The Wall Street Journal’s Borderlands 2 Review Is Fine, Actually.

Mike Barrett | Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Borderlands 2

“Gaming is a multi-billion industry and yet there are still complete hacks like this guy writing about it for a publication like the Wall Street Journal. Wow.”

That’s right, today’s internet drama focused around Wall Street Journal writer Adam Najberg expressing his distaste for Gearbox’s Borderlands 2 in favor of more traditional FPS offerings like Halo and Call of Duty. Not only have gamers been expressing their disgust across forums, twitter, and reddit all day, but as of writing this, the actual review itself has 806 comments mostly telling Mr. Najberg to stick with CoD and find a new job.

Some of my favorite examples of maturity include:

“Good review
Said no one, ever.”

And this gem, though a bit unoriginal:

“This is a bad article and you should feel bad.

I feel bad for giving you a click”

I’m sure at some point someone said that if he likes CoD so much that he should marry it, but I’m not willing to dig deep enough to find it.

The Wall Street Journal is the last publication I would have expected to make waves with a review for Borderlands 2, let alone any game, but it happened anyway. Their foray into video games makes sense considering how large gaming’s slice of the “arts and entertainment” pie is these days. Couple that with their circulation rate somewhere around two million, and suddenly they become the lone source of video game reviews for thousands of people.

Borderlands 2 Desert Vehicle

But ask yourself this – when was the last time you referred to the Wall Street Journal for its authority on video games? And that’s really the point here, guys. If you’re reading this right now on a website devoted to video games, then the Wall Street Journal’s review isn’t for you. Stop reading it like it is.

Instead, read it as a middle class businessperson or homemaker parent that only buys a few games a year either for themselves or a child. Suddenly, comparisons to Call of Duty and Halo make sense because those are the frame of reference these people have. Diablo and Torchlight, on the other hand, would fly cleanly over their heads.

People that don’t understand the subtle nuances of video games don’t recognize that skill systems and leveled equipment drops alter the way a game operates, they just see a the first person perspective and the guns and think “That’s like Call of Duty, right?”

Welcome to how non-gamers see the industry. Jumping = Super Mario Bros. Puzzles = Tetris. Guns = Call of Duty. Remember how your mom would call your Playstation “the Nintendo” as a kid? This is that same vague understanding rearing its head again.

So, no, this review is actually pretty spot-on for their audience. Hell, I give it credit for pointing out the game’s intended audience, recognizing that multiplayer is a big seller these days, and not giving out a score but rather a recommendation tempered by the pending releases of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Halo 4 before the year ends.

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Posted in features-tiles, The Short

About the Author

Mike Barrett fills the role of Pixels or Death's dashing rogue. His hair is magnificent. He can be bothered at mike(at)gaygamer(dot).net, or if you'd like him to bother you, as @drydengg on Twitter.

  • bennatwa

    Doesn’t forgive the shoddy and odd writing ( “isn’t manga-like enough to be considered hip”) at all. Also, I think if the audience for the review doesn’t know any shooters other than CoD, the review doesn’t have an audience. People who don’t know about shooters other than CoD don’t care about Borderlands 2, and if they do, its most likely in an “is this appropriate for my kids” kinda way. I can’t think of any reason why someone like that would want or seek out a BL2 review, or why one would be written specifically for them in mind. So, I’d say we got something written up relatively thoughtlessly that dismissed a game for not being another game that got the internet really really mad.

  • Hicken

    As written by Sketchy_Galore, a member of the site N4G:

    I haven’t heard anything about the Wall street journal’s review before this article and honestly wouldn’t care what score they gave it but that in no way means their review was fine. Even if their audience know nothing about the artistic medium that the product being reviewed belongs to, that’s no excuse for the reviewer not to know either.

    If I wrote a review of the Godfather 2 that read like, ‘OMG there’s like sooooo much talking and boring stuff they need to put in more explosions like what Transformers 2 had’ it wouldn’t matter if my review was printed in Knitting and crocheting monthly or Teen dream magazine, it would be a bad review and it would betray an ignorance of the field I was reviewing that is inexcusable in a paid review.

