Why are Game Journalists So Bad at Videogames

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Please don't be mean to Dean Takahashi...

[@wandereringshadow8658]

I think in general the issue is that it isn't gamers becoming journalists, its journalists trying to be gamers.

[@samachu09]

Surprising that a clopper gets it.

[@itsthem5699]

Bingo. Can't believe I had to scroll this far to see some sense. Game journalists are journalists who failed out of some other field. They are failed journalists. (Almost) nobody goes to 4 year school wanting to be a game journalist.

[@ToppHatt_8000]

Yeah, these guys want to be journalists, but are unable to anything else, so they turn to gaming journalism, and let all their biases get to them and show in their reviews.

[@Folbak]

I think the issue is thinking that being a "gamer" is something of a status you have to earn

Is wanderingshadow actually one or do you just assume it from the PFP? @@samachu09

[@ExeloMinish]

The idea that game journalists are bad at video games is waaaaaaaaay older than Cuphead. To give an example, I remember specifically Monkey Island 2 advertising its easy mode that skips half the game as being "for beginners and game reviewers", all the way back in 1991.

[@chpsilva]

Agreed. While the Cuphead episode was emblematic isn't when the bad fame originated.

[@YARGGG_GG]

yeah, frustration with game journalists in general has been around for ages and their dumbass "easy mode" discourse as well.

[@marshiboi2991]

Geez how ancient are you?

[@Dragona-]

@@marshiboi2991 i mean... i'm still a child, and i knew this. knowing things about 30 year old games isn't odd.

[@joenoodle6914]

@@marshiboi2991lmao do you think people should be kicked off the internet when they reach their 30s or something?

[@DJVideso]

Never cater to the critics, cater to the audience. The critics aren't gonna be the ones buying your game.

[@scary5455]

But I am the audience and I want an easy mode and more difficulty options too

[@SleepySnapbody]

@@scary5455 Kinda sounds like skill issue.

[@TheZProject115]

​@@joeblack5253 Depends on the game series. The souls series is a perfect example as to why easy modes/medium modes do not work for everything, hell the games weren't even intended to be difficult funnily enough, the act man did a brilliant video on it, if you haven't seen it, I recommend you do so. It's brilliant. Borderlands, GTA, Sleeping dogs. Pretty much any game that has a NG+ will most likely not have difficulty settings as the base game is considered easy mode anyways. Only game that comes to mind with a difficulty setting and NG+ are the Batman Arkham games.

[@joeblack5253]

@@TheZProject115 batman arkham and soulslikes are not even hard. They just provide decent level of challenge for those who wants it, and still there are a ton of mods like scourged contract, or runs like sl1, or no bonfires or anything. But most people are casuals and as I said you just cut your sells in half without easy/normal mode. Games with real difficulty - like I wanna beat the guy, boshi, Furi (especially on furier) - they are very niche and have mediocre sales compared to casual games. Variety always beats no choice

[@TheZProject115]

@@joeblack5253 Whilst that last statement is true I didn't mention Arkham as being hard, I mentioned it as having a difficulty setting and a NG+ mode. The souls games may not be difficult for you or I, yet the games are considered difficult nonetheless and as you crawl your way through the game you go up multiple NG+ it gets more and more difficult. Most people find souls games hard....yet still play them because they like the challenge unlike something like GOW/GOWR which uses artificial difficulty....literally the hardest mode in that game isn't challenging it's just frustrating. Now what annoys me are streamers/youtubers who provide metas in games because people start complaining that games become easy or boring....well yeah if you're running the same shit each time it will become a tedious task. Cod is plagued with tryhards, more-so than the OG MW2 because of metas didn't by the new mw3 because it's shit. Souls games become deadly easy because certain weapons just destroy/builds. (Pyromancy in ds1, mage in ds2, dex/mage in ds3 etc etc).

[@gigavirgin]

Ironically, today I was playing cuphead on my playstation and my mom came in. She asked if she could try it. I told her that the game is very hard but I taught her how to play it. It was her first time holding a console controller. She managed to do the jump that Dean was stuck on in like 25 seconds, again, her first time holding a console controller.

[@scary5455]

And then everyone clapped

[@gigavirgin]

@@scary5455 What is so unbelievable about this story? My mom has interest in things I do and we even play Minecraft together from time to time. And why would I even make up this story in the first place? 💀

[@beardedfool5865]

Ur mom is more qualified for gaming journalism than dean

[@user-in8qh3zf9d]

His mum should make game reviews because she is clearly better then Dean lol​@@beardedfool5865

[@FunkelMcStump]

@@scary5455least annoying bayonetta fan

[@MrChainChomp]

Honestly, Dean should wear a badge of honor on making a stereotype for an industry. Not many people can do that.

[@The_whales]

And that badge would say: “congratulations! You suck!”

[@lunasakara7306]

@@The_whales "Professional loser - Official participation award"

[@NicoTheMilkman]

badge of shame

[@marzipancutter8144]

To be fair to him, video game reviews were already pretty hated before that, to the point where I'd say discontent with the entire industry was a lot worse before than after the fact. Dean just gave the inciting incident to point those long growing frustrations at, and that meant he bore the brunt of the hate. He merely transformed a general sentiment of "Video game review scores suck and aren't representative" and focused it on himself. In a way he largely relieved the hate on the industry: The long form video review format made by Individual content creators and streamers massively took off after this. By the nature of their work they had a lot more time to play the game and formulate an opinion, and as such they could satisfy a demand that the Review Industry was mismatched to meet in the first place. Nowadays viable alternatives are commonplace, and review companies get a lot less vitriol as a whole. They also adapted a fair bit to find a niche they were actually better equipped to fill.

[@superdean9966]

i feel dishonored to have the same name

[@notori-ice]

People make jokes about having a "Gamer Moment" but game journalists seem to have been on a consistent "Non-Gamer Moment"

[@Isabelle-mp8rk]

damn, you telling me game journalists don't say slurs?

[@gabrielgamer4458]

@@Isabelle-mp8rksorry I don’t think so

[@InvadeNormandy]

@@Isabelle-mp8rk They do they're just more acceptable ones.

[@notori-ice]

@@InvadeNormandy Yeah, like "I give this game a 7/10" always riles the people up

[@SnrubSource]

i think games should start naming easy mode "gaming journalist mode"

[@moepzilla7301]

Ill never forget the bad review for subnautica where the journalist never even left the starting region of the game.

[@thebluehat6814]

where and when was it posted? I wanna read it

[@vortexsux]

"barely able to walk in a straight line on a 2D platformer" dude that is savage

[@misirtere9836]

fun fact: Dean Takahashi does NFTs now. He's written positive articles about them as recently as 2 days ago. So that's what that guy is doing with his life these days.

[@alarikmarcus]

I mean after seeing his Doom Eternal footage, even a terrible idea is a career improvement for his utility

[@hygienic_wig2507]

holy canoli homestuck pfpf in 2023

[@HOTD108_]

​@@hygienic_wig2507What?

