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What's the Point of Video Game Reviews? (Patreon)

Published:
2026-07-03 09:00:12
Imported:
2026-07

Downloads

Content

This Week on Post Games:

Act 1: Why Game Criticism Is a Kindness

Act 2: What a Game Review Can and Can't Do

Patreon Bonus: The Real Reason Review Scores Make People So Mad

Guests:

Harper Jay: Critic and Writer

Act 1: Why Game Criticism Is a Kindness

Games Criticism Is A Kindness (Kotaku)

Kieron Gillen (Wiki)

The New Games Journalism (Kieron Gillen’s workblog)

Art for Art’s Sake (The Art Story)

Alan Moore Interview: Magical Consciousness, Disowned Works, and the Long London Quintet (Retrofuturista)

PsychOdyssey: The Making of Psychonauts 2 (Double Fine)

Trash, art, and the movies by Pauline Kael (Harper’s)

Act 2: What a Game Review Can and Can't Do

The Arcade Review: Issues 1-3 (StoryBundle)

The New Games Journalism, Same As The Old Games Journalism (Aftermath)

A Dialogue with Austin Walker (Unwinnable)

The Final Fantasy VII Letters, Part 1 (AV Club)

Bow N***** (Always Black/Archive.org)

Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (New Yorker)

Patreon Bonus: The Real Reason Review Scores Make People So Mad

Review Scoring (IGN)

How Kotaku Reviews Work (Kotaku)

We’re Making A Change To Video Game Reviews At Kotaku (Kotaku)

Metacritic Matters: How Review Scores Hurt Video Games (Kotaku)

Polygon is updating its reviews program for 2018 — and saying farewell to scores (Polygon)

Dying Light 2 is a perfect example of the ‘7 out of 10’ game (Polygon)

This Week in Video Game Links

Maps, mice, and moody hues: The making of Mina the Hollower (Mothership)

Killing Discs Could Mean More Expensive Games, And Fewer Discounts: ‘This Move Is All About Profitability And Control’ (Kotaku)

Xbox testing disc-to-digital feature that digitizes a physical game collection (The Verge)

Consoles continue their trend of just becoming worse PCs (PCGamer)

Rhythm Paradise Groove review - a joyful and generous celebration of beat-matching (Eurogamer)

Krafton Agrees to Pay ‘Subnautica 2’ Bonuses as Developer’s CEO Resigns (Bloomberg)

Free Game of the Week: Concerning the Dog Days

"An interactive meditation on all things contradictory in dog-human relationship." (Itch.io via Warp Door)

What Else I’m Enjoying

Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean goes high tech. And it’s losing its mystique (LA Times)

'Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep' is full of beautifully written grotesqueries (NPR)

The Leopard Man (1943) Original Motion Picture - Film Noir (YouTube)

Guide to Horror (Neil Cicierega)

Files

Comments

Jordan Fite

Thanks for answering my question, Chris! Looking forward to the rest of the series!!

Rob Makes Stuff

Hey Chris - thanks for answering my question. You provided some great insight that I definitely can find valuable as a maker. Hope you feel better!

Goositrous

In the spirit of non-adversarial criticism, I actually disagree with the framing that art does not directly change the world and I’m really curious what you think! Has the lesson of the modern media environment not been that the communication of an idea matters more than the reality of it? People vote based on anxieties over cultural fictions. Half of our stock market is valued based on the STORY of the future potential of AI. Honestly I think there a strong case to be made that globally reaching military decisions are being made based on the portrait of what the military IS found in action movies. I think we’ve been shown over and over that the winners in the modern world are decided by effective communication MORE than on the ground truth, and what is art but communication? So I’d say that not only does art change the world, increasingly art is the ONLY thing that changes the world- and the uncomfortable aspect of this is that the axis by which it is effective at doing so is a completely different axis than the one we’d call quality or merit.

Zachary Blaszak

Question (or maybe suggestion? lol):I have been a listener since the start, but just joined the patreon. I want to go back and listen the bonus sections. Are they all just tied to the episodes? If so, maybe a “bonus section” collection would be a good way for late subscribers to catch up! Or maybe it’s more work than it’s worth 😅

Jason Coburn

On the review score conundrum, I think another factor is what games are actually getting reviewed. Pre PS3/360, particularly in the era of print magazines, fewer games were being released, and a larger percentage of them would receive reviews. Back then it was much more common to see low effort games, often film and TV tie-ins, getting hit with sub 5/10 scores. These days there’s way more games coming out and far fewer people to review them, so a game needs to achieve a certain level of quality or hype to be even worth reviewing.