I bought the new GoldenEye yesterday and have spent the past few days reading reactions to the Wii exclusive from reviewers and fans on the forums. The response to the game has generally been positive, especially from Nintendo fans grateful at getting a game from third parties that was more than an afterthought franchise knock-off or cheap Wii Sports cash-in. Fans and critics have always had a tempestuous relationship, scarred with accusations of irrationality and bias flung in both directions. There's inevitably a review which raises the ire of a fanbase desperate to hear that a game they're looking forward to will justify their anticipation. When a criticism or score appears that calls that into question, a familiar scenario usually plays out where fans round on the reviewer with accusations of bias, and then start fighting amongst themselves (usually a few days post-release, when said fans have had a few days' time with the game) about whether the criticism was actually justified and if those detracting the writer were simply reacting in the manner of that most loathed of all gamer stereotypes, the fanboy. Games Informer gave GoldenEye a score of 65%, presently the game's lowest score on Metacritic (but only by 5%). Guess what happened next.Fanboyism, and its implication of obsessive bias in favour of a particular brand or company, is an ironically interesting insult (apologies for appalling alliteration) to have been adopted by gamers. I've found that many people in times of argument, myself included no doubt, often accuse others of doing what they themselves are guilty of, whether intentionally or not. Gamers, quick to label their brethren as discriminatory, are perhaps equally blind to how deeply rooted bias is not just amongst gamers and reviewers, but gaming culture in its entirety.
An article I wrote a few months ago speculated on what gaming could gain from 'auteur theory' - from film studies discourse, where a director becomes the 'author' of his film by asserting control over almost all aspects of its production and using certain signatures, either visually or thematically, to mark the film as his or her own - and how it could lead the way to the industry eventually attaining the same broad respectability as cinema, theatre or literature. The debate that followed was well-argued on both sides, but a response came up that always baffles me whenever its head is reared: gaming, a handful of respondents replied, doesn't need to be considered 'respectable'. It's doing just fine as it is. Why should we change to make other people like us more?
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