Do games receive more criticism (valid or not) than films, shows, music, plays, or books?

Do games receive more criticism than films, shows, music, plays, or books?

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 53.8%

  • No

    Votes: 36 46.2%
  • Total voters
    78
Africa's Toto

Africa's Toto

Banned
I've seen some really crazy album reactions or movie critic meltdowns, but nothing close to the death threats and regular review bombing endemic in this industry

But then I'm probably closer to this industry than the others mentioned.

So, to you, do games get it worse than the other entertainment mediums?
 
100% yes. I have never seen people criticized a medium as harshly as video games.

You also have to note that when compared to Movies, TV, Books, and Music; Video Games is like the young kid that just moved into the block and people are hella dismissive of him. However, he's making moves and constantly doing well which makes everybody jealous and later down the line try to befriend him in hopes of getting that cred. Everybody want a piece of the pie. The boys help his status grow and the ladies jump on the bandwagon.

The tale of how video games have grown through out the years.
 
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THEAP99 said:
Yes duh because games cost more and are more of an investment of time
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recursive said:
Yes. Gamers are whiney bitches.
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Confused Thinking GIF
 
From a person that reads a ton and watches lots of films.......yea the gaming community is on a whole level of crying over shit.

Ian Henry said:
100% yes. I have never seen people criticized a medium as harshly as video games.

You also have to note that when compared to Movies, TV, Books, and Music; Video Games are like the young kid that just moved into the block and people are hella dismi
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Agreed.
 
Feels pretty even across the board to me.

Look at the new star wars movies, some youtube content creators make a carrier from criticizing them.
 
Yes, but I also think that games reviews are better than movies/TV shows reviews.

Of course, there is many game reviews that I don't like, but generally the metascore means something. When a game has 50, 80 or 90, it tells a different story about the game and its reception. There is underated games that I really like, and games with amazing reviews that I don't like, but I always can understand why this game had 70 and the other one 90.

For movies, it's totally different. If I look my top 10 ever on metacritic, they have a metascore of 56, 73, 90, 37 (!!!)... It feels completely random.
 
Nope, stuff like this happens in other industries too.

In fact, if anything i'd say as far as 'real' criticism goes (aka not death threats or meltdowns), its actually quite lax. Game awards are basically popularity contexts for the most part, you don't see stuff like Avengers winning best movie of the year, which is something that 100% happens with videogames.
 
Certain film franchises have had toxic fans issuing death threats to filmmakers/cast members, and anime staff/voice actors have faced similar threats (many staff/VAs for the anime Darling in the FranXX received them after a certain episode aired). Fan bases of any medium contain people who become too obsessed with them and if a new installment or such upsets them greatly they think that somehow justifies making the people involved feel threatened or relentlessly harass them.

Toxic Star Wars fans infamously were guilty of giving Jar Jar actor Ahmed Best suicidal depression for a year, and drove Jake Lloyd (kid Anakin) kind of nuts. Mark Hammil told them to stop that and leave the cast alone, but lo and behold they were back at it again when the new movies came out. Thankfully the verbal attacks weren't as severe this time (that we know of) but it shows a depressing image of certain "fans" refusing to mature and learn how to properly behave even when the original lead actor of the series tells them to.

My most hated movie is Silent Hill: Revelations. However, at no point did I ever even consider verbally attacking those who made the film if I ever met one of them, nor did I think less of those who enjoyed it. And hey, one of my closest friends liked the film, and it's all good. Life's too short to belittle people over different opinions over fictional stories, and it doesn't make you more of a "true fan" by doing so when in reality you're just being an obnoxious asshole.

Also worth mentioning, the attack on the anime studio Kyoto Animation is certainly the most tragic event regarding an entertainment creative workplace in recent years that immediately comes to mind. Granted, the attack was carried out by someone who wrongfully accused the studio of plagiarizing his novel, but still it felt relevant to mention as many lives were lost in this tragedy.
 
There are a lot more aspects to games to criticize. If any one or more of the following (graphics, gameplay, length, story, animation, performance) is off the game will get shit on. And if it's buggy as well.
 
Guilty_AI said:
In fact, if anything i'd say as far as 'real' criticism goes (aka not death threats or meltdowns), its actually quite lax. Game awards are basically popularity contexts for the most part, you don't see stuff like Avengers winning best movie of the year, which is something that 100% happens with videogames.
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I'd put that down to the relatively young age of the industry, as another other post here puts it. I mean, the industry didn't really have an equivalent of the oscars till Geoff set it up.

But, yeah, I agree. The IGNs and Gamespots are generally chill in terms of criticism in comparison to movie critics
 
Star Wars is a huge passion of mine, and probably many others on Neogaf.

In terms of OTT fan reaction Star Wars remains probably the biggest in our culture, but it is a massive outlier. In general I'd say video games receive stronger reactions than films and other mediums (you can partly attribute to the sequels and franchise nature of video games, so they have years sometimes decades to build fandoms).
 
