Over the years — and particularly, in the last year — the notion that game reviews should be objective, depoliticized, or both, has arisen time and time again, and been debated, discussed and parodied to oblivion.

But who are the people asking for objective game reviews? Who thinks they’re possible, and who wants them? It’s a question worth asking, because the problem with objective reviews goes beyond one of simple bias. Sure, we all have inherent biases, as gamers; we prefer certain genres to others, we laud this franchises and that mechanic over others, often for no objective reason. But there’s another reason objective reviews, possible or not, are deeply exclusive: attempts to objectively review games erase the reviewer’s life and experience and flattens the reviews themselves. That is to say, there are many factors beyond preferences and biases that inform my experience with a game: having been born as, and lived as, a woman, being married to a man and birthing children, having grown up where and how I did — all this and more affects my experiences in and with a game and gives me a different lens through which to analyze and critique specific cultural references within it.

A female reviewer may not have the same experience as a male reviewer. A black reviewer may not have the same experience as a white reviewer, an American reviewer as a British reviewer, a lesbian reviewer as a heterosexual reviewer, a cis reviewer versus one who is transgender, and on and on. Our experiences and very personhood inform not only our biases but the things we see and notice in a game and the way we read its plot and characters, and the only way we can expect so-called objective reviews that do not address these inherent differences is if we are writing from a position of hegemony for an audience made up of the same dominant, homogenous culture.

In other words, one might call for objective reviews if the assumption was primarily white cis-men writing for a primarily white cis-male audience, and expecting objective reviews is just another way to continue excluding “fringe” members of the community.

But are we on the fringes? The numbers continually reflect changing demographics among those who play games, and more and more outlets are offering platforms to voices that once went virtually unheard in gaming. Social media, too, has added its own layer of access and amplification even when the largest press sites remain largely white and male. And as that ragged chorus rises, mismatched, uneven, representing the intersections of multitudes of experience, another rises as well, calling for those differences of experience to be flattened.

The idea that games shouldn’t be political, and shouldn’t be read by critics and scholars as political, is not only nonsense, but dangerously exclusionary. We are progressing not in spite of our hearing more voices in gaming and gaming culture but because we are hearing them and acknowledging the wealth of lived experience those voices bring to the table.

This progression brings with it change, change in the way reviews are written and received, and in the way various communities talk about games. That there even are various communities beyond simple designations of fandom is itself a change, but after the polarizing events of the last year, and the rise in presence and visibility of women in particular at E3, it’s hard to ignore that change is happening, though more slowly for some groups than others. For the dominant group, change can be alarming; change erodes the very foundation of a comfortable world, jerking away footholds and pulling down walls to allow access to those who have never had it. But the change is coming. It’s already here, and will continue to spread. Those given voice will not now be silenced.