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

So he went from an awful embarassment to a different awful embarassment.

[@misirtere9836]

@@HOTD108_ It's the webcomic the character in my profile picture is from. It astonishes me how much people seem to think it deserves explicit acknowledgement.

[@TheMemer397]

If the journalists were good at Cuphead this would have never happened.

[@eduardomoura8414]

not true it would have happened but with another game, sooner or later, the problem isn’t cuphead

[@jambott5520]

@@eduardomoura8414 The 'problem' is that there are lots of types of reviewers. The point of a game reviewer isnt to be a universal judgement of what is a good game. The point is to be a part of an agregate of reviews, one with a singular point of view. You NEED people like Dean Takahashi reviewing games, because there are a lot of people in real life who are shit at video games. Those people need reviewers who can be a good litmus test for whether or not they are going to be able to play a game, and to get good recommendations for games that they may like. I am personally a masochist when it comes to games, I speedrun shit, I play hard ass geometry dash levels, when it comes to reviewers I look for similar people to me, people who are very good at certain types of video games. But if I wanted a review to see whether or not I would like a strategy game, I would not look for someone who is good at them, because I am shit at strategy games. And especially grand strategy games, they are often less fun if you are dogshit. The problem isn't cuphead, its people who do not understand what the point of reviewers are, and think that having game reviewers who are bad at video games is terrible because they have a miopic view of video games and the people who play them.

[@pyrobytee]

no shit?

[@cal5365]

i've been laughing at how shit at games journos are for decades, the video is actually wrong, even during the 90s journos have been awful

[@kingpatatochip3357]

Even before cuphead, remeber the ign alien isolation review

[@ArchibaldClumpy]

For me the problem with Dean wasn't one of skill level, but of his apparent ability to internalize information. The Y button is on the screen in that tutorial and he tries pressing it early on, but doesn't seem to actually think about what it does and how a little more height could get him over that obstacle. A guy who struggled with Cuphead and never played hard mode or S-ranked a stage could have a valid view of it, but they've got to at least *understand* what they're talking about even if their execution is lacking. They need to be in the same ballpark as the audience they're writing to. But let's be honest, this kind of content is what we're paying for. Or rather, not paying for. These guys are an artifact of a market that only cares about SEO and giving a score that's close enough to the audience expectations not to offend them. There are great critics out there but we don't support them. Dean is an outlier in how truly he should not be writing about gaming except in terms of mergers and listing releases, but regardless the state of the industry (journalism in general, honestly) is kind of our doing.

[@Youhadabadday2021]

Yeah, looking back at the footage, it's clear the problem here with the tutorial was that Dean was unable to make the connection that the Jumping Tutorial and Dashing Tutorial were both part of one whole section instead of two different sections. From his perspective, I bet he was thinking that he needed to jump OVER the cube and then dash THROUGH the cylinder instead of jumping ONTO the cube and using that additional height alongside another jump to dash OVER the cylinder.

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

@@Youhadabadday2021 Maybe he also didn't realize that the text was creatively laid out to basically show WHERE each move is supposed to be used in the sequence. He's probably just used to text being informative, rather than also illustrative (because, let's face it, that's clever & not often done).

[@5UH9VQLVE5]

ah yes, blaming individuals for systemic issues. +104 at time of writing too. Known for their control of the means of communication and ideological apparatus: "the general public". Very intelligent take. Now ask me how I know you're am*rican without you telling me.

[@bronzergoth7598]

@@5UH9VQLVE5 censoring american like its a slur is so funny man looool

[@no-bark4112]

@5UH9VQLVE5 it's always funny to me when people make fun of Americans but don't mention what country they're from almost like you know better lmao

[@Nabekukka]

Cuphead was not the first eye-opener, I'm actually surprised you didn't include Polygon's DOOM 2016 footage as an example as the level of incompetence on that was also quite insane, and Dean Takahashi's footage of Doom Eternal continues his track record perfectly, he got stuck on an area where the solution was right in front of his face and he didn't manage to figure it out.

[@scary5455]

Elaborate.

[@Nabekukka]

@@scary5455 Elaborate what?

[@Eric6761]

​He wants you to explain in what part he got stuck by stupidity

[@Nabekukka]

Apparently the original video might've been taken down, the original was recorded without commentary, but anyway... Dean got early access to record some gameplay before the release, he got into an area where he first fumbled with an Arachnotron, and almost died because A) he didn't even try to take out the turret first and kept aiming center mass. B) He backstepped and fell into lava from a small ledge Once the fight was over, he got stuck in the area and kept running around, opening the map multiple times, and trying everything that was guaranteed not to work. What he was supposed to do, was to jump on a floating platform, facing some chains that were in flames, jump and dash over the chains on another platform on the other side of the chains and continue from there. What he did was at one point he jumped on the first platform, then stared at the chains for a momemt, which was another mistake as the platform descends into the lava after a few seconds, which was shown and demonstrated in a cutscene the moment he entered the area. He managed to escape the lava, and then he kept running around aimlessly and opening the map several times failing to realize that the answer was staring him right in the eyes so many times. In the end, he finally figured it out, but failed the jump by missing the 2nd platform, fell into lava again, but managed to escape. Finally, some progress, and then the video just ends.

[@Nabekukka]

There is a version with Dean's voice over or reaction videos to the original that should be easy to find if anyone wants to see it for themselves

[@happyliving1922]

Watching Dean play is like watching AI learn how to play except it never learns.

[@cheesemanmaster]

more A than I

[@kociemleko1]

Give it a few more generations to train; the neural network will likely pick up on expected behaviours. Maybe adjust how they're weighted and re-train if performance ends up regressing

[@cesar6447]

Imagine an ai that plays a game and makes a review out of it, with precise rating in various levels 😮

[@Jayhawker2000]

There is a video of a pigeon faced with a similar puzzle that Dean faced in the Cuphead tutorial. The pigeon figured it out much quicker.

[@trollsansofficial]

So basically, a neural network with no rewards.

[@adventuretuna]

Dean's gameplay looks like an AI trying to learn how to play the game.

[@roeital5504]

Usually a A.I learns from a mistake the first time, not the 3000th time

[@Karanthaneos]

@@roeital5504 Not to be that guy but it literally DOES take an AI to learn a game from its mistake about 3k+ times until it figures out A solution, which is not even the most optimal, just one that works after countless repetition. His gameplay really does look like they stated.

[@lenarmangum8630]

An A.I. will actually learn how to improve.

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

@@Karanthaneos That depends on the AI itself, which type it is, & how (& how much) the operator trains it. But still, absolutely, it starts out with trial-&-error, including countless useless moves, with gradually some related moves that it THINKS should work after a while. Definitely much like the footage.

[@Llortnerof]

@@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her But unlike a human, the AI actually starts completely clueless as to how things work. He still failed with explicit instructions on what to do.

[@JoseLuisLazcanoLeal]

I think they should have two categories "initial impressions" and later a "full review", also the score aggregators should update the scores. This is why I like steam score system, they have the "all reviews" and the "recent reviews", so a game that started mixed, can become "positive".

