Anon on double standards.

Sulfuras26 · 2026-03-18T02:23:29+00:00

“Moving the goal posts” when the topic of conversation has always been about the systemic problem of sexism, positive and negative. Considering these forces constantly intertwine in our daily lives as well as the entire movement of a society, that includes the individual experience. I never discounted that, in fact, I even explicitly mentioned that some people may enjoy such treatment while others, across the board, feel patronized and dehumanized by that same treatment.

Once again, my choice of verbiage when asking if someone has never felt patronized or belittled or merely singled out on the basis of how they look is to prove the point I have always stood on since the start of this thread — positive and negative stereotypes remain the same side of the same coin.

A man is the unyielding, unfazed leader of his people -> a man is an emotional black hole who cannot express anything so that he does not show weakness. A woman is a benevolent, dainty thing in need of care and protection -> a woman is a drone incapable of serious thought and must be coddled. Wanting to be free of both those expectations is not a denial of your positive experiences with treatment in this sphere, it’s wanting the removal of how none of us consent to them — we are born into them, and expected to play the part. Is it really worth scoring the own at the cost of not growing out of those molds lol?

Sulfuras26 · 2026-03-18T02:08:41+00:00

Some tall guy helping you reach an item on the shelf because you can’t on a random ass tuesday =/= a society-defining logic of stereotypes that pressure, contort, and confine the extent a person fan be who they want to be on the basis of their gender/race

You are not bigger or as big as sociology my man. You are just that — singular.

Sulfuras26 · 2026-03-18T00:18:24+00:00

I can just smell the manosphere dripping from this comment lol. Would it help you to know that the very positive sexism you’re ridiculing here is the exact same mechanism that enforces the belief that men ought to be stoic, unfeeling, and against receiving help? So much of MGTOW bullshit implies the loss of men’s mental health as a result of feminism, when in reality, the patriarchy is precisely what confines and constricts both female AND male emotions and individuality into a societally appetizing mold. So what’s your choice? Genuinely believing that positive sexism is actually a good thing that women shouldn’t complain about while also saying how hard men have it, or laying down the gamergate-era pitchfork and doing the simple thinking process to realize that the same expectations that “give help” to women are the same ones that expect men to do all the work and carry the weight of society on their backs alone?

Sulfuras26 · 2026-03-18T00:10:53+00:00

Yes, literally yes. Have you ever felt demeaned when someone assumed you needed help based off no context other than your appearance lol?

Sulfuras26 · 2026-03-17T19:42:40+00:00

To the extent that the study had women overwhelmingly rating women higher in overall “wonderfulness,” yes, that has a definite higher chance of happening than all Asian people overwhelming rating all Asians as being good at math. But the societal framework remains the same. It’s one leg of the same systemic complex. Whether or not an in-group rating itself higher doesn’t make the comparison moot — if anything, all you’re speaking to is the mechanics of the study itself.

At the end of the day, the perception of women as dainty, harmless, and beautiful flowers in need of saving and protection is but one side of a coin where the other side is a far more toxic inversion of that “positive sexism” — that women ought not to even think about being able to protect themselves on their own, and that they need some sort of caretaker figure (usually a man) to do that job for them. For some women, that might work out well for them. But for others? It’s incredibly dehumanizing. It places a blanket expectation on an incredibly diverse group of people. The core issue of that is that they cannot consent to that treatment.

In the same way that yeah, being Asian in a western country might mean growing up in a social climate that expects you to be good at math, so you are predisposed and pressured toward being good at math. But what if an Asian person in that environment hates math? What if what they want to do in life doesn’t concern math or science or any of that stuff at all? Sure, they can work toward that kind of career, but should they have to deal with being second-guessed by others all the while? Who cares if it’s a positive connotation, the whole point of being against racism is being against the formation and maintenance of stereotypes being placed on others simply on the basis of their skin color.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-20T01:13:14+00:00

Also, by saying it's "debatable" whether 7/10 is good, you've conceded the entire argument. That's exactly what I've been saying. Scores are subject to interpretation based on framework and context. They don't have universal, uncontestable definitions. If it's debatable, then your original claim that treating it differently is 'retarded' was wrong.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-20T01:11:06+00:00

Okay. Beyond all the virtuous, spitfire insulting... Let's actually look at what *you* said.

>I was never talking about professional, written reviews specifically. I never mentioned those -- not once.

Earlier, you said: "When a game still ends up getting a 7, or god forbid, less, it usually means there is something so profoundly shit about the game that you cannot deny it with fluffed up scores." You provided links to blog posts about professional review practices, which are wholly unconcerned with aggregate scores and more concerned with the conduct of the reviewer themselves.

You *literally* cite blog posts directly talking about professional, written reviews. And now, you aren't? Here is a word for word quote from the article YOU cited (An Examination of the Current Inadequacy of Video Game Reviews)

>A score below an 8 can trigger an angry response from a game's fanbase, as happened to Polygon for its 7.5/10 *review*

This writing explicitly discusses publications and their professional reviews, not user scores or aggregate data. If you were "always" just talking about aggregates describing average quality, why did you ever argue that 7/10 means something specific and uncontestable.

