write to that effect. That does not make it a bad review, or a useless review, or what have you, whether you agree with these merits or not. The presence of bias is not as important as why certain merits or faults are singled out.
Good news though folks, it is the intractable nature of bias and the opinionated nature of reviewers that helps mitigate that second part of the equation. Reviewers write reviews because they have strong opinions on the things they consume, and they have a strong desire to share these opinions. They enjoy showcasing the things that they think are worthy of merit, and they enjoy mercilessly tearing apart the things they believe are worthy of scorn. While you can certainly write a review that goes against how you feel about something. You could set out to criticize something you love, but it probably would not prove to be nearly as entertaining, interesting, or strong as the piece you write about what you love about it. It might also hurt your soul, right? So that is already a hurdle to jump if a producer wanted a reviewer to write a completely faked or overly favorable review of their product. On the flip side, while negative reviews might make readers rage over products they have a love affair with, and surely some producers as well, producers can also gain constructive critical insights. Consumers can also consider these things when they discuss products with their friends when forced to compare or pitch a product. Reviews do not make or break a product on their own, so producers are not afraid of negative reviews from a few sources (all negative reviews is probably a bad sign, just like all positive reviews may prove less useful in improving on the product). A reviewer is a person, just like all of the potential buyers, so their view matters in similar fashion. It matters for the people that their reviews resonate with as well. It is difficult to attain that resonance with reviews that are contrived.
So I imagine there are cases of reviewers and producers being naughty bedfellows or some such, but I imagine that it is a rare occurrence because it just doesn't seem like a useful long-term operation. Now there is a slightly less...sinister...issue that can be viewed as a problematic bias. That is the idea that a reviewer has a pre-conceived notion of what to expect from a producer and therefore will overlook more problems then normal just because they go into it expecting the same great things and create the image in their mind that it is the same great thing, or somehow a new great thing. This one is admittedly a bit harder to deal with. It is not too complicated though if I bring it back to what I said about examining how the reviewer thinks or perceives things. So if that day comes when they reviewer decides to talk about how a producer has betrayed their followers and what not, then you REALLY know it is something serious. Sometimes though folks, producers due continue to put out good stuff without making large enough mistakes to show a change in that trend. If you are getting too worried, then comparison shop via other reviews, corroboration is a wonderful concept.
I think I've covered most of my thoughts on bias, and with that I think I can conclude the section on the argument of a review. Reviews are biased towards the final score they intended to give even though reviewers use different methods to reach their conclusions they are still making an argument on how they reached it. If they do not make any arguments about how they reach their conclusions, then you have a problem.
To conclude this, I want to come back to the good and the bad. What is it then, that makes a review good? I think simply that a good review is a review that we can work with, whether we agree with it or not, it is a review that has talking points. It demonstrates the reviewer's thought processes, the how and why of their analysis is possibly more important than the analysis itself. A bad review, well, a bad review leaves us with nothing to discuss, nothing to love, nothing to hate. A bad review is as devoid of useful information as if the reviewer never even encountered the product in question. Even if it express an opinion you would agree with, nothing has been gained in engaging with or reading the review. So my open plee to folks out there dealing with reviews, think about ways you can make use of reviews, especially those you disagree with. If you have decided that you wish to confront the material presented in the view, let me be clear on this: you will not make a reviewer suddenly like something or dislike something no matter how hard you try. Imagine, could someone write an essay that would convince you that you no longer like the taste of one of your favorite candies, or convince you that those brussels sprouts you do not like are somehow exquisitely delicious? Yeah...a reviewer is not going to have a change of heart on how they feel about a game. Engaging the reviewer should serve the purpose of clarifying any questions you may have had that were not touched on in the review, or perhaps to force the reviewer to bring more ammunition to the table to back up their reasoning. These are good things, disagreement is not inherently bad just as bias is not. I think then, that I have provided a decent framework for approaching reviews: Consider the viewpoint of the reviewer and how it compares to your own, use this analysis to find the information that is useful to you. Instead of worrying about whether or not the reviewer is biased, remember that the review is biased in that it is making an argument for an opinion, so focus on whether the argument is reinforcing how the reviewer felt about it. Engage reviewers, question aspects of the argument, try to be useful in this regard. If there is no substance, if you are not making your own argument to back up your opinion, then your engagement was not useful to the discussion at large.
Now I will apologize to any of you who read this and know everything I have talked about already and had nothing to learn from it and were completely bored. Regardless, thanks for the read, and I hope everyone is having a wonderful day.