Theory

[somester]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/leave_ran ... e_experts/

Now, I found this article to be, for the most part, well reasoned and entertaining. However, I think there is a serious flaw in the argument.

The way I see it, Kierkegaard is saying something like this:

1. Ranked, "best of" lists are actually multi-genre lists.
2. Ranked multi-genre lists ought to be compared first at the level of genre, second at the level of the individual game.
3. Doing such a list is a huge undertaking, and none of the "experts" in question really have an adequate understanding for such a task, so they simply rank at the level of the individual game.
4. Therefore, these lists are, fundamentally, produced from an insufficient knowledge base, spawned by retards, etc. etc. etc.
5. The lists are, then, WORTHLESS, because they set out to establish order and succeed at anything but.

I think that this is all very well put, but the thing is, many people already realize this. When I look at Tim's list over at actionbutton, I don't salivate, thinking that I am actually about to discover the top twenty-five games of all time. Instead, I understand that I am about to read a bunch of silly articles that will probably introduce me to a bunch of games that I either had not previously heard of, or had largely ignored. For this reason, I think that the list is actually quite valuable.

Perhaps they are merely mislabeled, which seems to be your entire beef with NGJ anyway. Would you be less offended if all of the lists were titled in a fashion such as: "This is the list of games that I, Tim Rogers, hereby declare, for nebulous, probably nonexistent reasons to be the TOP TWENTY FIVE OF ALL TIME, in the order that they come to mind, with no criteria offered; no hope of justification:"?

Edit:

As far as I know, no major source of videogame criticism has ever really sat down and outlined a criteria. So of course these lists are asinine, as are all the scores and other rankings, but we already knew that!

Actually, look! Actionbutton does have a criteria:

The criteria for a game’s inclusion — well, the criteria are actually pretty dodgy and antisocial, though let’s just pretend that we picked games that we really love — a lot — and that possess a clean aesthetic, self-assured graphical and sonic presentation, streamlined mechanics, and common-sensical level design.

They even say, right there, that there criteria is "dodgy," which is a word I had to look up: "dishonest or unreliable."

So right off the bat, we already know that this ranking is either dishonest, unreliable, or both. The people at actionbutton must realize then, that their work has some other merit, or else they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble.

[icycalm]

I think that this is all very well put, but the thing is, many people already realize this.

Nobody realizes anything. The continued existence of these lists proves that.

When I look at Tim's list over at actionbutton, I don't salivate, thinking that I am actually about to discover the top twenty-five games of all time. Instead, I understand that I am about to read a bunch of silly articles that will probably introduce me to a bunch of games that I either had not previously heard of, or had largely ignored. For this reason, I think that the list is actually quite valuable.

Your reasoning don't make sense, G. You are saying that BECAUSE THE ARTICLES MAY BE WORTHWHILE, this means that THE LIST IS WORTHWHILE. So you are saying that the articles cannot exist without the list?

In what universe?

Perhaps they are merely mislabeled.

Damn right they are! They are purposefully mislabeled, in order to mislead people and perpetuate a self-serving obscurantism, so that all these self-styled "game critics" can keep spreading their ignorance with impunity!

Top 25 games my ass! Tim has only ever cared for 3-4 genres -- his list, like all such lists ever, only serves to shit ON ALL THE REST OF THE GENRES FROM A VERY GREAT HEIGHT!

Would you be less offended if all of the lists were titled in a fashion such as: "This is the list of games that I, Tim Rogers, hereby declare, for nebulous, probably nonexistent reasons to be the TOP TWENTY FIVE OF ALL TIME, in the order that they come to mind, with no criteria offered; no hope of justification:"?

I would be less offended if Tim and everyone else began developing a sense of HONESTY. If they did that, they would realize that the ONLY HONEST way to present their lists is the following:

"Hay guyz, these are the 25 games I've had the most fun with so far."

Anything else is bullshit.