[@CaH6633]

I agree this would drastically improve the quality of reviews.

[@MrFlarespeed]

And in the other direction, a game that started mostly positive due to hype can become mostly negative as people realize that it sucks. (Starfield)

[@Ezkanohra]

That’s a very good idea. This video doesn’t do reviewers justice with that.

[@SpongeBathBill]

Jalopnik actually sometimes does this with cars - a "First Drive" and later an in-depth review. So the concept is sound.

[@victime4360]

@@MrFlarespeedhas mostly negative because people don’t like it, are dissatisfied with it, dissapponted, not because it objectively sucks. Don’t misinform based on hate. Look at the recent Xbox outrage, suddenly everyone wants to play starfield on their ps5. Why would anyone want to play a garbage game

[@Danila438]

6:00 Sisyphean? He could start shooting a bubble a little further away from the button...

[@ShaggyRogers1]

He heard people online call the game hard, so he leaned in trying to claim the game is hard. His problem is that the mechanic he chose to use as his example happened to be solved by simply understanding that if the character auto-walks forward, just start the attack from farther away". It's almost like that guy lacks object permanence.

[@ShyGuyXXL]

Making fun of game journos isn't a new thing. Way back in 1991, Monkey Island 2 was advertised as having "an optional easy mode for beginners and game magazine reviewers." In the game it even says "I've never played an adventure game before. I'm scared!" underneath the option.

[@bdleo300]

Game journalists are just paid shills, like almost all journalists today....

[@elLooto]

and even back then we knew that 7/10 meant "average, at best" since if they actually gave a game 5/10 the distributor would stop giving them advance copies.

[@einholzstuhl252]

Thats awesome xD

[@mfraye12]

Dean Takahashi also gave a poor review to the first Mass Effect game when it was first release. He said the gameplay was too bland and the enemies too hard. Once he was informed that there was a skill progression system that he was supposed to use to learn new abilities and boost the player's power, he changed his review to positive.

[@Shadenium1]

* The fact that you need to be told that you level up *

[@curtismcpsycho8212]

​@@Shadenium1correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't mass effect have a level up indicator like 90% of RPGs?

[@boxonothing4087]

Games of similar types also have similar features. What you learn in one game carries over to others, unless you're unable to learn in which case the issue isn't with the game. Then again, I won't solely blame critics. Sometimes games just throw you off the cliff expecting you to learn how to fly on your way down. There's another issue here that doesn't get talked about enough. Games don't have proper tutorials anymore, a basic out of context introduction to maneuvers doesn't give you a valid introduction.

[@mfraye12]

@@boxonothing4087 I think actually the opposite. Games spend an extensive amount of time and/or UI into tutorialing the player when they didn't used to at all. Pick up a game from the N64 era or earlier and you'll most often get little to no direction whatsoever into controls and mechanics because the tutorial existed in the paper booklet that came with the game. Now that nobody reads any of the physical material the game comes with if it comes with anything at all (and because of digital copies), game devs have built-in the tutorials into the games themselves. This Cuphead tutorial could have been explained in ye olde days with a page or two of cute pictures and button descriptions. Mass Effect has a whole tutorial mission, and pauses itself when it is teaching core mechanics. It is possible to miss something still, for sure, but the fact that Dean played 8+ hours of this game without so much as _Opening The Menu_, to which he would have the game yell at him to go to his profile to learn skills, is kind of insane. 😅

[@kaiuskuikka2932]

Mass effect does have bland gameplay

[@silverswordsmith5424]

Holy crap, that instant switch from extreme frustration to absolute elation is so accurate for the Margit boss fight. That was one of the best feelings I've gotten from a video game in a long time.

[@nickwayne2]

This video really helps me, I’m in a website that talks about game and I’m one of the principal writers for the site. In recent times we are started to engage with companies and the review factor is pretty stressful, I’ve met a few games in which I couldn’t be good even if I try, so I just gave them to another colleague who is more capable in rythm games for examples, or RTS. The problem with game journalists for me is about high profile games, when they have to rush through a game to make an article as fast as possible.

[@Zero_Shift]

It's crazy how game journalism really does not require you to be good at writing or playing games. You know, the two things you need to have for game journalism.

[@therealjaystone2344]

Nor critically thinking skills required for the job

[@MegaZeta]

@@therealjaystone2344 Nor writingly thinking skills required for the comment, I guess

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

And it's not even about being good. You just have to be decent enough to go through it. If you have ever written an essay in school you know how to write an article.

[@auliamate]

@@HappyBeezerStudios it's basically, take an essay, but then add some character and jokes to it, and there you have it, an article in its most basic form. theres more to it, but thats the basics

[@thomasffrench3639]

For the most part they are pretty good at writing. It’s just that most have terrible schedules and deadlines.

[@Chroma710]

game journalists being terrible at games has been around looong before 2017. It's not just a stereotype, especially when only like 1 or 2 game journo companies were allowed to shoot promotional videos for a game releasing and nothing else.

[@Terszel]

Yeah I think this guy was just too young to remember gamergate

[@123cornerstone321]

Lmao anyone who unironically brings up gamer gate should actively have their opinions dismissed immediately

[@Terszel]

@@123cornerstone321 Why? 🤔 Are you also too young to remember the month of games journaling sites dropping articles with headlines like "Gamers are dead"?

[@adriano760]

⁠@@Terszelwhat's gamergate

[@gunnest1237]

​@@adriano760A woman who I'm pretty sure is crazy slept with people so her game would get good reviews. That news got out and then she played the feminism card so people forgot and it became a left vs right shitshow.

[@neonlove5456]

When I got a gameinformer magazine back in freshman year of high school and saw every game getting a high score (as opposed to many issues before), I knew the industry was compromised. Long before gamergate, and long before Dean's video. Having some power to decide if a product can succeed or fail always leads to corruption. On top of that, its much easier for an aspiring journalist to start with gaming journalism than anywhere else, so that attracts a lot of frauds. My advice is to watch reviews that come out late (to avoid hype and hate trains) and from creators that don't have an incentive to make easy money.

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

Considering most games don't even release in a finished state nowadays, waiting should be par for the course either way.

[@catbatrat1760]

Ahh, I remember Game Informer! We had some when I was a kid. They were my brother's, so I don't really remember TOO much about them (never been that much of a gamer myself, at least nothing beyond super casual), but it's nostalgic nonetheless.

[@Tn5421Me]

Do you remember what issue that was, by any chance?

[@Garibaldoo]

"can barely walk a straight line in a 2d plataformer" that is a serious accusation

[@jackatk]

4:35 “And yet can barely walk in a straight line in a 2D platformer” That line is GOLD! It has a poetic quality to it and it’s hilarious

[@yoshistar8889]

This goes way way way before 2017. Back in 2009 IGN reviewed Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. Unlike main series, Mystery Dungeon games are hard, punishing and unforgiving but also extremely well crafted with well designed stories and worlds. The reviewer famously gave this game a 4.9 despite only playing up to an early area, Apple Woods one of the first few areas in the game.

