Objectivity: When Passion, Fairness, and Due Process Collide

Even before I started doing gaming content, it had become apparent that gaming has reached a whole new sector of influence in terms of reaching people but in doing so had become ever more complicated. Let’s face it: emotions can run high for subjects that we love, and that’s part of the strength of the media that we consume. I admit it: I love games, and I would be lost without them. My video last week touched on that.

This week,  I want to hit a topic core to where I see a lot of different opinions and ideas in terms of gaming reviews and journalism as a whole. Objectivity is one of the things that I’ve discussed and seen discussed over and over again over the last year regarding the games journalism industry, and so it seemed like a great place to start. I had reached out to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier regarding the following tweet:

The tweet that has people concerned, but with Twitter, did the message get skewed?

Like most things with twitter, I was afraid of context and the shortening of ideas into more generic statements, so I wanted him to describe his feelings about objectivity and to clarify it. Jason did respond to me and actually wrote an article on it himself. It helped in creating more content for me to talk about, so I thank him for his effort and appreciate his response. While I may not agree with him on everything, as you will see in the video below, I respect the professionalism he showed in terms of reacting to the situation. Anyway, I could have written a huge essay for you all to read about it, but I’m more of a video creator. So you get to hear me talk about it instead.

What do you think about the pursuit of objectivity, and can it truly exist in a medium where passion and art can be factors in a critical assessment of a game? Can a person wear their opinion on their sleeve and still provide a non-bias opinion, or at least pursue that idea of objectivity? Is there any other topic you’d like to see discussed regarding it, or anything you want clarified? And finally, is there any other topic you like to see covered regarding concerns within the gaming world?