Actually, look! Actionbutton does have a criteria:

The criteria for a game’s inclusion — well, the criteria are actually pretty dodgy and antisocial, though let’s just pretend that we picked games that we really love — a lot — and that possess a clean aesthetic, self-assured graphical and sonic presentation, streamlined mechanics, and common-sensical level design.

Lol, kid. Grow the fuck up. "Streamlined mechanics"? What the fuck is that supposed to be? A game is not a fucking airplane for fuck's sake. "Self-assured graphical and sonic presentation?" What is this, a self-help book for videogames? "How to win retailers and influence players: have a self-assured graphical and sonical prentation, lol".

In English, Tim's criteria translate to:

"I have not a fucking clue what makes a good game, so I am just going to come up with a bunch of truisms cloaked in hollow verbiage and pretend I do."

They even say, right there, that there criteria is "dodgy," which is a word I had to look up: "dishonest or unreliable."

So right off the bat, we already know that this ranking is either dishonest, unreliable, or both. The people at actionbutton must realize then, that their work has some other merit, or else they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble.

What an awesome criterion of merit! If someone goes into the trouble of doing something, then that something MUST have some merit! Like, for example, the Crusades. Or the Holy Inquisition. Those pious ancestors of ours sure went to a lot of trouble, didn't they?

Long live the US education system! Long live the internet!

[somester]

In between your arguments on various trivialities, I understand, and agree with, some of your rebuttals.

However, the point remains: If I have a list (detached from the articles, even) from a person, mislabeled or not, I think that it is giving me some valuable information. It is telling me, as you have said, what games this person likes. It helps me learn about the persons predilections, and some games that I (in this case) have previously not heard of. Is there no value in this?

I think this is what goes through most peoples' heads when they read reviews, these lists, etc. They realize that the criteria are laughable or nonexistent, but they are still looking for some information, nonetheless. If they can learn about the reviewer, that's good for them (then they can know, for example, if they ought to listen to Tim crap on their favorite genre or not); it will help them assess the arguments presented in the articles.

[JoshF]

The criteria for a game’s inclusion — well, the criteria are actually pretty dodgy and antisocial, though let’s just pretend that we picked games that we really love — a lot — and that possess a clean aesthetic, self-assured graphical and sonic presentation, streamlined mechanics, and common-sensical level design.

lol every adjective here is wrong.

[Mr.Stevenson]

However, the point remains: If I have a list (detached from the articles, even) from a person, mislabeled or not, I think that it is giving me some valuable information. It is telling me, as you have said, what games this person likes.

Well, as it turns out, icycalm did say something to this very extent in the article, as you have said, and I quote:

"And thus we arrive at the true usefulness of these lists -- because they are indeed useful in one respect! -- in figuring out the favorite genres of the people who construct them (and by extension the genres in which the dumb fucks SUCK)."

Then, I guess you guys aren't in disagreement about your main point, somes2, after all? I'm not quite sure what whole problem is, besides a misunderstanding beforehand. It appears that you two are in agreement now.

[raphael]

As Icy's article often do, this one put in (harsh) words ideas I already had but couldn't articulate with so much clarity.

Clarity maters. It makes a real difference. It is, for example, what makes the difference between knowledge and a mix of copy-paste infos from various websites (even if only reliable ones). This is the reason when you want to learn something efficiently (and not only get infos) you'd better turn to a teacher and not to a book.

Afterwards everything Icy wrote sounds obvious, but the fact is how this all is articulated wasn't that obvious to me before I read the article.

P.S.:
I feel stupid for not realizing earlier why everybody seems to agree the Zelda games are some of the best ever while they don't even seem very good (let alone original or innovative) to me, same thing with the Mario games, Warcraft, etc. I certainly am open minded and like many genres as long as the games are good, but I often failed to understand how some games came to be famous. Marketing, self replicating clueless public opinions, and lack of culture of everybody seem obvious answers. But I naively always trusted people's claims ... and ended up puzzled.