    Is it really fine for a review to be so condescending to it’s audience as to assume they would not be able to fully appreciate the product for what it is and instead to speak only to their ignorant biases because ‘that’s the kind of audience they are’?

    When I was a dumb kid who never watched any movie made before 1980 that didn’t have zombies in it I read a review of Citizen Kane In a magazine, I forget which but it was either a video game mag or a metal music mag, not particularly known for a readership that might appreciate classic black and white dramas but this review gushed about how beautifully shot, written and acted Citizen Kane was. I became intrigued, saw the movie for myself and fell in love with it. Thanks to that review I moved beyond my ignorant bias against ‘old movies’ and discovered a whole new rich area of culture to enjoy. If the reviewer had tried to second guess his audience’s tastes and written a review like, ‘eeeew, this crap’s old and stoopid’ I might never have moved beyond that ignorant mindset.

    Of course I agree the reaction mostly seems to be one of idiotic butthurt as you’ll see under reviews of any anticipated game that give it less than 9/10 but I really cannot agree that an ignorant and lazy review is ‘fine’ just because it’s written for an ignorant and lazy audience.

    • Mike Barrett

      You would be right except that The Godfather and Transformers 2 aren’t in the same genre for their medium. Borderlands 2 and Call of Duty are, so the comparison is completely appropriate. Even more so when you consider their thematic similarity — both are highly adrenaline and machismo driven glorifications of war.

      It isn’t condescending to frame a review for your audience, that’s a basic concept when it comes to journalism. Different publications with different audiences will approach the same topic in divergent ways. It doesn’t make any sense, nor will many readers bother with, a review that references a bunch of games they’ve never played or heard of. Yes, a more nuanced understanding of games would be excellent for the readers to have, but that’s not the point of a review. The review is to give advice on whether or not they should make a purchase, which clearly this reviewer had in mind while writing.

      And then even after all that, he still says that players might like it despite the silliness, but warns that other big name games in the genre are also coming out this year and advises that if you’re not sure, you should probably wait until those come out to make a decision unless you’re swimming in disposable cash.

      So yeah, it’s fine. You’re trying to say that there is such a thing as universal clarity or perfect analogies the writer should have used, but that’s not the case.

      • http://finallyanime.com/ Nuu Kode

        Mike (if I may call you that)….you know what he’s saying. Don’t play semantics. I’ll try to make another comparison. It’s like people comparing a street fighter to a blazblue. They’re both fighting games for specific audiences & to say one is great doesn’t mean the other is bad and vice-versa. Yes, he’s comparing similar genres. Yes. But you’re completely missing the point (again). The difference is the FOCUS & THEME. Borderlands 2 has a different focus other than competitive multiplayer, realism, or “throwaway” gameplay (not saying CoD/Halo is bad). It’s more an RPG/loot focused game.

        His review is wrong because they’re two different games, pure and simple. You can’t really compare the mask to liar liar by Jim carry because they’re two different movies with two different focuses bound together by comedy. The thing is personal tastes. And the ISSUES is how this guy tried to pass off personal tastes as dependable information.

        If you can’t see that, then I sincerely think you need help.

        • Mike Barrett

          Yes, you may call me Mike.

          His comparison wasn’t analogous to the situation, your’s works a bit better, so lets talk about that.

          Say that there’s a new fighting game coming out and you have to write a review covering it to appear in a publication not typically read by the gaming crowd. They know almost literally nothing. The readers don’t understand studying frame rates, supers, juggles, etc., they just see two guys facing each other doing crazy punches and kicks with pretty graphics and a fast soundtrack. What game are you going to use as a comparison, Street Fighter or Blazblue?

          Obviously you’d compare it to Street Fighter because SF is the ubiquitous fighting game, right? Even people that don’t play games have heard of it and it gives them some basic understanding of what to expect, even though this new game might actually be much more similar to Blazblue in terms of subtle mechanics. That’s what went on here, just replace SF with CoD and Blazblue with Diablo.