Doom85 said:
Certain film franchises have had toxic fans issuing death threats to filmmakers/cast members, and anime staff/voice actors have faced similar threats (many staff/VAs for the anime Darling in the FranXX received them after a certain episode aired). Fan bases of any medium contain people who become too obsessed with them and if a new installment or such upsets them greatly they think that somehow justifies making the people involved feel threatened or relentlessly harass them.

Toxic Star Wars fans infamously were guilty of giving Jar Jar actor Ahmed Best suicidal depression for a year, and drove Jake Lloyd (kid Anakin) kind of nuts. Mark Hammil told them to stop that and leave the cast alone, but lo and behold they were back at it again when the new movies came out. Thankfully the verbal attacks weren't as severe this time (that we know of) but it shows a depressing image of certain "fans" refusing to mature and learn how to properly behave even when the original lead actor of the series tells them to.

My most hated movie is Silent Hill: Revelations. However, at no point did I ever even consider verbally attacking those who made the film if I ever met one of them, nor did I think less of those who enjoyed it. And hey, one of my closest friends liked the film, and it's all good. Life's too short to belittle people over different opinions over fictional stories, and it doesn't make you more of a "true fan" by doing so when in reality you're just being an obnoxious asshole.

Also worth mentioning, the attack on the anime studio Kyoto Animation is certainly the most tragic event regarding an entertainment creative workplace in recent years that immediately comes to mind. Granted, the attack was carried out by someone who wrongfully accused the studio of plagiarizing his novel, but still it felt relevant to mention as many lives were lost in this tragedy.
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I agree with almost everything here. Even though all forms of entertainment media have negative extremes of criticism coming from fan groups, it seems like there are just a lot more aspects to the games criticism, thereby expanding the overall volume.
That anime studio attack was horrible, although also an outlier in terms of extreme reactions across all media.

It seems that you could probably critique every aspect of, let's say, movies within the greater aspects of videogames because of the interactivity layer on top of it all

Kinda like this guy mentioned
Brofist said:
There are a lot more aspects to games to criticize. If any one or more of the following (graphics, gameplay, length, story, animation, performance) is off the game will get shit on. And if it's buggy as well.
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Technical issues for example get blown up way more in games than other forms.
Probably because games have the lowest technical quality standards across general entertainment media, on top of being the most interactive


Also, it's interesting how Star Wars gets mentioned twice here
Doom85 said:
Toxic Star Wars fans infamously were guilty of giving Jar Jar actor Ahmed Best suicidal depression for a year, and drove Jake Lloyd (kid Anakin) kind of nuts. Mark Hammil told them to stop that and leave the cast alone, but lo and behold they were back at it again when the new movies came out. Thankfully the verbal attacks weren't as severe this time (that we know of) but it shows a depressing image of certain "fans" refusing to mature and learn how to properly behave even when the original lead actor of the series tells them to.
Click to expand...
Matt_Fox said:
Star Wars is a huge passion of mine, and probably many others on Neogaf.

In terms of OTT fan reaction Star Wars remains probably the biggest in our culture, but it is a massive outlier. In general I'd say video games receive stronger reactions than films and other mediums (you can partly attribute to the sequels and franchise nature of video games, so they have years sometimes decades to build fandoms).
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Movies, and music are secondary to video games because of the size when I think of video games a lot of the time it's getting everything right, paying attention to the characters, worlds they're in etc. it ain't just a 3min song that has someone speaking mumble I don't see the value in those songs but god bless them, you got some shows trying to find themselves the Mandalorian should have been a video game not a show, potentially a movie.
 
Modern gamers are like that elitist hipster that works in a record store. Pretty much anything that is considered nerdy attracts a lot of these types.
 
Absolutely. Whenever I browse this forum I often get the idea most people here don't even like videogames.

'Gamers' are a terrible breed that should never be listened to until they grow up and become rational.
 
Compared between each of them today in this age? Yes. For each in their own time in history.. probably maybe.

On the other hand, I feel gaming takes the blame of whole lot of surrounding fenomenons, like the internet, predatory monetization, socializing solitairily (voice hating). Even tenpole games like Fortnite probably makes people criticize gaming as a whole.

Death of old media probably hasn't helped either.
 
I think the inflated Metacritic scores compared with films say no. I think, as videogames are a young industry yet, we are a very indulgent with them. In 50 years from now I hope only a true masterpiece receives praise and 9 or 10 scores. Not like now, when all months we have masterpieces scores for games that will be forgotten a year later.
 
We see games scored 10 many times but even the best movies don't get 10s.
not to say the truth cinema is not good lately
 
From fans? Yes.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the medium has grown together with the Internet so a lot of us are really comfortable interacting through digital means. Also a lot of deranged people are comfortable using forums and social media to share their opinions. I bet a lot of those people don't really care about music, books nor movies in comparison to games so it's more evident here.