[icycalm]

In between your arguments on various trivialities, I understand, and agree with, some of your rebuttals.

Go suck your mom's cock, motherfucker. I take time out of my day to answer your retarded questions and you have the nerve to call MY answers to YOUR questions "trivialities"? I should have just IP banned you the first time.

[icycalm]

Having taken care of that, I'll set the record straight on this moron's "objections":

However, the point remains: If I have a list (detached from the articles, even) from a person, mislabeled or not, I think that it is giving me some valuable information. It is telling me, as you have said, what games this person likes. It helps me learn about the persons predilections, and some games that I (in this case) have previously not heard of. Is there no value in this?

None. Except if the person knows what he's talking about, something which people who manufacture mixed-genre lists never do (otherwise they wouldn't be manufacturing them in the first place). As I mentioned in the opening paragraph of the article, these lists basically amount to an admission of ignorance of the most basic principles of game reviewing.

I think this is what goes through most peoples' heads when they read reviews, these lists, etc. They realize that the criteria are laughable or nonexistent, but they are still looking for some information, nonetheless.

In your happy-pretend world, maybe.

If they can learn about the reviewer, that's good for them (then they can know, for example, if they ought to listen to Tim crap on their favorite genre or not); it will help them assess the arguments presented in the articles.

Exactly. And the first thing they should learn about the author of a mixed-genre list is that he has no fucking clue about how games work.

[Molloy]

Genre ranking is a deeply irritating practise. I've always hated these best of lists because the kind of genres I enjoy are never well represented. Not to mention the sheer repetition in the ranking so everybody gets progressively more brainwashed into thinking some JRPG "should be played by every self respecting gamer".

One of my favourite magazines in the 90's was PC Zone. Each reviewer had a small blurb at the start of the reviews section telling you what games he liked and most of them only liked one or two genres. Reviewer 1 would like FPS. Reviewer 2 would like turn based strategy. Reviewer 3 would like RTS and point and click adventure.

Nobody reviewed games outside their specified genre (or if they did they apologised profusely and admitted that they didn't really know what they were talking about). They were always comparing like with like. Then in the back section of the magazine there were Top 10's broken down into genres. The perfect system.

A barrage of idiots would always flood the letters section everytime, say, Quake 2 got a higher percentage rating than Command & Conquor. They expected the ratings to apply across every genre.

They had a similar system in alot of the Playstation magazines (Play, Mean Machines Playstation) around that period too but the incessant whining by idiots meant it got phased out.

[chamchamtrigger]

This was actually something that bothered me for a long time, though definitely not for all of the reasons that your article stated (mostly because I never looked at the situation in that way before...now is a different story, however). I usually just got irritated at the fact that it was basically a list of recommendations for games and genres that everyone already knew about, with a few that would usually have an obscure title thrown in just so that they could hide the fact that it was simply a list of games (and genres) they liked, rather than something that explained why these games were placed the way they were in the first place. In other words, they were just a waste of time to show people how many games they knew about with no real sort of value (at least no real value until you pointed out how it could show what types of games they were into and so forth).

I have to say that I never put enough thought into the genre aspect, and how limited the lists actually were. I remember one list having tetris at the top of the list simply because they felt the game was addictive, which is quite vague to say the least. Kind of like an apple jacks commercial from the 90s if you're familiar with those. I don't protest anyone having tetris as their favorite game, but at least have a better reason than something a child (or uncreative marketing team) would come up with.

My only question would be if every list maker truly believed that the number 1 game on their list meant the number 1 genre to them, or if (according to them) the game was just executed exceptionally well within that genre, encouraging other genres to utilize whatever's at their disposal to follow suit (I guess the question would need a question mark). I guess that may have been worded very oddly to the point of not making sense, but what I am trying to say is if someone's favorite game was Virtual Tennis (making number 1 on their list), but their favorite genre was actually puzzle games, would that mean that they just think that Virtual Tennis utilized as many elements as possible in that genre, and other genres just haven't made a game that utilized as many defining elements of their genre as possible yet?