          Does that help clarify my point? His review was far from great or comprehensive, but his comparisons were fine given the audience.

          Also, you can compare anything if it helps give understanding, they don’t have to be extremely similar. In fact, it’s often easier to compare two diametrically opposite things.

      • Mike S

        You are right Mike, it is not condescending to write a review for your target audience. The biggest problem is that this entire “Review” seemed to be more of his personal feelings that the game should be more COD/Halo like than trying to judge Borderlands 2 on its own merits.

        The developers of COD/Halo have made it very clear that the single player portion of the game is to prepare the player for what the game was designed for, competitive online multiplayer. Whereas from the very beginning (Trailers, ect.) Borderlands 2 states that it is a co-op rpg shooter. The reviewer himself makes note early in the article that the game is a “Western FPS role-playing shooter”, however he never goes back to the merits/drawbacks of the role-playing portion (other than to show his own personal dislike for claptrap).

        If the person writing the review wanted to compare Borderlands 2 to COD/Halo that is fine, and in fact would have been ideal for the readers he was more than likely trying to reach. However, no where in the article does he discuss the fact that Player vs Enviroment (PvE) co-op in COD is limited to 2 player (Spec-ops) and 4 player Zombie Survival. And in Halo the Campaign where additional players are simply “helpers” who contribute nothing more than an additional gun to the fight; and firefight mode (Survival); In which there is minimal to no customization or character builds (Healer, Tank, Damage ect…).

        Obviously the review is entitled to his opinion, and by no means is Borderlands the game for everyone. However, when you make comparisons on the absolute broadest of levels like this reviewer did and do not qualify them as such, it is not a shock that he got the response that he did from the very dedicated and active fanbase that Borderlands has.

        • Mike Barrett

          Honestly, I almost completely agree with you. He could have done a lot better with the comparisons in exactly the way you mentioned.

          But the real complaint most people instinctively had was not that, it was “How dare he compare Borderlands to Call of Duty?!” As you’ve shown, it’s fine to do that. It’s not the most appropriate or nuanced for our audience, but it works on a superficial level for his readers.

          So yes, a twitch response on my part to an equally twitch response by his commentators.

          And personally, I have nothing against reviewers relating personal experiences in reviews since they’re a person, not an objectivity robot, and those experiences are the things they’re basing judgment on anyway, so we might as well hear about them.

      • Jerry Curlan

        Mike… you do realize, right, that a FPS/RPG and a straight FPS are not in fact within the same genre? And surely you understand that BL2 has nothing to do with the ‘glorification of war’? Right?

        • Mike Barrett

          They’re both first person shooters, which is the overarching genre they fall into and how they are classified by the general public. The core mechanics of the game revolve around the foundation laid down by Wolfenstein and Doom. People outside the core gaming audience don’t know anything about the subgenres that they fall into, so it doesn’t make sense to bring it up.

          And really? No glorification of war? They both scream “GUNS! EXPLOSIONS! FIND ALL THE GUNS! SHOOT ALL THE PEOPLE! MORE GUNS! ISN’T VIOLENCE GREAT!?” Sounds like a glorification of war to me.

          • http://www.facebook.com/nicholas.gatewood Nicholas Gatewood

            There isn’t any war in Borderlands, just some vault hunters, crazy people and monsters. Borderlands isn’t even remotely a glorification of war, it’s a crazy, hilarious, fun romp through an open-world RPG with an FPS skin. You could consider Call of Duty a “glorification of war” game, however that’s not even remotely accurate of Borderlands. It’s seriously idiotic to make that connection based off the inclusions of guns in both titles. It’s like saying that The Hunger Games had food in it so it’s a glorification of food… like… Julia and Juliet, I think that movie was called? Some movie with chef chicks in it, totally not even remotely the same but both have some food involvement so they’re glorifications of food. Yeah. That’s how you sound right now.

          • Leeric

            They ARENT in the same category. By your logic Bioshock is in the same category as Counter Strike. So if borderlands was in 3rd person, then it would be in the same category as Max Payne 3? Your logic is awful. And your article is just as bad as his.