The general public still doesn't seem to get games so they happen to fit in a very convenient place as villains to explain what is really related to mental illnesses like mass shootings or murders.
 
they do, and it's valid as well.

a movie is usually cheap and over in less than 2 hours.
you don't really have any investment in a movie, you passively observe what happens in it and are done with it in 1 sitting.

a video game has to be interacted with, you can't be passive, and they are usually longer than 2 hours, often are designed to be played for dozens of hours.

Movies are also not predatory, they might be bad but a video game can have shit like lootboxes and aggressive microtransactions that prey on the people that are susceptible to impulse buys and/or are easily addicted to random lootboxes.

another thing that doesn't happen is a movie purposefully holding back content and then selling it to you later at ridiculous prices.
what can happen are directors cuts or extended cuts of movies but the original ones are not designed to keep content from the audience and more about streamlining the theatrical release for a broad audience.

all these factors are reasons why almost any game has harsh critics but most movies don't nearly as much.
for movies to receive as much criticism as CoD and Battlefield or even Halo got recently they really have to shit the bed Star Wars sequel style.

a movie that has no big IP attached and no established fanbase will never be as shat on as people are doing with games. all that happens is people making fun of them and then forgetting them.
 
Gaming is still in its infancy compared to the other mediums...the art still needs time to develop...but there are some genuinely superb critiques out there.
 
Am no not really. Have you see the reaction to the latest star wars trilogy? However...

Gaming is still the wild west and companies are still trying to figure out new and unique ways of charging for games.
So gamers can be more vigilant about being fucked over.

Gaming is still very young and there will be a time when there is a consistent model but we're not there yet.

In movies, people only complain about the quality of the movie. Gamers have plenty more to complain about. OverPricing, broken launches, micro transactions etc etc etc
 
Given that we're getting broken games on Day 1 and costing $50 onwards, yeah so of course its going to be heavily criticized and rightly deserved it.
 
I think so, but that's not because of their faults. There are so many aspects of a videogame that reviewers / players could pick up and criticize.

The story, gameplay, graphics, sounds and music.. heck even their monetisation aspects like the price, dlc and micro-transactions, the battle pass etc.

Other medias just don't have that many angles on their products.
 
Usually yes and it's normal and logical. People spend way more money and time to play a single game. Also it's quite frequent that the frustrations don't come up until mid to late game. That certainly adds to the frustration level of a player when they are overall having a good time for 5-10 hours. Elmore extreme example is mass effect series, after 3 long games and they throw a trashy ending towards the players, of course the outrage is massive and rightfully so. For this reason I really hope every game will at least come with a mod tool. Allow mod community to fix or customize content is so crucial for the gaming experience.
 
I think there are too many critics trying to create their own niche with reviewing video games. Movies and music are like old yeller. They've already taken the dog out and shot it in the field. I feel like film critics hate movies whenever I Google a random film or films just suck regardless. It's always a 40% or 50% rating. I don't pay attention to music reviews because music is everywhere and it doesn't cost anything anymore.

I get sick of reading critics who ethically and philosophically break down the video game. It's like they're trying to break down each wall, each character, and each event until it completely voids the product of any sort of escapism. That's what I think sucks. People get these video games early and maybe it's just because I am a bit jealous, but anything that is good is placed in some social media person's hands before we get the product we are anticipating. We all have to wait for the yay or nay from some random person. It isn't like we grew up with these people or play games with them on a daily basis.

Either some random Twitter or YouTube person spoils a game or the whole "he said, she said" query about rather the game is good or not gets tossed around the internet. What do we do? If we follow this zeitgeist or school of thought - we are basically at this unwanted crossroads with the early bird's opinion about the game.

Do people care if some random music critic hated that new Blink 182 or Green Day album? Not really. Actually, we tend to just listen to it and we like it or not.

People are getting paid to say games suck, there are influencers who flaunt their style for followers, and the list of these so called VIPs keeps getting bigger and bigger. Streamers get way more attention from the industry than ever before. People who follow this zeitgeist see it all the time, especially if they look at the video game community. Movies and music don't have that. It's like MTV for Video Games. We have our VJ's and DJ's flaunting their own style, influencing other people to listen to what they like. This is just a rant and some of it is just sharing my opinion about it all. I do like it when the game I like gets a good score. I just get this unwanted feeling like video games have lost some of its consumer magic by being placed in the hands of a critic or someone getting paid to play. I think video games have become a much larger industry and we are dealing with all the pros and cons of that. It eventually fades when the audience is not entertained anymore or it becomes a hassle for the user to have any involvement with them.
 
No, movies and TV are way more strict in reception, just look at how hard it is to get a movie into the 80s in Metacritic. In gaming, a 70 is considered a total failure.


As for fan reactions, I'm pretty sure there are even worse meltdowns, specially in music (KPOP fans are pretty touchy with their stuff at least here in Brazil).
As for movies/TV, we don't have to go too far to see similar meltdowns (GoT, Disney's Star Wars etc).
 
Books have been banned, and also burned... books have made and destroyed civilizations.... books have gotten people killed...
 
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I find it interesting that people compare video games to books, films, music, theatre etc.
 
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