Topic: Game reviews docking points for being too niche?

Of recent NintendoLife is docking points off it's review score for a game being too niche. Agood example of this is the Farming Simulator review.
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/nintendo-switch/farming_s...

The review of this game reads wonderfully. The game according to this review is amazing. The only downsides of this review are

"If you’re a farmer, or if you know the ins and outs of farming through some other means, you’ll stand a chance of progressing with ease. If you have no idea on the other hand (which is the situation that we were in), the wealth of information thrown at you - coupled with the fact that you are just launched into the deep end - can be extremely overwhelming. After the initial tutorial we were left sitting in our tractor feeling utterly hopeless and underprepared. To properly understand this game as a farming novice, you will likely have to properly study the menus and guides provided, learning what specific task each vehicle or tool can do and how every aspect of a farm needs to be cared for. It genuinely felt like we had gone to a real farm, suddenly having to manage it with no experience whatsoever, and it felt rather stressful."

This is just poor reviewing. You don't play flight simulators without at least doing a little study before hand to know the processes in flying a plane. That knowledge opens up the game and that's when the fun kicks in. it seems the review of Farming Simulator came into the game green without understanding anything about farming. A lack of reviewer knowledge should not be a negative in the score. Does NintendoLife mark down fighting games because the reviewer has to actually study the moves to play the game? No. So why mark down Farming Simulator because you have to do similar study (about farming in this case) to actually play the game.

"Thanks to this, Farming Simulator: Nintendo Switch Edition is a difficult game to review."
No it's not. It's a very good game that requires some knowledge of the subject matter to play well and is a niche game. None of these points make the game hard to review. It's only hard if the reviewer refuses to put the effort in to actually understand tye game's subject matter before he does the review.

"Giants Software has done an amazing job at making this feel extremely real – whether this is for better or worse depends on you as an individual."
Why was this even said? The reviewer clearly shows that in his opinion it's for the worse.

"the amount of depth and detail on offer simply can’t be appreciated without seeing it with your own eyes. Unfortunately, though, it simply cannot work as a video game for all to play – the already potentially niche market the game would appeal to gets shrunken even more by the incredibly complex learning curve."
Marking a game down for being too niche in the reviewers opinion?

"The attention to detail and realism of this game is incredible; everything from the real-life brands of farming vehicles to the fluctuating market prices for produce and livestock has been truthfully represented."
This level of attention to detail should be rewarded in my opinion.

I probably am not a fan of Farming Simulator and it's not the game for me, but I can understand that just because a game is not for me, it can still be very good.
The review feels like an 8 or 9 but with a niche or limited audience. However the final comments and review score do not reflect this. To me it's an amazing that the reviewer did not take the time to learn how to play so he reviewed it worse than it deserves.

"At the start of your career the game will give you some quick tutorials for using various vehicles, how to manage your fields and navigating certain menus, before completely leaving you to your own devices. From there, the world opens up with literally no indication of what to do next. This can feel incredibly daunting; there are numerous fields, a town centre with shops for the equipment you’ll need and places to sell your produce but, unless you’re already a farming expert, you’ll still have no clue on what your next move should be."

From the review. It sounds like the game doesn't do a good job of introducing new players to the various mechanics and just kind of throws them in to the deep end. And, honestly, I do think a game should be marked down for this: presuming familiarity with the genre is poor design.

The reviewer is confusing a lack of research by the player with poor game design. Before you play a game of this nature, you should actually research farms so you know the basics. Not all games are there to hold your hand.

Was Dark Souls marked down for just throwing players into the deep end with no decent tutorials? No.
Are most fighting games marked down for just throwing players into the deep end with no decent tutorials? No.
You can say the same about racing games. If you don't know what accellerate and brake is, go do your research then come back and play the game. You'll have more fun that way.

We should not confuse a lazy reviewer (who refuses to do his research) with poor game design. Not every game is just pick up and play. Some rightfully require a little prior knowledge and should not be marked down for being like this. It's not a game flaw.

Hmmm...any game that requires me to research farming is lucky to get a 7 in my book!

Well I recommend you don't play any simulation games as most of them require a decent amount of knowledge of the subject before you can enjoy them. Not a flaw, it's a part of the genre and the fans of the genre enjoy this. That's why it's a niche game and got marked down for being niche.

Why is there always so much confusion amongst some about what a review is? Reviews are not some kind of objective measuring of the quality of a thing. They are an opinion of a particular person at a specific point in time. Nothing more. The score they give? Well it doesn't actually mean that much. It's just a number that's assigned based on how the reviewer felt the game ranked next to other games at the time they reviewed it.

And while I'm here, a 10 isn't "perfect". A 10 is more along the lines of "at this point in time I am struggling to think of any games I would personally rank higher than this". Along the same lines a 7 is "I like this more than games I'd give a 6, less than games I'd give an 8". If you try to read more into it than that you're missing the point.

@skywake
Review scores are not free of consequences, there's a responsability attached to reviewing a game. That's why people get fed up when they feel a game is not treated in all fairness.

Introducing a player to the basic mechanics of a game isn't "holding your hand," it's Game Design 101. Expecting a new player to know the ins-and-outs of running a farm to be able to play your game is ridiculous, and it should be marked down for it.

Two things:
1) The opening area of the original Dark Souls actually is a sort of tutorial in that it teaches players how to engage the game without explicitly tutorializing, sort of like the original SMB.
2) Part of the appeal of Dark Souls is its mysterious, obscurantist approach to its own game design. People aren't playing farming sims to immerse themselves in the mystery and lore of farming. Different games have different expectations to them.