          • http://www.facebook.com/ian.wiggs Ian Wiggs

            You’re a dolt. If you had even played Borderlands 2, you would understand that the game is not serious. It mocks the morbid masculinity present in commercial first-person games. Compare two books written in first-person from separate genres and maybe you’ll understand just how bad Najberg effed up. Though you are welcome to continue to defend ignorant writing if that really is the cause you want to champion.

      • Stranathen T

        How on earth are you actually a reviewer for this site? You say they are the same genre, keep referring to how “journalism” is, and make vague generalizations to what he meant. Guess what. He didn’t review the game to give them a “frame of reference,” he just reviewed it to try and promote his view of the games you should be buying. He clearely doesn’t even understand what kind of game this is, or he would at least try to say something relevant to the subject. There is no excuse for poor writing, on the Wall Street Journal or here.

        • Mike Barrett

          He reviewed the game to let the reader know whether or not they should buy it, not to spread his views. This isn’t his independent blog.

          And yes, a frame of reference is extremely important for comparisons, something reviews rely heavily on. His audience doesn’t know a whole hell of a lot about video games, so he has to make references to things people know about. A reference to Diablo would leave his readers wondering what the hell Diablo is. A reference to CoD makes them think “Oh, okay, now I understand a little.”

  • David P

    Your review is forgiving and tries to band-aid the matter, I dont write about politics because I dont know jack squat about them. I would be made fun of for years to come if i actually gave my opinion on a credible paper. Don’t dive into games thinking they are just games. If you knew how raging people are these days with games you would have known that. Besides my points. Educate yourself first.

    1. You’re comparing the wrong games vs your reviewed game
    2. You keep preaching about Vs multiplayer
    3. You came out of the gate saying you Wiki’d the first games story

    If you knew what the game was and not what you wanted it to be. You should have a different view of it.

    You came in craving for pizza and got spaghetti then complained.

  • Jose B

    Hey, lets get Adam to review Final fantasy and complain because its not like pokemon lmao. then say its okay because everyone knows pokemon.

    “Pokemon have 350 characters and all unique abilities, final fantasy fell short on characters and spells. Over all this game sucks because its not Pokemon”

  • Steve

    Having played very little of Call of Duty and no Borderlands, this is still a very bad review- it’s not actually reviewing the game itself. He’s constantly referring to how it doesn’t do what Game X does, which is very irritating. If you’ve been around someone who says “Well, we always did it this way at Y company” or similar statements, it’s very frustrating. I’ve learned very little thru his review other than “it’s not like Game X”.
    Would you accept this style of review for any other media form? I certainly wouldn’t

  • http://finallyanime.com/ Nuu Kode

    Mike, you’re missing the point entirely. And who says that majority of businessmen or older men in general only/mostly like CoD/Halo? Even IF they did, for the sake of argument, the review was still bad. His inability to relate to games or it being the wall street journal doesn’t account for anything. I believe it’s only a blog so it’s not something you have o pay for, but it doesn’t matter…he put the wsj Name on it and the fact is thousands of people said the review was shit. Period. I don’t care if a baby wrote it….it’s wrong.

    This guy is telling you to TRUST that Borderlands is worse if not on par or better than a CoD or Halo. He’s telling ALL gamers this. For those uneducated about borderlands, is is faulty advice. I get you making this post just to get views…but if you’re gonna make a half/partial troll post, then at least get it right.

  • Stephen

    Honestly, I agree with your reaction to a number of comments, but that is to be expected with an open-forum no-login comment system. Heck, youtube DOES require a login and everyone knows the high quality of comments generated there.

    The two biggest problem with this review, and the points I honestly believe you missed. First, how it DOES group all FPS games into the same category. This, in turn, results in those people who do read it and aren’t as knowledgeable about video games having a reinforced idea that “FPS = COD” or “MMORPG = WoW”. I expect reviews like this on personal blogs and on private facebook or twitter feeds. This leads to my second problem – this was a post associated with the Wall Street Journal. Are they a leader in gaming news? Not at all… but they are a major news source and have a responsibility for some journalistic integrity. As such, I expect a review posted here to at least have a basis in correct gaming classification and comparisons.

