squinting at this headline trying to work out in my head what makes a game worthy enough to be called "good" but not worth 15 dollars. I feel like this must occupy a really narrow slice of existence, where it's quality enough that you're willing to call it "good" - not "mediocre", not "okay" - Good. A positive emotion! But then express reservations that it's worth more than, say, the price of ad removal in an f2p idle game. Surely it can't be that good, then? The deepest marginalia of 'good' exists within this tiny crevice of thought. A good that's almost bad. Or a good that's good, but not as good as spending that 15 dollars on, say, one of 7000 different budget anime porn games on steam. More than Among Us levels of good, surely, for that is only 5 dollars. Perhaps it's exactly as good as the additional content you get for paying 10 dollars for baldur's gate 3's digital deluxe edition, which contains an original soundtrack and artbook? That must be how good overwatch 2's plot missions are. Surely.
-without the strictures of capital-C Critique, the enthusiast press regresses back to a mode where every game is de facto good, because it's a game, and games are good, baby.
There are just different kinds of good games: good games, great games, possibly the greatest game ever? (allowed 1 per month), games that are good enough (the standard can go as low as is necessary in order to deem them good), and so-bad-they're-good games (good). A "good game that's somehow not worth $15" is just another output of this system trying to scream and having no mouth.
i used to be game press and i was literally told by my boss "you either give something at least a 7 or we're not publishing a review."
the reason was entirely economical – the website made the vast majority of its money through affiliated links. there's no point in publishing a review if it doesn't push the reader to hit that "purchase on Amazon" button, you're just wasting hosting space
working in games media made me realize that, out of all types of games writing, reviews are the most pointless. they're not critique, they've never been, and the vast majority of them are incredibly boring to read. there are absolutely exceptions but they're rare – these days you find much more interesting writing on youtube, especially if you're not just interested in learning if something is "worth your money" which is another lable you could write entire essays about
problem is games media still uses consumer reviews as its foundation and it's a foundation that gets shakier and shakier by the day, both intellectually and also, with the switch to digital downloads and watching influencer impressions to decide on buying games, economically.
