Critical Reviews - What's the Difference Between a Reviewer and a Critic

Let me start with review and critique, which I think...

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When they write the history of "The Rise & Fall Of Boardgaming from 1990 to 2020" I hope they do a chapter on how every boardgaming nitwit suddenly felt empowered enough to consider themselves a "reviewer." In the good old days people self-policed their area of expertise & didn't attempt to present themselves as almighty scions of knowledge across all aspects of human endeavor. In the 90's I wrote punk rock record reviews because in the 90's I was punk as fuck. But I never decided to deem myself a reviewer of jazz just because I bought Miles Davis Birth of the Cool.

Tom Vasel's enthusiasm for gaming & cheery demeanor has gone a long way towards propagating the BGG mentality of "just say something nice!" where generally genial people decide to "review" what they buy, and SURPRISE, it's all super duper awesome! Like O.K. wrote above, there is unfortunately no professional licensing agent for reviewers with actual critical experience, so we live in an age of "reviewers" who are far more aptly described as "enthusiasts with time on their hands."

One reason that I rarely visit BGG anymore is the rampant hostility there towards negative reviews. The prevailing attitude there is that you should either say something nice or nothing at all, and that's just one more big reason why their site is of limited utility. Sometimes a game deserves a negative review because it has significant problems or even just fails to offer any particular reason to be on the gaming table.

I think the phrase should be "influencer" versus "critic" because that's more accurate for 99% of the field. That shouldn't be pejorative, either. An influencer serves a role as long as they are honorable and put their preconditions out front, easily accessible and understandable, so you know where they are coming from.

But..... there are also entertainers. The gentleman who posts those throwback-motif videos here (whose name escapes me, my apologies) is an example of that. Super entertaining and also has good information. Same with that guy who did the Dragon Strike video (et al), Board James.

Meh, I don't care anymore. At this point the critics have lost and have all gone PODCAST (see: So Totally Wrong...) and the video guys are mostly all influencer/salesmen. And that's fine. I'm glad they can make money doing what they love, and I wish them all the luck in the world. I just don't think I'd take a recommendation; I could mute the video and watch it and get the information I seek.

I'm not sure how universal the use of those terms are.

For me - review = consumer advice, critique = analysis (which will involve usually putting the work in a wider contextual analysis too).

There are probably a handful of people writing boardgame critique. And of the reviewers there are a very large proportion who are essentially shills - consciously orbs unconsciously.

In my view a critic should have something more significant to say than whether the product is good or bad. The critic should be making an artistic or cultural judgement. I think its hard to pin down what that may look like precisely. This is fairly common in film or videogames. In boardgames because it is a lower value market the product review is still the dominant form.

To me:

Review: analysis of the thing itself and how or poorly well it meets its goals.

Critique: much broader in scope. Analysis of the thing, how the thing fits into the historical and cultural context of similar things which have come before, how well or poorly it meets its goals, whether its goals are worth meeting or not, and why. Et cetera.

There's not concrete definitions, otherwise we wouldn't have this conversation in the first place, but:

review: information about the thing that ascertains the quality of it, generally presented to assist prospective purchasers/consumers

critique: offers more than the above, often using review as a springboard to a specific point

I'm dumb as hell though so idk

So is there any game that merits "critique" using dysjunct's definition? Is there any boardgame that has the reach, cultural impact, and social commentary like a film, book, or documentary?

I'd guess chess, go, maybe DnD? Poker? Something that reflects the culture from which is was created and can change the player and the audience. Probably not Power Grid or Tiny Epic Tactics. Not to say those are bad games, far from it, but if "critique" has a loftier aim than just "is it any good?" and should inform and appeal to folks outside of the game clique, then I'm not sure many games qualify.

I think games like An Infamous Traffic or Angola open the opportunity for a broader discussion. You can question whether they bring insight into the moment in history they present, but that question, regardless of answer, is warranted.

You could also include something like Greed Inc. in that, or Food Chain Magnate. There are a number of games that I would argue are a critique of their subject. John Company implictly is, as well, but Sagrilarius brings up the similar Infamous Traffic.

Games can be good at answering the question of "why?" for things that tend to be inexplicable if viewed from outside the system or from the future.

I mean, the wider context can still be the context of boardgaming - it doesn't have to be like, where does the game fit into humanity or whatever (not that it can't include that either). I think that you can critique a souless euro with no trouble, you can critique a party game, and absolutely, you can critique games like Wehrle's which are trying to make a statement/argument - particularly has he has been quite vocal about that.

Review of the next deluxified soulless euro game: there's a few things to like here; there are so many different ways to get those points and the components, wow. If you like a point salad this one is for you, etc etc.

Critique of the next deluxified soulless euro game: we've been here before - what's new? Nothing here is pushing the boundaries - it's just like the last one. nothing much. And why are we so slavishly beholden to deluxe components? What does that say about boargaming today, really? Is this papering over the cracks of a lack of innovation? Let's compare this game to the much maligned XXXX which has arguably the same basic structure but was released 10 years ago.... now, 10 years ago, this designer was designing games like YYYYY, so why have they taken a backward step here?

Yes.

I do think that there are opportunities for the wider context to come into it as well at times. I think that it's possible to do that for any games, but I understand why that doesn't happen and that most people probably aren't interested. But there has been some terrific critique of games written that do it - there were a great series of articles written last year on the back of the "Struggle for Africa" game that GMT dropped, for example, which looked at how the medium has treated colonialism over time and asked questions about what that all means for us as a society.