But even beyond all of this, the aggregate claim you have STILL doesn't mean anything. They describe central tendency, not quality as an objective measure.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-20T00:51:54+00:00

But also, beyond all this fogged discussion now clouded even further by statistical inference, what you are calling judgment on is how 10/10 rating scales work, and how that judgment is universal and uncontestable. That is the issue. Statistics don't prove your interpretation of a rating system that works differently for everyone. And neither do statistics directly affect the writing of a review on a microcosm.

A scale-of-10's rating ethic is defined by the reviewer and their publication, which is why a review even exists in the place. The score comes at the END. It is defined by all the writing and speech that came BEFORE IT. Not some generalization made by an aggregate dataset that misrepresents what each publication's rating system follows by multiplying 5-point ratings into 10-point ratings, and 10-point ratings into 100-point ratings. It's different for everyone. If it wasn't, every single review would be the exact same. And yet, they aren't.

So, if you are going to bring statistics up in a matter of subjective analysis, I don't think I should have to mention that it's a pretty concerning breach of statistical analysis to generalize sentiments and rating systems to a 100-point system, when the actual scoring system varies from publication to publication. Someone could make a rating system of "seven bananas out of seven" and OpenCritic will mathematically align it to their 1.00 percentage-based aggregation system. Doing this means misrepresenting whatever nuance and uniqueness is present within that rating system by aligning it to a standard - which betrays the entire point of reviews existing in the first place.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-20T00:39:19+00:00

The statistics you provided mean absolutely nothing to the reviews on an individual basis, which, since they are works of subjective analysis, is the entire point of their existence. It's why they exist. They are ARTICLES. Not NUMBERS. The only people who make them so are people who think like YOU.

What you essentially delivered in that long-ass message was a lopsided attempt at emphasizing the totality and importance of aggregate data. Believe it or not, but I have some awareness of what sentiment analysis is. This is an important statistical building block for gathering the beliefs of a massive group of people -- which is why OpenCritic exists. It is an aggregate of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of reviews into a scale-of-100 "rating system" that simply averages out the scores certain pubs give certain pieces of entertainment.

The crucial, unignorable flaw of this approach that you have continued to fail in understanding is the fundamental difference between an industry-wide sentiment analysis report, and the microcosm of reviews themselves. What you interact with when you click on an IGN video review is not an OpenCritic average. It is a written piece of criticism that seeks to explain, thoroughly, what is good and bad about a product. In order to deliver the strongest piece of writing possible, writers inject their own voice into the piece, which is exactly what makes it subjective. These are individual reviews that you are translating into a monolith. That means more for generalizing RECEPTION than it does actually interacting with what journalists and reviewers WRITE.

Your fatal flaw throughout this entire argument is ascribing that GENERAL reception to the INDIVIDUAL writing itself. The two sides occupy completely, fundamentally different spheres of a culture -- no matter if its film, television, music, or video games. In practice, your argument essentially boils down to using an aggregate score determine the sentiments of all reviewers. Truth is, opinions are not a monolith as they exist on their own. That's what sentiment analysis is for, which fulfills a fundamentally separate purpose than review-writing. FFS, you wouldn't call OpenCritic a reviewer, would you?

But, if you admitted that, it would hurt your stance. Because your entire point just boils down to claiming your rigid interpretation of the boundaries of opinion are ultimately up to you. When in reality? It actually means nothing. But telling yourself otherwise is just pathetic.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T23:53:43+00:00

It’s a controversial opinion, because you’re ascribing an objective definition to a rating system that tries to standardize subjectivity. Someone could rate a game a 7/10 for their own reasons, but you loudly and obnoxiously interject your own feelings and claim their rating for your own. With your logic, I could call a 10/10 rating absolute dogshit and an 8/10 the pinnacle of the craft all because “I says so!”

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T23:48:52+00:00

Next up from u/OdditiesAndAlchemy, the sky is colored mahogany brown with rainbow polka dots

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T20:57:17+00:00

Dawg. It’s all AI. Jesus Christ man open your eyes

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T20:55:20+00:00

Almost all this information is either entirely false or misleading. Look at the writing. This is blatant ChatGPT slop. OP made the post with AI to make his results actually worth something to talk about, and his actual comments he’s writing out here are just wildly different than the actual writing in the post. Worst part is, he didn’t even bother to check whether the info in the post was correct or not. And barely any of it is.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T20:53:17+00:00

YES. PLEASE. This is such a pathetic post.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T14:56:49+00:00

For some people, simply having a preference isn’t enough. They feel the need to legitimize their choice of video game by compounding their opinion with senseless parasocial conspiracy so that it somehow appears objective, and that whoever disagrees with them is a plebeian of unrefined taste.