[@lmno567]

Speaking of Pokémon, remember the "too much water" review for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire?

[@pumpkinpartysystem]

And not only is Sky regarded as one of the best games in the franchise, but often one of them best games on its entire console, which, for one with as expansive of a library as the DS, is really impressive.

[@MegaZeta]

Steam statistics suggest to me that most people who bought that game probably played to around the same time. This makes a lot of player complaints about critics only playing the beginning of games ring hollow when I see it time and time again: People complain the critic only played, oh, 10 hours. I check Steam achievements, and so did most players.

[@yoshistar8889]

@@MegaZeta the game isn’t available on Steam though?

[@nezrafallon4086]

@lmno567 People complained about too many water routes in the original versions too. Time is a flat circle.

[@angrynoodletwentyfive6463]

another thing is that being good/bad at one genre of game doesn't neccesarily translate to being good/bad at other games in different genres. you might be really good at rythm based games, or turn based rpgs or strategy games etc and still suck at plat formers. Dean in particular seemed to me not to actually have a coordination issue but some sort of an issue with depth perception where he seemed to be having a hard time diustinguishing where objects were in relation to his character. cup head with its detailed art style with shaded drawings that are meant to blend in seamlessly with the background looks great but some players who might have minor visual impairments might struggle to seperate what is in the background from what they can interact with.

[@JacktheLightningRipper]

I saw another one of these from MattyPlays that covered more of the inner workings behind articles on very general and news-based topics and now finding this one that covers more of how it all can be applied to game reviews, it’s interesting to see how far this rabbit hole goes. Nice video!

[@dezmas9332]

Gaming Journalists always had the stereotype of being bad at games and it being true, Dean just lit that keg up to high heaven

[@cara-setun]

yeah, I remember some gaming magazine making fun of themselves long before Cuphead released

[@0potion]

Yeah I don't always be hearing these young people talk about gaming journalism and how it's gone down Hill despite the fact that I grew up in the 90s and even back then gave me journalism was just a bunch of shells being paid to lie for companies. The stereotype has been around for more than just a few years like people seem to be trying to imply, it has been around for decades at this point. I My sister went to school for journalism and one of her biggest things was she noticed a lot of people full who failed as journalists went into the gaming industry.

[@ToppHatt_8000]

I honestly think the main issue with the gaming journalism industry is bias. Reviewers just deciding that they like one series more than another, so it should be scored higher because of their own feelings of nostalgia.

[@ohno5559]

if you think someone is biased why are you continuing to pay attention to them rather than just acknowledging that your tastes are different from theirs and ignoring them

[@Castway420]

​@@ohno5559is because those reviews play an important role in influencing people's decisions to play a game, and if a review is biased or inaccurate, it has the potential to damage the game's reputation.

[@ohno5559]

@@Castway420Initial critic scores have very little impact on a game's reputation, also I don't care about the reputation of the games I play.

[@ohno5559]

Also, people have a general understanding of what kinds of games critics will and won't like. A new Saw movie will get panned every time and make money every time, because people understand that a poor critical reception doesn't mean anything for that sort of film.

[@Grande_Vtr]

​​@@ohno5559"I don't care about journalists so I assume that nobody else do either" man... you're not that important, I bet even your group of friends doesn't remember you

[@ultragalaxy06]

I saw the outer wilds clip in there, which is my favorite indie game of all time, and I did some digging. As soon as I saw the 8.4 I realized: “yeah. They didn’t have enough time to cherish the experience.” I’d say my first playthrough was 8 or so hours and it had me in tears. They probably didn’t have the time to bat an eye.

[@theangrierbrit]

06:08 i did not expect to hear rain world OST in the background lol

[@johannesjuhlnielsen9309]

That's another really big "bad reviews from awful game journalists" one. Imagine a game getting bad reviews because the journalist playing it sucks.

[@Gobbler.]

game journalists when a game described and advertised as difficult is difficult

[@Sigma-xb6kn]

The weirdest thing about Dean Takahashi was how everybody seems to have constructed the narrative that he hated the game due to it being too hard. Yet he said that he was bad at it but he liked it. Almost as if nobody bothered to watch him and just regurgitated stuff they heard by others.

[@realdragon]

Good example on how internet works

[@rattango9819]

While true, some interesting takes that i saw were "If he can't get pass the tutorial, how is he even a game journalist?". It wasn't as much about if he liked the game or not, but rather his credentials as a game reviewer were being asked rather than his taste of the video game.

[@Mysterynovus]

He didn't even review the game, yet it's something I saw spread around like wildfire during the time of the game's release.

[@shingshongshamalama]

It unintentionally reinforced an already existing facet of the "video game nerd culture" space that aggressively rejects criticism from "outsiders" and stigmatizes everyone who isn't considered "real gamers."

[@2NDSEATEROFMOTHORCOUNCIL]

@@rattango9819 im pretty sure he more or less wasnt a games journalist but rather tech journalist? correct me if im wrong

[@Repicheep22]

I've noticed some outlets are doing First Impressions videos to coincide with a game's release date, followed by a lengthy, in-depth review once they've finished the game, and I rather like this approach. It lets you get in on the algorithmic rat race, while still allowing you to get familiar with the game and form actual informed opinions.

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

Yeah, that's a much better idea. :D

[@shadowbonbon3]

I figured this out when ign reviewed rain world effectively destroying a games rep until downpour(the dlc) came out. They made simple mistakes and never even got past the half way point often due to situations that are easily avoidable and get many facts about the game wrong Edit: I didn’t realize he covered it in the video I made this comment in the beginning

[@gas481]

This cracks me up 🤣 and I love that you were able to pull this kind of vid off. Basically explained everything I have been thinking the past 3 years

[@sarraceniaporrot]

The Rain World thing is so sad to me, but at the same time? If I was a game journalist I would’ve given it a garbage score, too! My first 10 or so hours of Rain World consisted of dying in the first three areas over and over again, making a mistake that would cost me EVERYTHING (the kind that requires a save file restart to undo. No spoilers!), and eventually going “okay, ill come back to this” I didn’t “come back to this” until over a year later when the game’s dlc, Downpour was announced. I started a new save file, jumped back in, and using the knowledge from my previous attempt was 2/3 of the way through the campaign by the time I reached the same number of total cycles (days) passed in my original campaign. Then I beat it, with some difficulty. So then I played Hunter mode. With a lot of pathing and planning and only two attempts (woo!), I beat the Hunter campaign’s challenge. And then i bought the dlc I beat each dlc campaign So I turned to expedition mode And got every achievement So i turned to challenges …and didn’t do most of those. Because they sucked I now have around 240 hours in the game Rain World and would consider it one of my favorite games of all time, but undoubtedly if I was a game journalist I never would’ve had the time to sink 200 more hours into it after the fact! So yeah. Tl;dr good video

[@comyuse9103]

if that mistake is what i think it is; that was you being r3t4rt3d (damn youtube auto censors). there is such a painfully obvious telegraph of what is happening as you do it.

