Games

I agree. It does seem like media literacy vis a vis video games is not as generally strong as it ought to be, and if people did have a deeper understanding of game design, art, and writing in general even a brief look at gameplay would be enough for most people to make up their minds. If you have an even somewhat strong understanding of games I think it's not too hard to sense at a glance how the game you're seeing is trying to contribute to the conversation in game development. Between that, weighted reviews, and even the thumbs up or down from one familiar reviewer is usually enough for me to tell if I will get my money's worth. I almost can't remember the last time I bought a game on this basis and wasn't happy - it was Nier: Automata actually, and that was basically because I didn't like the feel of the combat, which is hard to spot. Didn't even get to all the bleak philosophy stuff I was looking forward to, I just bounced off it hard.