    The original review, as anyone who truly knows games such as yourself knows, was a comparison between apples and oranges. Yes, both are fruit (FPS) but simply because they are fruit doesn’t mean you should be able to post a damaging review about oranges simply because they don’t taste like apples on an outlet with as much “credibility” as the WSJ name implies.

    • Mike Barrett

      Yes, this has been a good discussion of reviews and audiences. I actually agree with quite a few of the comments myself and realize that I didn’t fully articulate myself in the post because I was trying to slide under a word requirement. But, alas.

      I think this is illustrating how differently people can categorize the same thing. All FPS games ARE in the same category, that’s why we can call them first-person shooters, they all have certain similarities. Borderlands is first and foremost an FPS based on how the player interacts with the game, putting its RPG elements one ring out from the center. But that’s not the way we see it as experts on the topic because we can see the nuances.

      Yes, people will stereotype all similar things together without thinking about it or meaning to. It sucks but that’s how our brains are built to deal with the world. And honestly, this is one of those times when it works pretty well. Come on, most MMOs are WoW clones and most modern shooters work exactly like CoD. We all know that.

      I don’t see any grievous breaches of journalistic integrity in Mr. Najberg’s review. He doesn’t lie or fabricate anything, though he does withhold that Borderlands 2 will have a serious DLC backing and implies that it won’t. He says X is not like Y and if you like Y, as he does, then you probably won’t enjoy X, although maybe wait until the price goes down. I really wouldn’t call that damaging, but apparently I’m in the minority on this one.

      • Michael

        He used Wikipedia as a source that does speak to his integrity. If i did that on on a paper in my Master’s program immediate F.

  • mogonk

    “A reviewer shouldn’t have to know the medium about which he writes if his audience is just as ignorant as he is.”

    Ridiculous argument. Simply ridiculous.

    • Mike Barrett

      I never said that he doesn’t know the medium. In fact, I think he shows that he knows it quite well. All of his points relate directly to the mass market for games, everything from DLC to competitive multiplayer, which are the things that sell quite a few games these days to people that are not in the core audience.

      My argument is that people should understand that rather than simply attacking him for making comparisons to Call of Duty. Not everything written about games is for us, the experts.

      • narcolepticdog

        The “review” is the author explaining its perceived marketability from his
        uninformed perspective. This low expectations were already disproven when
        Borderlands was “sent to die” in October 2009 and succeeded anyway. It’s sold
        over 4.5 million copies since, which is very good for a new IP.

        Saying
        that the WSJ review is fine only shows your own lack of knowledge on the
        subject..

  • A metaphor for something

    I’m going to disagree with you on this article. The whole “the review is okay because it isn’t intended for gamers” argument isn’t valid. Yes, I understand that their audience isn’t the hardcore gamer but that simply means that the reviewer has to put things into laymen terms and approach the language differently. It DOES NOT give the person the right to use fallacious arguments. Just because a book reviewer’s audience aren’t avid readers doesn’t mean it’s okay to critique “Catcher in the Rye” by saying “there aren’t any vampires and emo Native American kids that turn into giant dogs.” You can’t review a show like “Breaking Bad” by comparing it to “Glee” and then berate it for not having enough singing.

  • BlastoiseDad

    This article is nonsensical. If you are writing to an audience that only has knowledge of 2 games, and you’re reviewing a game that has nothing to do with either of them, do you:

    A) make a ridiculous nonsensical comparison that will mislead the audience
    B) judge the game on its own merits without silly comparisons

    Take your time. It’s a hard one.

  • Michael

    Mike, as a person whose job is explain technology and programs to executive management i understand the point you are trying to make. Unfortunitely, WSJ review is horrible even for ghst practice. If he compared eements instead of condeming one because it didn’t havd features of another, instead of explaining the different features to allow the reader to decide. Instead of reviewing he condems, and doed so with inaccurate information. This is what is killing IT professionals against older executives, lack of real explanation.