[@sarraceniaporrot]

@@comyuse9103 Oh its definitely what you think it is

[@comyuse9103]

@@sarraceniaporrot lol no offense

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

@@comyuse9103 There are PLENTY of other words you can use that aren't slurs, you know. ;P

[@tlv8555]

​@@ZaCloud-Animations___she-herMedical term. Nice pronouns 🤡🤣

[@locodesert2]

Game journalists have had controversy even since the 90’s. Cup head was basically the final straw of the back before it become super mainstream to just trash talk every game journalist. I remember a really bad review from gamespot about alien resurrection where a huge part is dedicated to the journalist shit taking the game because it moved the camera with the right stick instead of the bumpers.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Yeah, the game had pretty much the controls every console shooter for the last 15 years used. They were ahead of the curve and people didn't like it.

[@insertsomememereferenceher8483]

To be fair, if it didn't have some amount of aim assist a dual stick fps would be nearly unplayable.

[@snintendog]

​@@HappyBeezerStudiosjornos didn't like it users did nothing new and shows the divide even back then.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@insertsomememereferenceher8483 looking via stick is still better than via buttons

[@Chilldude10987]

‘Cuphead was the last straw’ I see what you did there

[@jamesvonderhaar2553]

Dean Takahashi is author of “Opening the Xbox,” which remains one of the best reported pieces in video games journalism, about the corporate intrigue around Microsoft making the first Xbox. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the gaming industry, in my opinion. So it really isn’t Takahashi’s job to play video games all day long. He’s covers video games, and therefore can be considered a games journalist, but he covers the business end of things. He doesn’t play games very much, and he’s happy to admit it. His days when he was writing Opening the Xbox probably consisted of trying to track down sources and people for interviews, researching, and writing. Journalism stuff.

[@jasonvoorhees5640]

shut up dean

[@RomnysGonzalez]

Dean Takashi was 100% baked and drunk at the same time

[@dwong98]

Apparently he writes articles on NFTs now

[@Jozeks]

I think the earliest example of a game journalist playing a game horribly was when Polygon played early access DOOM 2016, and is the example I remember the most

[@MemeScreen]

Same I was surprised he didn’t mention it

[@revolvingworld2676]

For me it was Sonic Unleased IGN

[@Ixarus6713]

Yup, everyone remembers Dean and that one platforming section in Doom... It seems like it's multiple-button inputs which stump them I.e: Press A + X Makes sense it would take a little learning time. I mean, have you ever seen anyone play Minecraft for the first time? Controlling the camera and movement is something people really struggle with at first. 😂

[@user-pc5sc7zi9j]

@@Ixarus6713 Yes, but on the other hand you need to get that down once, not every game, unless that game has a REAL exotic controll sheme.

[@Ganonussyszestygorillagrip]

​@@revolvingworld2676Sonic Unleashed was good

[@Mushezable]

"2017 where all of this began" Disregarded. They've been bad at videogames for much longer than that.

[@Youhadabadday2021]

WARNING: LARGE AMMOUNTS OF TEXT AHEAD. Since this video is focused on horrendous game journalism, I feel like I should step in and add another example of game journalism gone bad of my own. In this case, I'd like to discuss how Shin Megami Tensei V was affected. For those of you who don't know, Shin Megami Tensei is a series of JRPGs created by the game dev company ATLUS, and was known for being the series that kickstarted what would become the Monster Collection sub-genre of JRPGs. That's right, without Shin Megami Tensei, games like Pokemon, Digimon, and Yo-Kai Watch would have never existed. Key word here though is "was", because nowadays, and what is important to our story, Shin Megami Tensei is known for being the parent series of another series of games that would end up overshadowing the series that is was a spinoff of: The Persona Series. At around the same time Shin Megami Tensei V was released, popularity revolving around Persona 5 was at an all-time high, with countless spinoffs being churned out on top of a rerelease that added new features to the original game. You can probably guess where this is going. As a result of this Persona Fever, When SMTV got into the hands of game journalists, instead of being judged by its own merits, reviews around SMTV were instead formulated around it's similarities to Persona 5, and what SMTV did different compared to that game. Needless to say, this ended up negatively affecting SMTV's score, and the reasons as to why all boiled down to the same arguement: Shin Megami Tensei V wasn't Persona 5. Now, I'm no game journalist myself, but I feel like I know enough about speaking and writing to an audience to say with 100% confidence that THIS IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD NEVER DO WHEN CRITIQUING ANYTHING EVER! When writing or speaking with the intent of sharing critiques regarding any given work, you should ALWAYS formulate your arguement with the work in question as the core focus. You should make those critiques and inferences based solely on what that work does good and what that work does bad. You should NEVER make your core idea a comparison between that work and another work similar to it. I'm not saying you should never make comparisons when critiquing something ever, by the way. If you're making a comparison to use as an example or to help drive your point home, that's totally fine. I'm saying that you shouldn't make that comparison the core crux of your arguement, as doing so calls the integrity of the entire critique into question. But that's exactly what the game journalists did when they reviewed Shin Megami Tensei V, so even if they did make some valid arguements, all of those arguements are deemed invalid simply because the reasoning behind it was "Why did you do that if Persona 5 did this?" or "Persona 5 didn't do that, and it worked just fine, so there's no reason for SMTV to do this." Goes to show that even if the journalists themselves were actually good gamers, that doesn't mean they can't majorily fuck up in other ways. Thank you for coming to my TED-Talk.

[@william_.575]

no need for a warning, just go for it

[@fafflytailslogisonicuite104]

This was beautifully explained, and I agree with each paragraph, point and cravice of your explained formula. ''Incomparable Games'' or '' Genre''s should always had been a thing that everyone knows not to compare with other things... Like how you can't compare a Souls Like with another game of a Card/Strategy Genre,, in the world of content, there is way too much of it... We can never thinly base everything off of some singular example without even considering other forms of popular or lesser popular examples, it doesn't work that way because there is simply too much games, video content, movies and series to base one's review off of things- And sometimes, just comparing something that has nothing to do with the main argument literally just strips the main point away and ends up becoming a nonsensical ramble... Some people may know about certain video series on netflix, while some others may known of an netire saga of megaman games and if one were to compare it, to something else, it would require a large portion of people to also have the same kind of opinion and experience- The problem is, people fail to realize... That everyone has their own view on each specific game , movie or animated series. Now this carried on for too long, and no longer makes sense, ta-ta~!!! Love ya! May you be blessed by the luck goddess, or maybe Zeus!

[@Floatingdrake08]

1:35 "The game was too hard" Cuphead fans: "skill issue"

[@applejhon8308]

But here's the thing, THEY should know this and be taking this into account in their reviews. They seem to lack a fundamental understanding of basic game mechanics that anyone could pick up on after years of playing. There aren't too many games out there that hide all "the good stuff" 12+ hours in. In most cases, even if you're unable to fully complete a game, you should still come away with a feel for how things might have gone and what you liked/disliked from the experience you had.

