10/10 Would Review Again: Variation in the Player Game Review Genre

ABSTRACT

Using a move-strategy genre analysis of 180 video game user reviews posted to six websites, this article describes typical characteristics of the genre as well as significant variations in genre construction. By creating new audiences and purposes for the genre, emerging genre variants have opened critical debates within the user community about genre change. Ultimately, the author argues that tracing genre variations could have implications for how technical communication scholars and practitioners support the needs and goals of user-generated genres.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital technologies
• genre theory

Notes

^1. This is not to say that player game reviews are free from the systems of marketing and commodification that surround professional game reviews. Indeed, if player game reviews seek to shape the discourse of a gaming community, then it follows that they are also part of the system of immaterial labor that defines much of the work of video games (see Dyer-Witheford & de Peuter, 2009).

^2. This inconsistency was logical in context. Two of the advertising revenue sites (Giant Bomb and Metacritic) had few player reviews overall, and they had even fewer reviews of games that were not AAA releases (major games with large development budgets). At the same time, two of the digital distribution sites (GOG and Desura) did not carry many AAA games.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luke Thominet

Luke Thominet is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Florida International University.