  • http://www.facebook.com/chris.langer.9 Chris Langer

    I disagree. I can understand drawing comparisons to CoD or Halo, because of his audience, like you said. That’s not the fundamental problem with his review. He misses on major points, and his comparisons go far beyond “This game functions as an FPS, like CoD” into “This game does this, like CoD and it doesn’t do this, like CoD.” It’s less of a review of BL2 and more a list of comparisons between the two. Also, he misses major elements of BL2, such as the skill tree, which should have been included in any BL2 review regardless of audience or medium. The fact he doesn’t include it shows his general cluelessness about the genre, and is frankly akin to reviewing spaghetti and forgetting to mention the sauce. Objectively, the WSJ review is a bad example of reviewing period, and defending it is defending bad writing.

  • J

    A misinformed article for an uninformed audience=Spot on journalism? How can you justify the unabashed laziness demonstrated in the article? You assume that readers of the Wall Street Journal, people who more often than not are intellectuals, won’t “recognize that skill systems and leveled equipment drops alter the way a game operates”? Really? Are we to believe that your unparalleled insight into the mind of Wall Street Journal readers has revealed that they are akin to the ignorant stay-at-home mom? You make a lot of assumptions with absolutely no way to back it up. You have no clue whether the concept of Diablo would fly over someones head or not. Not being a gamer does not mean a person is retarded. Assuming that fact does though.

  • Taeo

    My only problem was that its completely biased! this guy clearly thinks COD is god’s gem and everything else is unworthy. A review from someone like this is just one-sided and that was what made me mad. But you’re right, that review had very little impact on sales and all the people who know Borderlands is awesome are playing right meow.

  • http://www.facebook.com/DevilsNeverCry5 Travis Bauer

    the problem you seem to be forgetting is since metacritic came out, more often than not a game is deemed worthy of a sequel based on its metacritic score, and if this clown had given the game a score, it would count toward its score and would dent its numbers.

    now adays a game is literally not considered a success unless it scores at least a 90 on metacritic.

  • jason

    Writing for a casual audience justifies a half-assed review? REALLY? If anything he needs to do a better job EXPLAINING the differences between BL2 and CoD, not simply saying, “Its not CoD. Therefore, its inadequate”. He barely mentions the rpg elements and doesn’t even explain the skill systems. That’s a pretty big omission considering that those are the defining aspects of this game. I honestly question whether he even played past the 4-hour mark. How the hell are you going to have ANY issue flanking enemies once you get your ability unless you’re playing the gunserker (who’s designed to be in the enemy’s face eating bullets anyway)?

    On top of that the overall tone of the review is condescending. He doesn’t state that the game is not a CoD substitute. He states that the game is somehow inferior to CoD because it lacks features in CoD that it wasn’t even attempting to replicate. He does “mention” the target audience but I doubt many appreciate his tone when doing so. And frankly, the article in of itself is lazily written. His thesis is crap, and his transitions between paragraphs are non-existent. His constant mention of CoD and Halo comes off as a blatant attempt to fill in space to meet the expected number of characters. This article is barely worth a B- in a basic college writing class so why a mainstream paper like WSJ would consider it print-worthy is beyond me. It wouldn’t surprise me if he spent less time writing that review than I did writing this comment.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ian.wiggs Ian Wiggs

    If it is writing itself off as a review for a game that, clearly, gamers will be playing; it should adhere to and revere the process of constructive criticism. You can tell just by his review that he played very little of the game. That’s like watching the first five minutes of God Bless America and writing it off as just a baby-killing flick, or reading ten pages into Lolita to conclude that the writer is a closet pedophile. Nobody should ever be considered free of the constructive process. Critics can hurt art when they review in ignorance. It doesn’t matter if Najberg is not a hardcore gamer. The fact that he thinks he can review a game without understanding its medium is not only a joke, but a horrendous insult. I cannot fathom how you came to support this total disregard for constructive criticism.

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