(8) Overall, shouldn't criticism resist the temptation of an expressive or therapeutic practice, in favor of an explanatory one?
— Ian Bogost (@ibogost) August 25, 2013
This is something I’ve felt quite strongly about recently although I had trouble defining what exactly I meant. Ian Bogost – a Games Designer and Professor at Georgia Tech. University – put it quite eloquently in a string of 8 tweets in response to modern TV “criticism”, summed up best in the one embedded above; shouldn’t critiques be kept to a less reactive, more analytical view to explain, rather than be a tool for the ‘critic’ to express themselves? Before you go on this is partly an argumentative piece, partly my own inner discussion to better concrete my own ideas. If you disagree with me by all means voice yourself because what good are ideas without opposition, eh?
This ties directly into a discussion I’ve recently had with a friend of mine in regards to subjective vs. objective reviews (specifically for video games) and I feel this point made by Bogost helps better define what I’ve been trying to get at, though not to discredit alternative approach. I simply think that criticism should indeed be separated from more reactive writing forms.
The Review is a widely used term for gaming journalists, pundits etcetera etcetera that refers to an individual’s feelings and/or thoughts toward a newly released video game. What can happen in this process however is the fusion of expression and criticism; subjectivity vs. objectivity if you will. What I will not claim here is that it is possible to be totally objective. As human beings who exist within one particular mode of being – namely our own bodies and mind – we cannot eradicate subjectivity as we are irrefutably lashed to our own perception on things. Empathy is temporary and we can only hold different perspectives for so long until our own influences the other.
What I will claim is that criticism can be separated from the otherwise, “expressive or therapeutic practice”. How then do we do this? How are we meant to differentiate the two? Simple, in the same string of tweets I feel Bogost puts it best by saying…
https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/371763996556550144
https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/371764050394644480
https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/371764228786769920
https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/371764287918080000
…in reference specifically to ‘criticism’ of Breaking Bad, a currently rather popular TV show if you weren’t already aware. Why do I feel the need to highlight these points in my own blog post though? Precisely the reasoning above, the idea of criticism has become so intertwined with personal opinion the definition of ‘criticism’ seems to have been altered to infer just that: personal opinion.
A fellow writer, student and friend of mine Joshua Clark takes a very different approach to what I want to define as ‘criticism’, rather he prefers to give his view on a video game as personal response. This I do not disagree with, and I maintain is a fully valid approach, my point pertains to the definition of this approach. This is not criticism, and again I feel this is a necessary differentiation. Am I audacious enough to define this more subjective approach a ‘review’? I think I just might be.
Here is my point. Reviews can be best considered an individual’s experience of a media, be it TV, literature, or video games. Criticism analyses how precisely this experience came about for the individual. I was made incredibly sad by David Tennant’s finale performance in Doctor Who – this would be the review, “The departure of David Tennant was incredibly somber and I felt a hole in my heart seeing him go.” – but the mechanics of the narrative and how that performance is saddening is what I want to call Criticism. Was it the principles of his character that made us mourn his loss? Did he represent something that we can relate to? To what extent was this mood portrayed in the show’s aesthetics?
I’ve tried to exercise this approach in a short piece on Dear Esther I wrote a little while back discussing how the game operates to spur a player onward by using basic visual and aural cues. I feel I achieved just that, but of course I am still developing myself as a writer – and always will be – so I’m hardly going to claim that example as the supreme one, simply my attempt.
This is what I am concerned with come my future endeavours of game criticism. Rather than explain how I felt, enjoyed or hated a game, I would much prefer to focus on how a it acted to build the experience, and potentially offer an insight into the mechanics and motivations behind it. You could very well say this is a critique of criticism, in which case, I’m all up for discussion. For all I know this could all be utter bullshit, or you might have some ideas of your own regarding criticism. Shoot.