Feature: An Honest Objection - Mod DB

Game reviews are the backbone of video game journalism. Previews are nifty, interviews help to build hype, the occasional editorial is good to get the creative juices flowing, but everything comes down to the review. At least, when it comes to retail.

We, as readers and—notably—consumers, love game reviews. When the average video game costs about $50, it is nice to have a source that guides us towards or away from a given purchase. Sometimes we disagree with the reviewer, sometimes we read it just for the novelty value and usually we just read them to validate the opinions we already have. Most people know if they are going to buy Game X already, but a little nudge in that direction never hurts.

However, that argument only carries well when it involves making a purchase. We enjoy reviews because they inform us whether or not to plunk down the dough. Period. End of line.

When it comes to mods, opinions are instantly polarized.

As a journalist, I have something of an obligation to the public. While I am not doing something as noble as saving people money, I am still trying to urge people towards an experience well worth their time. I have to be fair in my judgment, but being honest and candid is the law of the land.

The first time I experienced people disagreeing with this was two years ago, back when I first started. I made a novice mistake of letting a mod team read an article I had written before I published it.

“How dare you be critical of my fabulous mod,” they seemed to say. “I worked long and hard on this. What gives you the right to think it is anything other than wonderful?”

Well, that right would be freedom of speech. More specifically, by releasing a mod, you are effectively throwing your work out into the public spectrum and subjecting it to potential scrutiny. No one seems to mind when a person posts a comment saying, “This mod sucks!” or “This mod rocks my boxers!” When you write a review and stick it on the front of your website, though, then you are asking for trouble.

At what point is the mod community going to willingly accept criticism? It astounds me that an industry of independent game developers so determined to get their work taken seriously are so quick to flame at even a hint of negativity.

It is worthy of note that a retail game is hard set at the time of its review and cannot often receive much in the way of major changes, yet a mod can be rebuilt from the ground up to accommodate for problems and suggestions people have.

To this end, we have stripped out scores from our reviews. No longer can people complain that they deserve some marginal number above another. Now positives and negatives are listed alongside one another, providing balance.

Still we get emails lampooning our supposedly shoddy journalistic practices.

To what extents must we go to provide honest coverage?

Should I ask for your permission before I spread my honest opinion about your publicly available game?

Should I just regurgitate the same public relations lines you use to describe your mod back at people, forgoing honesty for hasty sponsorship?

When I interviewed a mod developer a year ago about the image people have of the typical modder, he described a person sitting in a basement, closed away from society and toiling into the night. He said that many people feel that the average modder is a 13-year-old that cannot cope with the idea of how the gaming industry really works.

I fear he may be right.

well said unfortunately there are a lot of modders and mod teams out there that can't accept criticism however please don't be disheartened the most valuable lessons come from constructive criticism and should you ever review anything i'm working on your more than welcome to give it an totally unbias write up.

i've had the same issues too. Honestly, I've never played a mod I didn't like for some reason or another (nearly every mod has a shining point, the real thing is can you deal with the bad parts. An example, in my opinion, is HL2. Had some great scenes but there was so much crap it wasn't fun. Actually, that's the only game I own that I never have the desire to play, but we're talking about mod here) but sometimes modmakers didn't agree with me (IE: that's not the point).

do I know what's fun? Yes. Do I know what looks good? Yes. Do I know what I want? Yes. Is that what everybody else wants? No. Do I care? NO! I've gotten lots of bad "reviews" of my work, normally from people who just say "it sucks." I as "What sucked? How could it be made better?" Then I get no reply. That's worse then a bad review, because like you said, "pro" mod reviewers at least say what they enjoyed & didn't & how something could be better. Majority of "consumer reviewers" are just smart mouthed brats who like to say "it sucks" because then they feel it made an impression on someone else & their empty opinion was worth something.

I'd say the BEST mod makers are the one who when someone says a legitimate "problem" they get more info & see why it's a "problem" then decided where to go from there. It may well not be a problem but part of the design (D3 = no flashlight + gun) or it may be a real issue (hl2:cs, hitboxes way off).

