Great Gamers Not Always the Best Reviewers

An editorial posted on The Adrenaline Vault posits that talented gamers are not always the best reviewers because of the necessity for those with elite skills to care as much as they do about their performance. The best reviewers, on the other hand, are generally somewhat detached from the subject material. From the article: "Spending 50 hours playing an offering when you are focused exclusively on trying to win certainly would yield very different insights than spending the same 50 hours trying to evaluate the title's strengths and weaknesses to help inform the general public about purchasing decisions." Kyle Orland's Video Game Ombudsman has further analysis on this subject.

Comments

Actually...

[brkello]

The same thing can said for everything in life. The best programmers may not be the best at teaching programming. The best soccer players may be awful soccer coaches. The best prostitutes may not be the best at...ok...well, not EVERYTHING...but yeah, this article is kind of a no-brainer.

A good review

[Telvin_3d]

Really, it is kind of silly that game reviews have tried to emulate the whole movie review system. Not only is game play a much more individual experience than movies because it depends on the player, not merely the game itself. Depending on skills or strengths, a good game fro one person is a waste of time for someone else. Personally, I think the Penny Arcade guys have it right. No rankings or stars or whatever. Just what they enjoyed, why the liked it, and what other things they have liked in the past. Really, it is the context this provides that is almost as important as anything they say about the game itself.

Good sources.

[hal2814]

"How articulate are avid successful gamers? Well, judging by blogs and forums and reader responses of all types posted on the web, I would have to say the communication skills are not generally very high."

You know I just don't see blogs, forums, and reader responses from kiddies pretending to be l33t as a clear indicator of the communication skills of successful gamers.

While I do agree that good game players *might* make pitiful reviewers, there are probably quite a few that could be good reviewers. Gaming and reviewing can be seen as two completely different jobs in related fields. Some people will be good at both while some will not.

Take the example of sports boradcasters. Some people are good sports announcers but not good athletes (ex. Gumbel). Some are good athletes but are terrible broadcasters (ex. Deion Sanders, who obviously can't read very well). Then there are the people who are good at both (ex. Howie).

Ok - but what does being a 'good' gamer mean?

[Morpeth]

I think one issue with people saying I'm a 'good' gamer, is that it can mean vastly different things to different people.

To some, it's being "uber l33t killah doodz", gankers, griefers, pk'ers; which may or may not be a good thing depending on the game. Being good a twitch games (FPS) is just one kind of good.

To others it might be finding and completing every quest/task/mission, or exploring every map/structure, and finding every drop/treasure; regardles of how many monsters/players you kill.

In an RTS, 'good' might be resource management and strategy. To a pure RPG'er it could be great role-playing skills and character development, having a respected guild, etc.

I think it goes back to the socializer-achiever-explorer-killer categories. How you define 'good' will largely be based on how you fit into that.

But even if you say you're 'good' in all the above examples -- one person's 'good' is another person's 'annoying jack a*s' (I'm talking mainly in a multiplayer context). People have different playstyles and goals when they game, so 'good' is highly subjective and relative imo.