Characterizing and Understanding Game Reviews José P. Zagal Amanda Ladd, Terris Johnson College of Computing and Digital Media College of Computing DePaul University Georgia Institute of Technology 243 South Wabash Avenue 801 Atlantic Drive Chicago, IL 60604, USA Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
[email protected] {amanda.ladd,terris}@gatech.edu ABSTRACT Game reviews often overshadow other forms of journalistic Game reviews are one of the primary forms of videogame discourse surrounding games such as news, investigative journalism and are also one of the prevalent forms of discourse reporting, and commentary (Thomas 2007). Reviews have also about games. How can we characterize them and better been maligned for a variety of reasons such as being inconsistent understand the role they might play in helping create and shape in writing and style (Thomas, Orland et al. 2007), or being “rife our understanding of games? This article reports on the results of with grammatical errors, historical inaccuracies, plagiarism, run a study that analyzed and deconstructed a selection of game on sentences, [and] clichés” (Buffa 2006b). They have also been reviews from popular online websites. Our findings show that accused of failing to take a critical and analytical viewpoint game reviews are rich and varied in terms of themes and topics (Costikyan 2008). Another accusation is that reviews don’t covered and that considering them purely as “shopping guides” explain what playing a particular game feels like and that they ignores the broader role they play in the discourse of games. We don’t analyze what a game means outside the game itself found that game reviews often include game design suggestions, (Klostermann 2006).