GameBanshee Forums

Here's the article: http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/
This is a very interesting position on Bioshock: Infinite, and a broader reflection on the role of critical discourse and reviews in the videogame industry. More interestingly, to me, it also touches on themes of ideology and politics in videogames, and the deliriously low level of criticism we happen to apply to half-baked political fallacies.
Now, I happen to agree with most of the views expressed in the article, but I wanted to bring it to your attention because I though it might generate discussion, or at the very least, it may interest some of you. Enjoy.
Also, it would be fun to get some discussion going about this. Are most reviews and review sites a intellectually barren wasteland? Is a fundamentally conservative moral really more likely to gather accolades than a leftist account? (I'd say that's what he hints at when he speaks of the cowardice of reviewers and gamers) Why are there so few games with leftist undertones? I can count little more than some Obsidian games (MotB, Alpha Protocol, to a point), and some parts of Black Isle games (Planescape had an interesting elaboration of a conservative philosophy, that, while not exactly advocating the left, borrowed quite a bit from postmodern left wing thought), and Arcanum, and that's that... In fact, why are there so few games that deal with politics? Food for thought.
Thanks for your attention, I promise I won't bore you with this kinds of issues for some time now. Have fun!

The equation is simple. Reviewers are paid by magazines, magazines get their money from advertising, primarilly from video games companies; so reviewers are told to write positive reviews or get fired for fear of losing the advertising revenue.

This came to a head a few years ago when a reviewer wrote a critical review of a game; the game makers pressurised the magazine, who ordered their reviewer to re-write his review or get fired. He chose to stick by his principals and ended up out of work.

Sadly nearly all other reviewers are shills for the video industry, which is why I never waste my time reading their propaganda, preferring to rely on reviews by players on sites like this or word of mouth.

As for the political bias, that's simple to understand. The biggest market for video games up to now is the US, where people are brainwashed into believing capitalism or unrestricted profiteering is good, anything that threatens the status quo, the rich get richer the poor get screwed, is inherently evil. Promoting social equality, and/or fair distribution of wealth in a game is the one thing guaranteed to get a game pounded by reviewers (all of who work for capitalist companies) and wind up struggling to break even.