Videogames you love, videogames you hate thread

[Sol]

On a technical level it might not be good, but if a game has a ridiculously sized audience, something about it was successful.

When I read Alpha Six comments and assessments of games, I realize he's not just judging his experience with the game. Because of his profession and background, he's also assessing the techniques used to create the game and how well they were pulled off. Which will inevitably make his opinions different from somebody who doesn't know how to make games, but is still an avid gamer.

It's a lot like the writing community. A person who writes novels will be able to scrutinize every other novel under the sun without even really meaning to. It doesn't make their opinion any more or less valid than anyone else's, but it does mean that they'll have a completely different view of a particular work than somebody who just reads. Very rarely do these two opinions come together.

Neither opinion is right, and neither opinion is wrong. Ultimately it should be left to history to decide which material is good and which material is not. Whichever games are still household titles in twenty years (who doesn't know Pac-Man?) were good games.

First: Success does not equal quality.
Second: You don't actually have to design games to know about game design.
Third: Tyvon's background makes his thoughts a little less opinions and a little more educated analyses.

People don't seem to realize that there is actually a difference between liking a game and that game being designed well. When someone says "this game is a bad game because of these choices the designers made and these things they overlooked" and you throw back "it's a good game because I like it" you are not talking about the same thing.

So yes, the opinion "it's good because I like it" can't be wrong, because "good" in that sentence really refers to whether or not you enjoyed it on a personal level.