Regardless, of the answer, no top list has yet to explain, in any form, what you stated in your article, so no matter the reason for putting a game/genre at #1, it still amounts to nothing more than a "games I like to play" list.

[icycalm]

My only question would be if every list maker truly believed that the number 1 game on their list meant the number 1 genre to them

What these people "believe" is worth about as much as what religious people "believe" -- i.e. nothing. And this is because they never actually sit down to think about their "beliefs".

And I put the word 'belief' here in quotation marks because belief is basically a euphemism for prejudice or superstition: an inherited convinction.

or if (according to them) the game was just executed exceptionally well within that genre, encouraging other genres to utilize whatever's at their disposal to follow suit.

To follow suit where? How could one genre "follow suit" another one? What is good in one genre may be completely inappropriate for another one -- and usually is.

I see what you are saying, and it is indeed the only theoretically valid objection one could level at my article, but it doesn't get us very far. Under Defeat, for example, is a better shooting game than Luminous Arc is an SRPG, but to place them both in the same list, with Under Defeat higher up than Luminous Arc, presupposes that we like BOTH GENRES EQUALLY. Because if we like SRPGs a hundred times more than shooters, then we'd probably enjoy playing Luminous Arc much more than Under Defeat.

[icycalm]

Some interesting passages in Ebert's latest blog post which reinforce some of the points I make in the article:

The most respected "best film" list in the world is the one the UK film magazine "Sight & Sound" runs every 10 years. They poll the world's directors, critics, festival heads, archivists and others. Ever since 1962, the top film has been "Kane."

This is interesting when compared to the Shmups.com annual poll, which for the last four-five years has been awarding Dodonpachi the top spot. The idea is that Dodonpachi may not be ANYONE'S favorite shooter, but it will be on most people's lists, which is why it always ends up at the top of the general poll.

Let us agree that all lists of movies are nonsense. I have steadfastly refused to compose any list of films except for my annual Best 10 list, and the Sight & Sound poll -- which has, after all, some real significance. Despite the entreaties of countless editors, authors and websites, I decline to make lists of the best comedies, horror films, Christmas films, family films, Westerns, musicals, political films, silent films, films about dogs, and so on. That way madness lies.

This passage demonstrates what I pointed out in the article: that for serious film critics, genre lists -- and basically the whole idea of genre -- is anathema. The exact opposite is true in the realm of games.

[Bradford]

This passage demonstrates what I pointed out in the article: that for serious film critics, genre lists -- and basically the whole idea of genre -- is anathema. The exact opposite is true in the realm of games.

I would draw a connection here between the quote above and what you have discussed elsewhere about the pervasive childishness of mainstream gaming journalism. Creating a "top games" or "top movies" list is an inherently frivolous act, that people who are serious about a subject would naturally have only a small amount of tolerance for.

You only have to imagine the maturity level of someone (and such persons are everywhere) who would actually get a thrill from such a list - "omg! my life is so validated now because IGN thinks the exact same game as me is the best evar!"

[Jedah]

It's not always a maturity issue. The gaming press insists to create lists in order to guide gamers' purchases, especially those who seek to make a collection of old games. It's actually a business trick nothing more.

[icycalm]

The gaming press insists to create lists in order to guide gamers' purchases, especially those who seek to make a collection of old games.

Yes, this is a legitimate reason, as long as the lists are genre-specific, which they NEVER are.

It's actually a business trick nothing more.

As far as business is concerned I am sure the gaming press would prefer to NEVER mention old games, like, ever. Their advertisers simply do not want you to spend time playing old games and not buying new ones.

The lists are more a prestige issue (see Action Button -- the whole thing being simply a publicity stunt meant to generate attention to a bunch of otherwise unremarkable articles).