[@bullet3417]

Damn good speech expect last sentence, bc good critic should not rank game by their likes but rank by what game gives, like if gameplay is good that means category of people who like gameplay will be satisfied, if there is not interesting story then category of people who need good story should just move on

[@applejhon8308]

@@bullet3417 It all comes back to the critic themselves. How can you trust someone's judgment on gameplay when they seem to be unable to conceptualize what good gameplay even is?

[@bullet3417]

@@applejhon8308 I mean how perfect critic should work not rank games by what they liked and what didn't but who will not like it and remove this system of 1 to 10

[@Friendlyfirefish]

People read/watch them. That's the only reason the keep theor job

[@donutlovingwerewolf8837]

It's like the Mobile game ads. If they play it terribly then it will convince us to buy and download the game ourselves just so we can be satisfied.

[@sourlab]

Pov : ign sees cod vanguard PHENOMENAL MASTERPIECE MUST PLAY MUST BUY insert unique indie game Too hard I cheated to the ending Sponge bob bfbb THE DARK SOULS OF PLATFORMERS

[@jm56585]

The ign review for Rain World is hilariously sad and aggravating lmao

[@sourlab]

@@jm56585 it's so sad to see bc its one of the most unique and well made games I've ever played

[@miimiiandco.8721]

​@@sourlab Gaming in the Clinton Years moment

[@sourlab]

@@miimiiandco.8721 yoo

[@AndrewRKenny]

I think framing this as a loose case study of the Cuphead Incident instead of framing that as the start of this would've afforded this more credibility. But your points were solid regardless and I enjoyed learning about some of these, especially the BFBB one lmao.

[@npip99]

Dang, I must've played BFBB and Spongebob: The Movie, when I was like 6-7 years old. Knowing that you had to stand _behind_ the button so that the bowling animation would slide you onto the button, was incredibly intuitive and obvious. Now, Super Mario Bros 3, was hard. I could only pass the sand world once. And that was an _old_ game. And I know my parents played Super Mario Bros 3 at the same age I played BFBB.

[@maskedfoxx7173]

Every time someone brings up game journalists I remember the "we think this may be the galarian form of Cubone" caption under a picture of Regidrago. I feel like that perfectly encapulates everything we need to know about game jousnalists. They're not gamers, they're people paid to play games.

[@MBiz.]

I don't know what a Regidrago is but of its a galarian version of a pokemon, wouldn't it have the same name as said pokemon? Or say that in the pokidex entry? I don't play a lot if pokemon games so i don't know.

[@maskedfoxx7173]

@@MBiz. Yes, regional variants are just [region] [Pokémon name]. Regidrago was not a regional variant though and was just a new Pokémon for the Regi line (like Regice, Regirock and Registeel). At the time the photo of Regidrago was a leak so we didn't know the name. Based on the visuals though, it was extremely (like, REALLY extremely) obvious it was from the Regi line, and the game journalists thought it was freaking Galarian Cubone. Imagine someone saying with all the confidence in the world that 2+2=5. Gobsmackingly hilarious

[@genericname2747]

Why did they think that

[@maskedfoxx7173]

@@genericname2747 His body was like a ball and he had a dragon head draped over the top. They saw the dragon part and instantly went "yep that's Cubone"

[@genericname2747]

@@maskedfoxx7173 Silly reviewers

[@RenderingUser]

Rainworld is one of the most underrated games ever. It does what it's set out to do so well. It's rare that a game brings something that feels akin to walking upright for the first time

[@comyuse9103]

it is one of the best games of the last decade, hands down.

[@shadowbonbon3]

We are all still waiting for markiplier to finish his play through

[@miniwhiffy3465]

@@shadowbonbon3he won’t said it’s not what he wanted in a series.

[@rockoyhead4005]

The music makes you feel for an artificial slugcat

[@twotruckslyrics]

wish i could finish rain world but my vermiphobia is just way too much. 😭 ily 5p

[@kaden-sd6vb]

Good vid. Also, was a pleasant surprise hearing the deep abyss theme, love the abyss

[@DieErsteKartoffel]

I love hearing Calamity music randomly in videos, well made video and informative in the funniest way

[@hannahrosa9264]

To be fair first early impressions of a games are extremely important as a bad early experience in the early hours can turn people off a game. As a player you CAN judge a game within an hour, from FPS to MMO to indie platformer. With that said, it's for the same reason why game journaist SHOULD play over the early game to see the game in its entirety.

[@Wulfen109]

The only "early impressions" i think have any merit are anything besides the actual gameplay. I think you can have an early impression of things like audio design, graphics, setting, etc. But actual gameplay? I really don't think you can form an opinion of it with only a handful of hours of playing. The cuphead example from the video: Do you really think his first impression had any value? He could hardly get over an obstacle with the solution written in background in clear view. I dont think that's the game's fault, ya know?

[@MyUsersDark]

@@Wulfen109 Well said, hard agree

[@Eyedunno]

It really seemed like when I was a kid in the early-to-mid '90s, game journalists were really good at games, but that just further underscores this article's point--back then it was pretty much only Nintendo Power, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and GamePro (in the U.S.), and they had a full month between issues (plus games were smaller and simpler then, even if they were also generally more difficult).

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Back in the time when games were hard. Or "Nintendo Hard" as some say. Most games at the time were either arcade ports or done by devs who did arcade games before. And arcade games had to be hard so that the people put in more coins.

[@MrCmon113]

@@HappyBeezerStudios A lot of games were also just hard because they sucked. That's basically AVGN's entire channel.

[@bluedistortions]

And don't forget about the offbeat Game Players, later "Ultra Game Players." They weren't just real gamers, they were real internet oddball meme humor guys before the internet was doing much.

[@valeriopasqualini6679]

i struggled too in the first level of cuphead. Now i finished the game 100%, game and dlc with all perfect scores in expert mode. It's just trial and error

[@lemonstrangler]

2:29 i think its because maybe he was not good at english and didnt read the instructions ?

[@ABoyWhoLovesBalloon]

then that's a double skill issue

[@TartB]

as a true video game chad, i simply buy the cheapest games i can find on sale and ignore critics reviews

[@mr.bubble5463]

Shut up you're not a "true andrew tate chad sigma male"

[@LordFiscus]

My n'wah

[@yoyo777]

​@@mr.bubble5463brother got mad by a dumb ironic comment

[@Excalibur2]

I watch videos, why would I let a reviewer really sway my opinion? I can see the gameplay with my own eyes.

[@matthewmatthew981]

Scotland salutes you laddie.

[@bcn1gh7h4wk]

I think what you should be asking is why *journalists* in general are bad at *journalism* I took an introduction to journalism in college, and when the teacher asked us to write a summary of a movie, only myself and another student got it right: simple, objective, and to the point. 10 other students lacked substantial information in their reports (such as, what the movie WAS about, for example!), and one girl outright wrote "it's entertaining, I recommend it" as part of her report. that was 15 years ago. make the bridge from there to here, and consider what has been going on in the internet, and you'll get a pretty good idea of what kind of "you're-nalists" we might have today.

