You guys always wanted objective game reviews, right?

Saying "inherent quality speaks for itself" is a cop out. Quality is not in the realm of the objective since objectivity doesn't deal with value judgements. Two people can come to different conclusions on "quality" or "value." If you disagree, you should be able to prove the quality/value of something. Proof, as you should know, requires corroboration, which is why I asked for a source. You are literally trying to worm your way out of providing substantiation for your claims.

Also, what logical fallacies do you think that I am engaging in? Appealing to 1PMrFister is kind of lame since he's not an authority on logical fallacies.

Again, no proof is required. You are claiming as much only to stall the conversation. Watch the movie and acquire all the evidence you need.

What you failing to realize, Black_Knight, is once you say that something is correct/incorrect/wrong/etc, you have to prove that your claim is correct. Verification of the correctness of a claim requires proof.

Watching the movie as evidence is dependent on my individual perception. I may not come to the same conclusion that you did based on my own viewing, so can we please stop with this silliness?

If you simply presented your opinion as just that, then you wouldn't need proof. Once you deal in terms of correctness or incorrectness, that's when proof is required. So where is it?

@GreySeal9: This is fruitless. We are running in circles. If you think you are unable to see the obvious when watching the movie I cannot help you. Remain on your position that everything is subjective.

Saying "if you are unable to see the obvious" has no meaning beyond you being pushy about your own opinion. If I took a game that you think is good and said "I can't help you if you can't see that this game is obviously bad," that wouldn't mean shit either. If you are so confident that value/quality is objective, you shouldn't have to resort to such cheap arguments.

I didn't say everything was subjective. I said that facts are objective and value judgements are subjective. You have not said anything to demonstrate otherwise.

I beg to differ. I maintain I did and you ignored it leaning on logical fallacies. Let's cut it though. Have it your way. There's no pot of gold sitting at the end of this rainbow.

You can maintain that you did all you want, but that doesn't magically make the proof you didn't provide come into existence.

Hope you guys don't mind if I interject here.

While I can completely see where you're coming from Grey, I'm tending to side with Black_Knight here. I've tried to argue his position many times before to no avail, as I find it's a position that's incredibly difficult (nigh impossible) to explain, much less substantiate without proof. There really is no proof, only opposing views. I'd like to give this debate a shot here, as you two talking of movies has give me an example to work with and elaborate on.

Okay, let's say you have two short films shot by two different directors, one by a professional, one an amateur, but their goals are one in the same--let's say it's a film that's attempting to document one of Michael Jordan's best dunks. The professional is able to keep Mike in frame at all times, from beginning right until after he lands. It's steady and well-focused. The amatuer is not quite up to the task as Jordan is too fast, not in frame as the dunk occurs, nor when he lands. The camera's also shaking all over the place and out of focus.

Now I've always agreed that value is subjective, but I don't (and never have) believed that quality is, even though value plays a direct role in deciding it. The better dunk footage holds objective quality because it accomplishes what it sets out to do while the amateur's footage doesn't. Value judgement is only an important factor in determining quality before the film footage has even been recorded. And once someone has assigned value before they create something, once it is made, that quality has been stamped onto that product contingent upon the competency of its execution and whether or not it accomplished its goal in accordance to what value has been placed on it. What someones' value judgements are after that fact is really irrelevant pertaining to its quality.

Now, what's to be valued in the above example? People want to be able to see the dunk in the best possible way. That is the sole determinant of its quality. So while that quality is indeed subjectively decided upon by value judgments by the few or the many, once that value has been established, the goal has been set. Upon completion, it's either quality or it isn't, and the inherent quality of the footage stems from whether it lives up to what's been preemptively valued.

Does that make any kind of sense? I realize this is a really strange argument because I completely understand your view. I'm also repeating myself a bit, I know. Something produced arises out of value judgments, and depending to what degree and how well those judgments are executed in the end, they then transform into varying inherent qualities that resides outside the realm of subjectivity.