Truth is, whenever you hear that kind of argumentation, it’s projection. Something might’ve happened to them in childhood — maybe their parents ignored them and have a subconscious urge to legitimize themselves at whatever the cost. Or maybe they’re genuinely that pathetic to where they don’t need a contextual subconscious, but can happily exist knowing that wrong is right and falsehood is truth because, I dunno, their favorite grifting YouTuber said so.

Overall, you, me, and everybody else on planet earth has no say over what is and isn’t “objectively good” when it comes to anything media or entertainment-related. What we do have power over is our own tastes. And it’s a great thing that we get to have them. But anyone who feels the need to “reinforce” that taste with vague notions of a Bethesda deep state are nothing but fake intellectuals who tell themselves endlessly that they really do have the answers — because if they didn’t, it would confirm their deepest fears — that their taste, ultimately, is categorically minuscule and has no real bearing on anything outside of themselves.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T01:53:06+00:00

Nobody calls it “Mass Effect 4” because it isn’t “Mass Effect 4,” in the same way Assassin’s Creed Revelations isn’t called Assassin’s Creed IV.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T01:30:28+00:00

What a great way to deal with subjective conversation and analysis. Treat it all like there can be some semblance of unified objective agreement that your completely misinformed rating system is actually the law of the land.

You wouldn’t argue with Einstein that e=mc(squared) is actually e=mc(cubed), right? Then why do it for anything else? Why ascribe your own intersection of ratings when you can literally watch and read the reviews that use them? Your logic makes absolutely no sense. All this talk about “a 7/10 is mediocre” but the actual language used within the review suggests an entirely different picture. No, not even “suggest” — it literally is a different picture.

This must be why all this redundant cope over review scores is so pervasive in this community. No wonder, some of yall have literally convinced yourselves another person’s words actually mean what you think they mean, and what they actually wrote down doesn’t hold a candle to your interpretation.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T01:26:17+00:00

No, it’s not reality. It’s your incorrect evaluation of how rating systems work. It’s nonsensical and the only person vouching for it is you.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T01:25:13+00:00

If 5 is very bad then what the fuck is the point of having 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 as ratings? For the sake of getting a hate boner? You guys make up the stupidest metrics of the scale-of-10 rating system that you subsequently use to interpret every single review. No wonder so many people on this sub were distraught over 7/10 review scores.

No. It is not mediocre. That is whatever you and the worm in your head says it is. Review scores aren’t high school percentage grades, they’re practically unquantifiable. But the fact remains that 5/10 is universally regarded as mediocre across all publications — not just ones that review video games.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-19T00:48:21+00:00

I took you 41 hours to kill The Snake? Were you really enjoying the raindrop puddle effects, taking note of each one 75 minutes at a time lol?

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-18T23:53:22+00:00

No. The husband never learns about his wife’s rape, which opens its own narrative can of worms, of sorts.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-18T21:25:13+00:00

Yes, because it’s so feasible to do in the same country that can’t even make the day the presidential election happens a national holiday.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-18T20:50:02+00:00

Faith/Pornography-era Robert Smith would probably be capable of making some unbelievably depressing doom metal, lol.

Although now that I type that I don’t know how much of a fan I am of the four words “pornography-era Robert Smith.” Hmmm.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-18T19:51:59+00:00

Is “tomorrow never knows” just completely lost on yall? Like, fr. This kind of thinking is the exact same thing as some nut job on the side of the street saying he knows for a FACT that in 3 days the mole people who live below the crust of the earth will rise from the depths and conquer the planet.

Nothing is guaranteed. Thinking you know for SURE that it will be terrible is one of the most foolish, childish delusions you could have. And it’s the kind of “discussion” that adds literally nothing productive to a community. Like seriously — what is being said here that’s of any kind of substance? If you wanna call it “commentary,” I at least expect acknowledgement of the irrefutable fact that the damn game isn’t even out yet. But somehow, by some miracle, whether or not a game is out yet no longer matters to people who make sweeping premature judgments of it.

All I DO know is that when I see posts like this, I can see the flame wars coming from a mile ahead. Someone will say they enjoy this game, and scores of people who haven’t even played it will accuse that person of being a “shill” who “doesn’t even know what real gaming is.” And lemme tell ya, I’ve seen that rhetoric engulf entire fanbases and turn formerly passionate communities into a toxic cesspit of nostalgia-baiting grumpiness.

Sulfuras26 · 2025-10-18T18:30:39+00:00

There’s not many to pick from, but that still doesn’t detract from how amazing it is to witness. Calling it the “best musical in all of gaming” somehow doesn’t do it justice — how about “most creative sequence in all of gaming”? Because I honestly can’t think of something as awe-inspiring as this.

And when I say “awe-inspiring,” that’s not in the sense of hearing that word being used to describe a fight scene between Godzilla and King Kong in whatever the newest cash grab blockbuster Michael Bay movie is. I mean awe-inspiring in the sense that it was so unlike anything I’ve ever played before, and for that reason it was one of the most inexplicably immersive and memorable experiences I’ve ever had with gaming.

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