[Jedah]

As far as business is concerned I am sure the gaming press would prefer to NEVER mention old games, like, ever.

Sad but so true. You are right the gaming press usually refers to old games, to prove the superiority in game design of a certain developer (see any Nintendo specific magazine). I'm pretty sure that many websites, keep churning "retro" lists and articles just to persuade game collectors to invest a fortune on an old shitty JRPG. My God I fell once for Terranigma and purchased a PAL version. It was inserted once in my SNES and never again. Now I have a completely worthless game in my library. I hate JRPGs....

[icycalm]

Just came across a couple of well-written replies to Tim's list. It's nice to see someone other than me doing a good job of taking him to task from time to time.

I personally think that Actionbutton.net are the hipsters of game review. virtually everything they say is directly motivated by whether or not someone is going to think it's either a) the gimme choice or b) the obvious anti-gimme choice. The idea that they think Metal Gear Solid 3 is the number 10 best game of all time, but metal gear solid 1 isn't even on the list is exemplary of this. Anyone and Everyone loved MGS1. It's a gimme. No one liked MGS2, it's the anti-gimme. MGS3, which was better than 2, at least, involved regularly eating wild animals for no other reason than kojima wanting to be known as a revolutionary video game realist. You had to change your clothing every time you moved from one type of ground to the next in order to maintain your camouflage. the old style hiding behind things and sneaking around patrols gameplay was almost entirely eradicated in favor of dress-me-up Snakey style costume and makeup changes. There is a point in the game where you they make you climb a ladder (you have to hold the up button, it is not automated) for several minutes while nothing happens. it gets so boring that they actually have the theme song to the game (a james bond parody that is actually one of the awesome parts of the game) slowly fade in to break up the monotony. You start the game off with a silencer, which breaks early in the game and cannot be replaced. Despite the so called realism of having to change your clothes to camouflage into your environment better and having to eat periodically to keep from suffering from total fatigue, they didn't think realism was sufficient reason to restrict the number and size of items you can carry so stealthy snake spends the entire game carrying several dozen items on him ranging from binoculars to several large cages of live animals you're hanging onto so you can eat them later. If you kill an animal and carry it's carcass on you, the meat eventually goes bad, in another tip of the hat to realism, but they fail to explain why this happens after at most an hour's time in a game that only takes place over a day or two. During the game, I probably ate 40 different animals. In a day. 40 animals in a day. I had to, or else I would scream and pass out on the ground from exhaustion, to say nothing of being totally unable to steady my shooting hand when I even manage to stay awake.

This is the number 10 game of all time, for them. Sure.

Out Of This World is another example. The truly old school know and love it, so it has the hipster bonus points that saying something like "I like their first album, but I think they sold out after that" has. They could have gone with the more commonly known and better selling Flashback for the genesis, which had virtually identical gameplay, but that's like saying you think Nirvana's Nevermind was better than Bleach. Everyone thinks that and you're not cool if you go with what everyone thinks. They could have gone with the even older originator of the gameplay style and chosen the original Prince of Persia, but that's a gimme. So Out Of This World it is, because then you get to sound like you must really know your shit to so confidently declare something so unpredictable as your number 1.

Of course, they also adopt the hipster pose of only half-assedly making these declarations. "well, if we HAVE to pick a number one..." It's such a bald-faced affectation for them to have adopted this pose in a list of their own choosing that no one asked them to make. Oh, we don't WANT to make a number one choice, but we'll do it if you INSIST. But no one insisted. It's a plea for attention by using some milquetoast half-assed controversy. They've been pimping this idea that Gears of War is one of the best games of all time (notably while slamming Bioshock at the height of its media frenzy) specifically to generate demand for this nonsense list of theirs because, although Gears of War is a fine game, the idea that it's the 6th best of all time is almost laughable. Even among 3rd or 1st Person shooters, the gameplay's fun factor and claim to fame is entirely it's excellent cover system. The story is generic and the characters are unoriginal to the point of comedy (holy shit! beefy and grim space marines! the only black character speaks like samuel l jackson!). That's the number 6 game. Of all time. This is the equivalent to all the hipsters who say they love Brittany Spears.