[@alexmaximus9134]

If this is how much he struggled with cuphead's tutorial, i can't imagine him beating even the first couple of enemies in sekiro.

[@whitetiana3022]

nah, the problem isn't that they are "having picked up a game for the first time" bad. the problem is they are "your dad who has never held a controller in his life" bad. even after playing a game full time for a month these people would still be terrible at gaming because they need to go back in time about 10 years and actually become gamers. because if you're a REAL GAMER then you are above average right after having picked up the controller in every genre you specialized in.

[@nKaero]

This is personally why I tend to lean more to the youtube reviews from some creators - people who generally put a decent amount of time in to explore, see most (Or all) of the game, get a decent understanding while generally being slightly less biased. (Assuming it doesn't have the dreaded, "SPONSORED BY, THANKS TO *Insert dev studio here*" mark plastered on it since as much as I trust them - it sours it a bit) It's a shame journalism regardless of subject has gone in the direction of "Must just get clicks and views" rather then being a good informational/opinion piece.

[@bullet3417]

Well just the whole concept of ranking games from 1 to 10 is just stupid, bc every player have their priorities in what game should have. Like someone needs good music and graphic, someone needs an interesting gameplay

[@billmore6486]

Cuz Noone wants to pay good money to investigative journalists. Only so much room for passionate reviewers who can make living off donations

[@spiceforspice3461]

Journalism has always been in that direction. Hell, bad journalism is part of why the US got into WW1.

[@eatcatsnotmangos]

thats why you should always read fan reviews or recent reviews because it acually gives you a taste of the game

[@samachu09]

Yeah, like reading the audience score of Metacritic rather than the corporate reviews to see the opinions that actually matter.

[@therealjaystone2344]

Casuals only look at the mainstream media scores

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@samachu09 critic review scores on Metacritic also have the incredibly massive flaw that they only factor in reviews from release. If a game was bad then but has vastly improved since. Look at No Man's Sky, it was harshly criticised at release, justifiably, but has turned around and has become a pretty good game since. But the PC score is still 61 and the PS4 score is still 71, which in the completely unbalanced review system means it's a bad game. The fact that 70/100 is mediocre is just BS.

[@CaH6633]

Nope. Those are even worse. You have two choices on metacritic with video games. Shitty ign reviews and even shittier fan reviews. Fans don't know critique at all.

[@UnicornStorm]

nah, Dean didn‘t mean this as a joke. He only said it was a joke after people didn‘t care for his previous excuses

[@ogarti4816]

"prehistoric era of 2017" thanks bro, did not expect to receive critical damage on a random video

[@wikkinator7537]

A talle as old as time

[@medenik__]

02:15 This feels like watching AI learning how to play video game

[@ABoyWhoLovesBalloon]

but it never learns

[@MBiz.]

Ive legit taught someone who doesnt play video games how to do the tutorial of cuphead. They were able to do it better than the reviewer. (They couldnt make the jump. But got the idea of what to do and almost did it. Which Dean (i think thats his name) did not.)

[@Xifihas]

They got carried through school, never being allowed to fail. They gained no skills, so they became game journalists. These days, most articles are written by AI and the difference is barely noticeable.

[@CertifiedDoc]

Nah. Video game critics aren't alone. Movie critic reviews almost never line up with fan reviews, either. The job of a "reviewer" appears to be just a synonym for "contrarian." This guy wasn't even the first. I still remember the "Too Much Water" review for Pokémon Alpha Sapphire. This was written by someone who apparently had actually played through the entire game and picked non-issues to complain about.

[@DaakkuuYRS]

"Too Much Water" became such a joke to the point that Gamefreak made fun of that meme in Sun/Moon.

[@Johanimate]

"Too much water", chooses the version which the Legendary is based off of Water

[@N12015]

Would you believe it's not the worst review of IGN to Pokémon? Not even main game, since I would say Sword/Shield is worse ignoring all the glaring issues of the game. The title of worst pokémon review would be Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky. I know dungeon crawlers are not the cup of tea of many, but let's be real, it felt insulting to say "new content didn't matter" considering the Grovyle postgame mission. And let's be real, too much water routes does indeed make Hoenn's lategame less enjoyable.

[@MrFlarespeed]

Wasn't it also talking about the water type pokemon rather than the oceans and stuff?

[@darkiusmc979]

The thing is, the amount of water in hoenn does feel really excessive, at least to me, but the main issue with their oras review was that they spend most of the review praising it and then plot that score and random complaints at the very end. Also, I remember some people claiming Game Freak bribed IGN to score SwSh high, despite IGN's reputation of awful game reviews.

[@SocksFC]

I remember the Sonic Unleashed review by IGN where the reviewer would blatantly jump off the stage or run into enemies and blame it on the controls. On his account, he didn't get past Spagonia I'm pretty sure

[@SuperiorPosterior]

If I were a game journo, I'd do what I do with my roommate all the time: One of us plays a game (or we play together if it's multiplayer), and we talk about the game. Its feel, the controls, the setting and ambience, etc. I bet if I recorded those sessions and went over them later, I could bust out a damn good article easy.

[@CaH6633]

You could have like a show like the one Siskel and Ebert had...but for games. That could work maybe. Idk.

[@robotic2406]

That might actually be good unlike the ones making shitty reviews cuz they suck

[@chuan890]

pls someone can you tell me what's that sound track at the end is from. I'm 100% I recognize it, an ost from a game long ago, could be from a genesis system, not really sure.

[@piekay7285]

Something that you didn’t mention: most game journalists are specialists for a specific genre. If someone is only reviewing turn-based games this might lead to problems with jump‘n runs.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Yeah, I remember the fun in a local magazine when they rotated around and had to review games outside their comfort zone. So the shooter guy had to review some city builder and the RPG guy had to review a platformer and so on.

[@newtybot]

I've been advocating getting rid of the "_/10" ranking for years now and it's basically this exact reason

[@hb-robo]

Half the time the writer of the review doesn’t even get to choose it! But it’s probably not going anywhere because then they don’t get free aggregation on metacritic and the like.

[@NootTheSausage5016]

9:07 I was waiting the entire vid for you to talk about rainworld, and when you were talking about it I was thinking all of this applies to it aswell😊

[@cowan1234]

my 85 year old grandmother who has never touched a game in her life could probably pick up a controller, read/understand the clear instructions in the Cuphead tutorial, and preform the jump better than Dean. I genuinely wonder how someone like that is capable of driving a car (assuming he even can) with hand eye coordination that terrible.