Uh, yeah, most fighting games without decent tutorials, practice modes, and/or arcade/story modes would be marked down for it. I can't recall a fighting game that hasn't had some sort of mode designed to ease in beginners. The nearest thing that comes to mind is SFV, which suffered poor sales and savage user reviews as a result of its pandering to the hardcore tournament crowd.

So complex farming knowledge is the equivalent of knowing what the difference between breaking and accelerating is? Do you even think before you post this stuff?

The reviewer is doing their job by discussing an unfortunate limitation of the game design and letting consumers know that, hey, the game is pretty deep, but it doesn't explain itself very well, and that could be a problem. Reviews are not there to pander to your elitism, and I invite you not to read them if that fact distresses you.

I get what you're implying but that's kinda beside the point. As I said, at the end of the day a review is an opinion. A review score is someone then tying a rank to that opinion. So when someone says that a game deserved an 8 or a 9 because clearly the reviewer recognised a level of quality despite it not swaying their own personal enjoyment? They're missing the point.

The difficulty in Dark Souls comes from a lack of skill, not a lack of understanding how the mechanics of the game work. The former is something you acquire throughout the game, whereas the latter is something that should be explained in a tutorial.

Taking this out of the context of games for a second, imagine you saw a review for a movie that suffered from these same issues. A movie that gets super technical, super early on. A movie that has a lot of in-jokes and references that the casual observer won't understand. So a movie critic reviews it saying that it's a well executed movie that fans will love but that as an outside observer they just sat there confused for most of the movie. Then dock some points as a result. Would that be a fair review or not?

Or to make it a bit simpler, say someone was reviewing Apple's newest phone. The person reviewing it being someone who's not knee deep in the Apple ecosystem. So they dock some points for not supporting certain kinds of applications, not supporting micro-SD card expansion, not having a headphone jack etc. Things which some people may not even care about but for others, and possibly even the reviewer, they might be deal breakers.

As someone who has been using Apple products for the last 6 years, I can assure you people docked points solely due to the lack of headphone jack. And it was considered "fair" by most of the market, to the point where other companies openly mocked the decision. So based off that example you gave I would say yes, it seems fair to me.

@Nintendoforlife
It's definitely fair. Going off track a bit, I'm probably one of the increasingly small number of people who is impacted by this the most. For me one of the primary functions of my smartphone is as an internet connected mp3 player. This has been the case since I moved from a Nokia brick. Hell, I brought an iPod Touch back in the day as an upgrade from one of these specifically for this purpose.

For me having a microSD card slot is super handy because I don't always want to rely on music streaming services. Having my collection on a card also keeps it separate from my phone and I can just move it across when I upgrade my phone. I also use wired headphones so losing the headphone jack would just mean I'd either have to buy new headphones or have something else to carry. Lastly I keep track of everything I listen to on last.fm. On Android I can scrobble music played pretty much everywhere except for Apple music. On iOS I lose Google Play.

Getting back to the point, for some people? They might argue that I'm not the target audience for this device. And sure, I'm probably not. But if I was to review it I would still dock points for the above reasons. Because a review is an opinion.

So if I understand you correctly you're saying you are allowed to dock points for whatever you want, due to the review being your opinion.

As long as you can justify it. With that said and as I mentioned before I think people misunderstand what a review score actually is. Review scores are on a relative scale. If I was a phone reviewer and I felt that the new iPhone was for me a less compelling product than a phone from Samsung for the above reasons? Then I'd give the iPhone a lower score.

In the same way, when Super Mario Odyssey gets a 10? That's not a reviewer saying it's a perfect game without faults. That's a reviewer saying that if you were at the shops deciding between Super Mario Odyssey and any other game? In their opinion you'd have made a good choice if you walked out with Odyssey. That's the only meaning a score has.

My opinion like this :
I have NO interest at all with driving nor even think to possess any vehicles except my mountain bike. I have NO interest at all to able driving any vehicles except mountain bike. Practically, i'm "Anti" any vehicles except mountain bike, BUT...I'm so Addicted with Mario Kart games. I really LOVE Mario Kart games, BUT... I Don't like At All with other Racing games if there is NO Items to smack onto my opponents. I have NO Interest At All with any Boring Realistic driving or racing games such as Gran Turismo, F-1 racing, Motobike, Nascar, etc. Blah.....!!

So, basically i say I have Great interest with Whimsical Cartoonish racing games with less driving skill requirement (just having fun, no need to be able to drive to beat the game), rather than any Realistic driving or racing games that requires basic knowledge about driving ( changing speed, turnover, braking, etc). I don't need to able driving car. I don't need it. I choose riding moubtain bike for entire my life. Sometimes, i have to use cars or any vehicles but as Passenger, Not as a Driver. Beside, i have Very Serious Concern about Cars and any vehicles which cause a lot of pollutant, even there are Electric vehicles, but my heart still say "NO" to all kind of those vehicles.

Back to topic. About the games that soooo... complex, needs some basic knowledge to play like Farming Simulator, definetely i will pass the game. Love the idea but i have no interest At All with Realistic way in gaming. I prefer easy to understand games rather than Boring Realistic games. Reality lifes itself are Boring, i don't want add more Boredom from Boring Realistic games. Double Boring = Blaaah.... !!

Players should be aware when a game is so much a niche one. The game can be excellent for an enthusiast but for example somebody who just loved Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley knows that he will probably won't enjoy this game that much. I think it is good to point out such things in a review. As you said yourself, the review itself described the game as a very good one but it is not for everybody and that's what the review said.

You need to throw turtle shells while riding an actual go-kart if you ever want to be a good Mario Kart player, obviously.