Or something like that.... :P

While I get why you side with Black_Knight_00 I feel that the reasoning behind your claims is very different. If I interpret your approach correctly I don't think you would come to the conclusion that the Seventh Seal is inherently (or objectively) better than American Pie. Am I correct? And if not, why? I do realise the comparison between those two movies was probably a lousy one to begin with (since they're two completely different genres with different aims and from different times), but for the sake of clarity...

This is an interesting argument (that subjective standards crystallize into objective standards), but I'd say it doesn't meet the criteria of objectivity because the standards are set by people and are not always agreed on. If you can even debate standards, you're in the realm of subjectivity. Objective things are those that simply can't be debated. They will always be true regardless of what anybody thinks/decides/agrees upon.

If the internet has taught me anything, is that everything can and will be debated. No matter how established and demonstrably true something is, someone will always deny it. I don't think the objectivity of a fact is denied by the fact that someone might disagree with it. There also are facts considered objectively true which are objectively false: for instance, ask anyone in your circle what color the sea is: 99% will reply "blue", which as we know is incorrect. This to demonstrate that objectivity is not a sum of agreeing subjective viewpoints and that perception can sway from seeing something's inherent properties.

What Mirko said is what I expressed at long length in a recent thread: once something comes that raises the bar, it becomes an objective standard for quality: if you make a car that consumes half as much as the others, it would be objectively superior, and from that point forward anyone producing a car that consumes more would objectively have failed to conform to the standards.

I think the idea of an objective review is completely foolish, but that site is good for some laughs.

I've not seen either of those films so it's difficult for me to comment on them in relation to each other, or to my position. The reason I used the example I did was because it breaks down my argument into the fundamentals.

I really don't see how quality always has to be ascertained solely through relativism and comparison. Why is quality unable to stand on its own two feet outside of subjectivity, even though subjectivity has been utilized in its creation? Value obviously cannot exists in an objective sense, but I very much think quality can. Objectivity and subjectivity exist at the same time without interfering with one another. I see no conflict. When someone uses value judgement to make something, after it has been produced theirvalue has become fact in that something, and depending on whether or not their attempt to fully realize executing their value as best they're able goes directly into determining its objective quality.

Let's go back to my example, with a twist. Let's say the two directors were the only people to exist. Again, their goal is the same based upon the same values. After all is said and done, one lives up to it and the other fails. Wouldn't the professional's film then hold better, objective inherent qualities than the amateur's? If not, why not? Both of the end products stem from the exact same value, therefor it's rendered a moot point and quality (whether that value has been hit) is the only remaining factor TBD.

The only standards that matter are those that are dictated and necessitated by the value that has been chosen before something's inception and production. Everyone else's opinion holds no sway on what is quality because that quality is the product of execution and implementation of what is valued and striven for.

Differing standards are only relevant and prioritized before creation. After they have been decided upon and done, something is what it is, well done or not (remember....BASED on that preexisting value's criteria, this is the crucial point here that I need to emphasize), holding objective qualities and no opinion afterwards can change that fact. That's when preference and subjective values are again relevant.

The colour of the sea is not about quality. Ask people if the sea is objectively better than the land or if the colour of the sea is objectively appealing and see if they can agree. Besides, your example could just as much demonstrate that what you see as inherent is a potential illusion.

I don't understand why you use an example of a comparison between two cars or movies in a discussion about video games. If one car uses more fuel, but has a better engine and the other one uses less fuel, but has a worse engine, which car is going to be objectively better? I think people will disagree on that. Or maybe the comparison only comes down to the design of the exterior. Which car has an objectively better (prettier?) exterior design (when both exteriors, as is often the case with cars, meet the quality standard)? I think people will disagree on that. And if you relate that back to games, I think those are the kind of aspects a lot of people want to see objectively judged, which I think is unrealistic.

Also, I think only a few elements of a videogame allow for such a strict comparative and measurable quality assessment. And the next problem is that the measuring doesn't happen objectively. Camera movement and controls for example are tested by human hands, not by machines. And these comparisons aren't even made by replaying the games that are being compared. Instead, the comparison is based on what someone remembers of a game that was played earlier. So the measuring tools and the measuring circumstances are questionable. Even if there were objective quality standards in videogames we wouldn't be able to objectively test or compare them.