It's just so obviously all based on posturing. They're trying to make a name for themselves by being the Pitchfork Media of Video Games criticism. Blech. I'll be interested when this list includes Beyond Good and Evil, Day of the Tentacle and Fallout.

The thing is, you either worship at the temple of Tim Rogers or you think he's full of hot air. His acolytes seem to only care for games that are a) console games, b) from Japan, or c) both. And there has to be lots of navel-gazing because, you know, the only way to legitimize the embarassment of playing videogames is to proclaim them ART and write rambling gonzo-style "experiences."

The list, like everything else the guy writes, is pandering to his audience. Like the first guy said, no Baldur's Gate 2, no list.

http://ask.metafilter.com/68096/Academi ... ideo-games

[icycalm]

Yet another stupid list:

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the ... play-today

I like that they keep trying to camouflage the stupidity of their lists by pretending that they are all different. "Most significant", "most innovative", etc. etc., and now "best to play... today", as if there's a difference if you play them today or next month or last year.

And still no one understands the nature of games, which precludes the compiling of such lists.

[Bradford]

More commentary on lists from Ebert:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/07 ... _made.html

I thought 'propoganda' was a particularly appropriate description, especially (in addition to Ebert's stated reason for using the term) because of its popular connotation that it is necessarily divorced from "truth."

[icycalm]

I came upon this little passage while reading Nietzsche's Daybreak, and added it to the beginning of the article.

To the honour of the expert. -- As soon as anyone who is not an expert starts to play the judge we should at once protest: whether the person concerned is a little man or a little woman. Enthusiasm for and delight in a thing or a person are no arguments: nor are repugnance and hatred for them, either.

He is basically saying that no matter how much one may like or dislike a thing, if he is not an expert his judgement will be worth a bit less than jack shit.

[icycalm]

It seems the dude who wrote this has an account here. At any rate it is a good demonstration that the issue highlighted in my article is a common one among the different arts, here discussed in the context of comics.

http://www.garageraja.com/?p=1345

Another List?
January 6th, 2011

At some point, “top X” lists will be relegated to one single role: listing for everyone else these lists so that they might be avoided. Every year — no, every DAY — it seems that some numbnuts are dead set on compiling a list of the top “arbitrary number” of writers/artists/directors/games/musicians/albums/rapists/dictators/etc etc in order to say… what, exactly? What the devil could these lists POSSIBLY suggest besides the compiler’s own (often exceptionally poor and uninteresting) opinion? If it’s not being compiled by an expert (somebody with a masterly and thorough understanding of the subject matter) then the list will tell you NOTHING; even then, it only says so much.

In the case of the Comic Book Resources two newest polls (One covering the top 50 writers the other covering the top 50 artists the lists betrays nothing but the prejudices of the readers of the CBR. I will refrain from turning this into an opportunity to hoist my list of the finest artists and writers on you (I don’t have such a list, especially not one determining the NUMERICAL VALUE [which is the worst of this!] of each writer and artist), as that would be more than a little hypocritical. Neither am I going to use it to rant about how idiotic these voters are; though the mind boggles to find that Mignola is below Miller, Millar, CLAREMONT, JOHNS AND STAN LEE! (a man who freely admits that all he did was write the dialogue for stories, and over-wrought, expository, clumsy BRICKS of dialogue at that!) and that Dave Mazuchelli is nowhere to be seen, that is a harangue for another day and time.

