Reviewing a game is done in many ways by many people. Some live their lives doing such a task, employed by publications that involve creating the hottest news, in-depth previews, and making deadlines for all of it. There are also crowds of people like myself that do it for free, either as a portfolio or just for fun. We amateurs do it in many ways, through blogging sites like this, through public and private message boards or through a high school newspaper. However, I would like to shine light on a different way to get a review, and it is one that is very powerful and completely unknown, even to the reviewers themselves. It is the simple answers from retail employees. As I said in my initial post, I will give insight to the retail side of gaming, and I believe a good place to start is how an employee at a game store is as much influential to their customers as a full time writer for a gaming publication.
I love reading video game reviews, whether it is online or the older printed media. I see dozens of talented editors, staff writers and freelance writers work their hardest on their reviews for the most important games of their time. Hours of tiring gameplay is needed for a review that a self-respecting writer can be proud of and talented writing is needed to back that work up. Never Unplaying was created because I would like to be an addition to the dozens of writers out there, but I believe that reviewing games should be revised a bit. While many of these writers are respected by me and many readers alike, I feel that their word can and should be reaching more readers.
Professional video game websites or magazines can only go so far and thus limits their true reader potential. To achieve that audience, they must expand to all the customers in the video game market, not only the ones who currently read it. Companies like Nintendo have achieved expanding actual players and I believe that video game journalism should evolve its field to reach those customers as well. The booming of casual gamers never use a written review to persuade their purchase, so as respected journalists, we should stride to be less of a reviewer and more as a guide to smarter purchases. Sadly, many issues prevent this touchy subject, due to many things to lack of budget to how to express reviews for bad games outside the website, like in a store.
I know not everyone with a game system reads the reviews on the games that they buy, but they would appreciate some help if given. What easier then to ask for opinions when they buy them? Something clicked in me while in line at a local game store; I saw someone asked the clerk how was a certain new released game. The clerk intelligently answered the question with very quick summaries to the graphics, how it plays and lastly, compared it as close as possible to a few games. That answer won over the customer to buy the game. After decided to stalk the store during big release days, I saw that it happens a lot in these stores. The answers varied from the clerk on duty, some were very in-depth, like what I saw before, to a quick “It’s great/bad.” It amazed me that this was a very quick, efficient, and most importantly persuasive review and it didn’t involve a blog like this or a big video game website.
The more detailed opinions I heard in the store was summed up in a few words and all they needed to know. Seems the first thing the customer wanted to know is graphics. Most of them just wanted to know that and they were sold, which was really strange. It’s like they want looks more than if the game actually worked. If the opinion continued, the clerks mostly described the game by comparison to a popular game. It makes a lot of sense really, games with free-roam capabilities are simply “like Grand Theft Auto” and platformers are “like Mario games.” This kills the time needed to explain how the game works and since most of these customers knew how these games played, it was all it needed. It’s a little too simple but it grabbed the person enough that the games either sold or not based solely on their opinion. After the many times that happened, it came to me, it did not just happen here, it happened in other stores all over the country. If there are about four thousand game stores, and people asked for the clerk’s opinion two times an hour for an eleven hour workday, it totals to 88,000 reviews a day that was given by an employee. That’s 88,000 people that professional reviewers lost to.
We lastly come to Never Unplaying’s review process. I will review in a way in the spirit like the game store clerk, simple, efficient and effective. I do not want to bog the review with technical lingo like most professional reviews, but deliver a review like the big sites. I will see if a game has a technical issue like an anti-aliasing problem and factor it when I outline, but explaining issues like that in the actual piece interferes with trying to be a easy and effective read. If the game is fun, what it's about, if it is worth its price tag, if it’s something you’d buy if you were hearing this from a store clerk, that's what this blog's focused on. It will be a respectable sized review, but hopefully not as big as the professional sites, because you have better things to do but read one single review all day. It will be written like this article, using very simple language. I try to keep the wording of the piece simple to give an easier way to explain the game so than anyone can understand. It will still have some gaming lingo to cater experienced gamers. It’ll end with the 1-10 point scale that is standard in most game review sites and I’ll make sure that the games are graded fairly. You will not see a lot of too high or too low score marks, it’ll be judged in multiple ways that differ for each game. It should be obvious that Brain Age should be judged in a different light than Final Fantasy. Written so that the review caters to the audience the game’s originally intended for (or who it should be intended for). I hope because of this is why you’ll come back to Never Unplaying.
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