I don't want to turn this into a moral debate, but the reason I oppose to that attitude is that it takes for granted something that is solely dictated and constructed by people. It allows for accepting quality without question. It only becomes objective within a specific (constructed) context, which to me isn't objective. To use a very extreme example, not too long ago in human history certain people were 'objectively' considered lesser people, because of their 'inherent' qualities. In the end the ideals and principles that dictate these inherent qualities are human constructions and in my opinion they should always be questioned, no matter how standard and accepted they are. That and what I said above in reply to Black Knight's second quote.

What if one game designer feels the need to add a wobbly effect to the camera movement, because it fits the intoxicated state the main character is in most of the time. The wobblyness might adhere to the standard of expressing intoxication through camera work (and is very well done in that regard), but gameplay wise it might not be as functional, because the camera might have a slight delay or small direction variations. How are we to objectively judge quality here? Does gameplay trump everything? Who decides that? And how can we judge if the applied measurement tool (a person) is trustworthy enough? To answer your question (in the context of game reviews): no, because there are too many factors to take into account, because the measurement methods are flawed and because judging these qualities in isolation does not represent a good game experience (and there is no standard on how all these different standards are correctly combined). And in the end people want an answer to the question if a a game is a good experience.

But well, I think this discussion is mostly about definitions now. I think the people involved have different expectations when it comes to reviews and they reflect those expectations onto terms like 'objective' and 'subjective'. And what I also noticed is that I mostly judged the situation as the combining of game elements into an experience, instead of judging game elements in isolation. Anyway, I think it'd be more constructive to discuss examples of reviews that, in our view, do the right or wrong thing. That way we could actually analyse what we consider to be objective or subjective directly, instead of using examples of cars and movies on a very basic (and in my view unrelated) level. We're drifting off here (and I realise I'm also responsible for that in that reply and in the other discussions).

@loafofgame: There are objective standards you'll agree on: if the next Elder Scrolls game were to run at 1 frame per second, it would be an objective standard of incompetence. Same goes if the controls were so delayed that it tok 5 seconds for any button press to register. Nothing to do with personal prefrence there.

It's all a matter of figuring out were objectivity starts to blur.

Exactly, and I feel that in the context of videogames and especially their reviews it starts to blur very quickly. ;-P So quickly that I think the term shouldn't be used when talking about game reviews and people's expectations of what they should be like (and I explained why). But again, discussing concrete examples of reviews might be more useful in the future. Because this again came down to arguing about the definition and I don't think that problem will be resolved...

I think that videogames are the medium where objectivity is the most possible, as contrary to other media, they have a plethora of interactivity parameters to consider.

That said, I know an agreement can't be reached here. We are, after all, splitting hair and as I said there is not gold at the end of this rainbow.

@loafofgame: How do you quote your particular paragraphs? Do you highlight them and then hit the quote above? I'd love to be given a preview so I can be sure, but due to this site's "improvements", I'm unable.

A reviewer can never be truly objective unless he is R2D2, but then again he would be programmed by a human so, no.

@MirkoS77: Uuuhm, I quote the whole thing, then delete everything I don't want to reply to and repeat that process. You can requote without your original text disappearing (just don't hit reply; that'll make the text disappear) and the quote will appear where you put the flashing indicator. Haven't really found a more efficient way yet... It's all very messy. The deleting of texts and getting rid of the empty space above and below the text you want to keep requires a little bit of messing around. Make sure to ctrl+c a lot.

I really only visit Games Discussion, so I can take my time on the replies. And I didn't visit the forums before the change, so I get the feeling that ignorance is bliss in this particular case... ;-) But yeah, ease of use is definitely not optimal.

Oh, and what you type in the reply box is pretty much the preview, so if it doesn't look good in the reply box it's not going to look good in the reply.