What concerns me is that this list was a POLL and NOT the well-constructed, well-reasoned list of a comics expert. There is little to no justification for the positions of these writers besides a consensus by whom? A bunch of nobodies and hobbyists. It’s fine that they have their opinions; it’s quite literally impossible to be human and NOT have an opinion! But for CBR to post this list up as if it means something is utterly absurd. That this list is supported by a website that is out to prove that “comics SHOULD be good!” and yet leaves the call to a public that, by consensus, believes Moebius [one of the absolute greats] is inferior to Frank Quitely [a fine but limited artist who can only draw ONE FACE and whose women are all TERRIFYING to look at]… well, it shocks the mind.

As it stands, these lists read like they were put together by hobbyists: well intentioned, moderately read so-and-so’s who know enough about comics to distinguish them from the everyday reader but not enough about comic books to prove that they actually have any passion for the medium. It boils down quickly to a popularity contest and a matter of name-brand recognition, which will always be the problem with such composite lists. There’s no honesty, no strong personal opinion, and no reasoning: just a bizarre consensus vote that proves little more than the fact that more people in this poll knew about/liked writer “A” than writer “B”; it says nothing about WHY writer “A” is superior to writer “B” (and if you don’t believe me, just take a look at the reasoning behind each of the polled’s vote: they are abysmal). Note that there are no writers or artists from anywhere beyond North America and England (besides Moebius, but I doubt that many of these finks could have told you the man is actually French); no reference to the French or Japanese or German greats; just English and American pandering all around!

Again, if I seem hypocritical for letting my opinion fly, I assure you I’m nothing of the sort. My problem is not with (again) opinions or even lists (at least, not the lists compiled by EXPERTS on a subject): my problem is with faceless, by-consensus-lists that don’t say anything and the manner in which sites like CBR, which are desperately trying to prove to anybody and everybody the legitimacy of the comics form (it’s in their tagline, for Christ’s sake!). Here’s a pathetic, sewn-together reference list of the “best of the best” compiled by people who have no business declaring who the best of the best are! It’s the sort of thing the webmaster wanted made so he could tack it on to the front page and show it off to anybody who had a bone to pick with comics in order to convince them that there were important names attached to the medium!

Except it says nothing about any of the names and does nothing to prove the quality of their work (they provide a few sample pages and passages here and there that aren’t even the artists’/writers’ best!)! There’s nothing demonstrating WHY these works are worth praise besides a few hastily scribbled notes (all of which refer to the fact that this is a READER’S POLL!)! It’s a joke, a travesty, a shameless sham, and is just plain rotten on the part of the people at CBR.

[icycalm]

This is a genuinely profound psychological insight:

http://www.the-ghetto.org/forums/index. ... 65#msg6165

Now, to add on to the reason that I would like to write this article: Everybody knows how much I despise lists. Well, I've noticed a very bizarre trend on the internet that, as far as I can tell, only makes sense for one reason. See, people hate critics. They hate Ebert, they hate White, they hate anybody who disagrees with their opinion. They hate these people because they have developed the ability to criticize but, as people feel, they have never demonstrated a capacity to do. "Those who can't" and so forth. However, these people have no problem with rankings and lists. In fact, they welcome the debate. As far as I see it, the authority for commanding attention from creating one of these ridiculous "lists" is only derived from demonstrating competency in criticism. People hate the process that legitimizes what should be an incredibly difficult undertaking. But isn't it funny how everybody has an opinion on those lists? And it's very, very rarely that people call out "bad lists"? And people swarm those lists like flies to honey? That's because those lists command no authority. More often than not, they're absolutely terrible, written by people who are either using them as a means to generate cheap ad revenue or simply attaching themselves to a form of writing that they have no business being near. And by commanding no ability to shut out the opinions of others, they become a form of empowerment for the average reader. Now they can inject their opinion into the debate, no matter how poorly-researched it may be. That's the only conclusion I could come up with. Otherwise, it strikes me as utterly irrational.

It's basically the only theoretical point on videogames/criticism I've come across so far that I wish I had thought of and written first.