I would like to disagree - I know that our mod (Beyond the Red Line), takes criticism very seriously. Whether or not we'll listen to you is another matter, but we still like to have our game reviewed. I'm sure we're not the only team out there that does this. I have a limited internet connection - so when I download things, I'm in it for the long haul. Therefore, I use mod reviews (of which I wish there were more of), to decide whether or not it's worth it at all to spend 5 hours downloading something I might not even like. Mod teams should take criticism with a "is this reasonable" approach - i.e., if the reviewer has put up a reasonable objection, then the mod team changes it in the mod, if it's something they agree with, then they don't. Unfortunately, it seems the maturity of many mod teams is lacking in that they can't separate criticism from a personal attack - and that's not to insult any particular teams, it's agreeing with what you said - many mod teams can't take criticism from anybody. That only hurts them, IMO.

If the mod teams don't like you reviewing their mod then tell them to get the fuck off of ModDB. It's THAT easy.

Kat:

We typically don't like to alienate people from our community, if we can help it.

At first I have to thank JoeX111 for putting his opinion on the front site of a website, because that's always an act of showing courage. But I don't know if it's good or bad that mod teams are the first readers of a review of their mod. On the one hand, they shouldn't read the review before it's released, because they'll try to influence the writer, but on the other hand mod teams know, if there is something discribed wrong in the review. I have often read stupid thing about the game I'm working on World of Padman . Some people wrote that you can paint other players with the spray gun or that we have a bubble gum gun to glue other players to the floor. Everyone who ever played World of Padman knows that this is kind of nonsense, but people get irritated of half-truths like this. But I think mod teams should know that the writer of a review is always guided by his own opinion, so reviews are never objective. They always represent the author's intention that's why it's more important that they are constructive. Not only to help mod teams to review their mod by themselfes, but also to help people if it's worth a download or to check it out. The hardest thing for mod teams is if someone writes " ...found on the internet, downloaded and installed it, shortly played and it sucks, uninstalled it...". Everyone remembers bad news he has read much better than good things and he often tells this to his friends. That's really annoying because it effects that other people won't try the game by themself. But mod teams will never know why there's is something worse with the game. That's why reviews (independant from game industry) like here on moddb.com help mod teams. We took JoeX111's comment in the last review of World of Padman very serious and now we're sitting together to to discuss how to loose the image of being a yellow painted Quake 3 Arena, to make our game more unique.

PS: Hard to write this in english but I hope you got my intention.

Noose needs less bloom.

hehe Kai-Li could you have put links to World of Padman anymore into that post

Anyways, I think people should distinguish different kinds of modders: modders that make mods for others, and modders that make mods for themselves.
What I mean is, that for instance I used to make tons of small mods which I'd never put on the internet, simply cause I'd play them in school, they often had ripped graphical and audio stuff, but it was all about the fun, making exactly what me and my friends or in school we'd like to play.
Usually this was wacky fun stuff, which wouldn't last longer than a couple of weeks/months, but is was wacky-fun that would never make it past an initial Alpha 0.4, lol

Then there's the guys that make mods for the "world" to either train their game design abilities, try and get into the game business, or like to share their mods with others and develop a community.
Whatever the exact reason is, it also often (not always) determines the reaction of that person towards criticism, whether its mindless ranting or serious reviews.
An example would be:
A modder who puts his work online just for fun and really doesn't care would respond to a mindless "this sucks" comment with a counter-insult or ignore it and simply continue to build the game that he "wants" (Same deal with a serious review). A modder who has a "bigger plan" with his/her mod will take politics into account as well as incorporate the feedback, and often feels a bit more offended because he categorizes the time he spend on making it differently.
Its like playing casual soccer, or pro-soccer, the difference is, when the stakes are "high" or you have something to win/lose/want, and its not about just "having fun" then your reaction and expectations towards it change as well.
Anyways, thats my opinion about this Good Article btw,

I agree with Kai-li. I think that if the reviewer doesn't write a constructive article firslty 1. It's bad PR for the mod and really pisses the devs off 2. They have no idea what people want improved and 3. It only encourages similar critique by new players.

I do like ModDB's new +/- system. It really puts forward "you'll really like this.. but you probably won't like this" and it gives devs a chance to say "lets get rid of all them negs ". Of course a review doesn't necessarily equal the opinions of the public ... hence why we have forums and comments. But I think the review system is a great idea in that the authorities on this site (the respected members of this community) will have the ability to really critique the games being produced here at ModDB and help the developers as well as players decide what to do.

