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

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.