That inherent presumption of merit has been a feature of gamer culture since its foundation. It is so strong that its seen as the default, as something utterly intrinsic. Reviewers are hailed as true by the culture if they speak to merit and talk about content as an aside. Equally they are pilloried if they are seen to go against the grain. An average meritocratic fan will happily accept that perhaps a game has content issues, but also to say that to fault its score on that basis is false. It would be like Top Gear marking down a car because of its paint job.
However the meritocratic way of thinking is at odds with where most experimental games have been going, and it has been for years. Your Dear Esther, Gone Home, Stanley Parable, The Passage, Depression Quest, dys4ia, Bientôt lété, Proteus and many others dont fit on a merit table. They either have little or no gameplay, no replayability or any purpose beyond exploring them. They are often poorly engineered, and yet attract considerable praise. In the meritocratic view theyre like Top Gear giving higher praise to a Reliant Robin than a Bugatti Veyron purely on aesthetics. Meritocrats fundamentally just dont understand that kind of thing, and tend to interpret it as an attack.