The number system really doesn't work (just look at gamespot) I think the opinion peices are better and I think even the user polls that are on our profiles don't even show accurately people's opinions, rather I tink opinion peices by users would work better as a formal way of critiquing a recommeneding features as well as dismissing problems. Comments aren't a very formal method of critique as I've seen so far.

Great feature though

if someone told me that the mod I work on sucked the first thing I would want to know was, why. I would also remind people that this is a group of people doing this in their free time and are amitures. we are not trying to make a full game that is retail worthy, if they expect this then they should go buy a new game! for your information I am 14 and don't wine or flame people when they say I am rubbish, I just ask them how to improve and weather they could do any better.

@randomperson

If everyone had your attitude, this rant would never be needed

@article

Good point well made. As someone on the other side of the fence (making things for review), I still have to agree. Anyone who can't take a polite and considered critique of their work shouldn't make it publicly available. The glare of public attention is a double edged sword. At least moddb reviews are well written and argued, which is far better than 90% of what passes for critique on the internet. If you can't cope with well written critique, I dread to think how much you'll fall apart and cry when the trolls start attacking

I'm glad this finally came about. It's good to see some interesting analysis in the comments.

First and foremost I have to agree with Mr_Cyberpunk about the "+/-" system that ModDB now uses when reviewing mods. I have never approved of a percentage/ranking/numbers system that a lot of game reviewers tend to use, only because reviews themselves are subjective. Just because the reviewer writing the review likes/dislikes the game, doesn't mean that everyone who reads it will mindlessly follow what he/she said.

Mods are very similar to games in that most of us have already made up our minds on which mod we want to waste our bandwidth on. Chances are that if you are a Stargate fan and love Half-Life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004, you're going to download Stargate based mods for those games. It is then not a question of how great a mod is on its first release, rather a question of how well the mod can be should more work be done on it.

Having a percentage/ranking/numbers system completely removes necessary feedback that modders so desperately need for improving their mod. The system that ModDB uses not only nudges people into downloading a mod they've probably already considered downloading (much like game reviews do to consumers), it gives people an idea on what to expect. Are there place-holder textures? Are the sound effects and music not up to standard? Could the gameplay be significantly better? All these questions can be answered with the opinionated reviews found on ModDB.

People who can't stand constructive criticism are literally the worst kind of modders (much like how 'pro' or 'tournament' players are the worst kind of gamer [always playing to win, never playing for fun and enjoying themselves]). Sure, you may have poured your heart and soul into a mod, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. With feedback, you're able to view the opinions of those that have played the mod and use it to enhance the mod - to make it far better than what you had previously believed.

Constructive criticism shouldn't be taken lightly - it's a necessity. Without it, people could be spending months, if not years on end creating something that can be just utter crap.

Off-topic, in the future if any of the mods I work on get reviewed, I want an honest opinion - if it's crap, just say so.

I know everyone has responded here saying they want an honest review, but have you ever been told your work sucks? Its a hard pill to swallow. I remember when I first launched v3 of the Mod DB. With a community of 100,000 + members it is impossible to please everyone, but it really hurts when people jump on board and say "this is ruined" "this is horrible" etc without giving a reason.

But the reality is, there are always going to be people who dislike what you have done no matter how good it is, the key thing is not to dwell on the negatives, but look at the positives and what you can do to make the "haters" fans again.

Oh and yes I totally agree % review systems are just stupid. There are just some many games which sit at the 9.5+ end its impossible to differentiate what is good / bad.

one quote about something I released:

AND...

can it get worse then that?

can't find all the bad comments i've gotten though. they seem to be lost in time!

On more than one occasion (although not related to modding). While sometimes it may be insulting, you get used to it and just shrug it off. From there, you listen/read what has been stated, look hard at your work and see if it really does need improvement.

Which is why people need to learn not to take constructive criticism as an insult, and negative opinions to heart.

Oh I get told that my work "sucks" all the time. I just ignore and continue on like any mature person would. No need to follow and feed.

Thanks for the very well written review, good to see it from the journalists' point of view.