Game journalists are getting it wrong, says Chen

As part of his talk on how games need to secure more emotional content at the Develop Conference today, Thatgamecompany’s Jenova Chen said that games journalists often miss the point when it comes to game reviews.

During his session looking at the making of flOw and Flower, he argued that games should attempt to engage a wider spectrum of human emotions.

The same thing needs to stretch to game criticism and reviews, he added.

A few years ago Chen collated information on a group of games reviewed, and all used the same language and phrases, he said, such as ‘crystal sound’, stunning graphics’, ‘best FPS’ and ’60 hours gameplay’.

But reviews and their writers are missing the point, he said.

“That’s like talking about a car and how fast it goes – saying ‘it has great graphics’ is like saying ‘this car has four seats’. Reviews should be talking about what a game makes players feel.”