A few months ago, the Jimquisition had an episode about gamers criticizing game reviews and reviewers for "not finishing the game". James/Stephanie Sterling correctly points out that this complaint with a game review is most often employed to deflect from valid criticism of a game -- usually because the person complaining likes the game and gets overly defensive in response to any criticism. While I agree with James/Stephanie Sterling's response in the original video, I also have strong feelings about other practical concerns regarding whether a video game reviewer should need to finish a game in order to review it. As an amateur game critic and YouTube essayist, this particular brand of attack against reviews and reviewers is relevant to me, my gaming habits, and my content creation, so I hope that I have a worthwhile perspective about this topic.
This essay was inspired by a recent episode of The Jimquisition.
As for the underlying issue of whether a game reviewer should have to finish a game before reviewing it: the answer to that question is a resounding, absolute, unequivocal "no".
As an amateur, who plays games and creates written reviews and video essays, all on my free time, outside of a full-time job, I cannot play every game to end credits -- let alone to 100% completion or a Platinum Trophy.
And you know what? Neither do most players.
This essay is available in video format on YouTube.
Go ahead, take a look at the achievement or trophy metrics for any game you play. You'll probably find that the achievement for beating almost any game will be owned by well below half of all players, and might actually be less than a quarter of players for many longer games like RPGs. And while there are certainly some players who play offline and don't report their stats to Steam, Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo, the achievement stats for the vast, overwhelming majority of games is very closely representative of the population, since most players don't go to the trouble of playing "off the grid".
Finishing a game is a relatively rare thing for the average gamer to do, which means the average gamer isn't going to care if a particular review finished the game or not. That average gamer is probably not going to see the end of the game anyway, so a review that only covers the first half or so of the game will still be perfectly adequate and informative for such a player.
Most games are completed by well under than half of all players.
So as an "average gamer" who plays as a hobby and writes reviews and other content on the side, as an un-paid amateur, not finishing a game is good enough for me too. Yes, I will try to finish the main campaign of a game that I review, if it's possible and practical. For most shorter games (with campaigns less than 20 hours), I do, indeed, almost always hit the end credits before I publish a review. It will usually take me a few weeks to do it, which is why, even if I bought the game on release day, my reviews will still be several weeks late, or longer. Most of my reviews are practically retro reviews by the time I get them out.
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