[@Mads_The_Man]

Not being able to go in depth with the game you are reviewing is a common problem generally today in the gaming genre not only the game journalists but also game devs as a whole instead of focusing on making a good game where the devs can go in depth or making a good game review where the journalists can go in depth they are rushed to put out a game/review because of their boss or rushed release dates Gaming has become more about money and rushing things instead of taking time to make a good product

[@hkaden6815]

Rain world is a big example. Journalists hated it because of that reason, while almost everybody else loved it. Didn’t realize he went into talking about rain world when I put out this comment. Hadn’t watched the whole thing

[@shroomer3867]

Solution: Instead of going off of reviews and game journalists, watch a few streams of people who are decent at games play it at release, their main objective is playing the game for as long as possible and having fun because that's how they maximize their profits of donations.

[@Folbak]

I don't think that's a recent development. Video game developers have been pressured to release games quickly since at least the 90s

[@Mads_The_Man]

well its only gotten worse with "live service" games

[@Folbak]

@@Mads_The_Man yeah, there are definitely negative trends that are recent (MTX, DLCs that add up to the 100s), just saying rushing games out is nothing new

[@locki_dos]

Another thing that I think people seem to forget is that 'Games journalism' isn't about the games themselves. It is just Journalism about games. The game part isn't the priority, it's the writing, the journalism that's the priority and games are just the topic the writing is about. There's still alot of great and remarkable journalism done on games but you definitely won't find it from critical reviews on games themselves, Your best bet is to look at people like Jason Schreier and even independent Journalists like the Jimquisition or the youtube channel noclip. Truth is alot of what people view as Game Journalism is nothing but the reviews, and the only thing they want is to have their views and their opinions validated through said reviews which is generally a very poor way of engaging with the medium as a whole. This mentality even extends onto hit pieces done by the more main stream publications, recently there was a IGN video that went through a twitter thread from a indie developer talking about Baldur's Gate 3 and how saying the game was 'the new rpg standard' was setting an awful expectation of the general scale of video games. And IGN ran with it by completely misrepresenting what was actually said and fueling a flame of reactionary comments and content from youtubers that just parroted the same thing gradually just leading to people sending death threats and all the lovely thing the internet does. There's a good and bad to the Journalism does on games just as there is to any kinds of Journalism.

[@shingshongshamalama]

Can I like a comment twice?

[@thunderstar7682]

Damn that kinda sucks Being a game journalist looks like so much fun and yet the industrial aspects take the soul out of that job

[@jockin]

every AAA game that is not like baldur's gate 3 deserves to fail and the entire fucking industry needs to me rethought. And there are many great indie games that doesn't have horrible launches and massive time crunches to release an unfinished horrible game. What I hope IGN misrepresented was that it's the devs fault and not the actual higher ups that set these deadlines. The dev is only mad bc people want him to work harder and he can't because of the short deadlines. But if he actually just doesn't want to release a finished game then hope he goes broke lmfao

[@LowTiertoji]

What did ign intemperate as?

[@mightystu49]

Schreier is the hack who called the sorceress from Dragon's Crown a "lolicon fantasy" and then when people pointed out how dumb this is tried to defend it by saying he didn't know what it would be since he isn't into it. He has zero credibility.

[@teuqueiroz3377]

Why are Game Journalists So Bad at Videogames? Me: SKILL ISSUE

[@GamerSlope]

alt + f4 in the title screen when it says "press any button to continue" is wild 4:10

[@bageldogm]

2:37 this honestly looks like a really bad AI trying to beat the game. In fact, I think an AI could do WAY better than this

[@gekoh.]

I have a friend who plays really casual, is bad and knows it, and can make jokes about that fact. But he can recongnize the difference between a game that’s just hard and a game that has a high skill ceiling (like celeste, he speedruns that game now)

[@Edmitsu]

"Perhaps we're too hard on gaming journalists" Fuck no we ain't. Their still around aren't they?

[@averymusicalperson]

This actually opened my eyes a little so thanks

[@chaoticxeno2039]

One must imagine the game journalists are (un)happy. 6:16

[@Athanatov]

A week isn't *that* short if it's your job. If an experienced gamer plays any game (other than some select strategy titles) for 30 hours they should be able to get past enough of the learning curve to form an opinion. We're allowed to have some more expectations from a journo that chose to do that with their life than a completely average gamer putting in a few hours a week. They're not all bad of course, just an embarrassing amount of them are.

[@night1952]

Most games aren't even that long.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Say you have a week from where your publication gets the game to when the review has to be out. And since it's not "your" game, you can only play at the office. So you're stuck with 40 hrs. Which include not only playing the game, but also writing about it. The article has to be written, formatted, checked for errors, etc. And often enough you have to review more than one game in that time. But, and that is a big but, after some time in the industry you acquire general knowledge. If you have reviewed shooters for a couple years, you should know general things that are the same across the genre. Same for RPGs, strategy, simulations. And people tend to specialize into one area. So you'll become the "shooter guy" or the "MMO dude" or the "role playing person" in the office. Which is important, because you need to know other games to make a comparison. You need to know how good a good game is and how bad a bad game is to be able to judge the one you're currently reviewing.

[@joaomarcoscosta4647]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Yup. Also, don't forget that pretty much all written reviews come with a video review as well, so... You also have to worry about recording and logging footage of your playtime. Also, someone will have to record the narration, and after that, someone will habe to edit the video as well. Even if it's not directly part of the reviewer's job, this still means that they have to finish the game quickly enough that those things can get done by the time the review embargo ends. Also... Assuming the video editor is not the same person as the reviewer, it only increases the chance of mistakes slipping through. (Since the editor may not understand the game as well as someone who actually played it, the chosen footage may not always align well with the narration, for example.)

[@zacharyhall1536]

Me and my buddy have a tradition where once a year we will visit each other (we live across the country from each other). In that time we will spend about a day running through the entire game. This will be the first time we play through the dlc as last time we were together it hadn’t come out yet. I’m hyped to be playing the game again and hopefully the dlc doesn’t give us too much trouble.

[@xFluing]

From my memory this all started with Polygon's gameplay in doom 2016, and the situation only came to a head with cuphead

[@amogamogus9595]

At 7:44 i felt goosebumps even though i wasnt even the one playing, thats insane

[@JohnJCB]

5:57 This feels like watching someone without a frontal cortex playing portal

[@lucasspieler8461]

Anybody know what the game is at 8:42? I think it looks interesting and kinda want to play it but ive literally never seen that before

[@htwo1]

Its furi. P cool game

[@comyuse9103]

this began at least 2 decades ago. a major review site gave Godhand a 3 our of 10 and it was clear from the review they were totally clueless. they continued to argue on their forums with people calling them out and, over a decade later, the site itself was putting out articles mocking the review. and the time limit isn't an excuse. i get someone reviewing the first game to use modern twin stick controls could be a bit stumped at using the second stick (or any other paradigm altering game), i get not getting to something that recontextualizes the game farther in, but a basic (if difficult) game like cuphead? or hell even rainworld? no they shouldn't get a pass because they are so incapable they can't figure out you have to jump and dash to get over an obstacle or you need to match symbols with symbols.

[@duckseatbread104]

A lot of preview footage is also parsed from gaming conventions which isn't an ideal playing environment - early builds, noisy floor, preassure, playing the game stood up at a kiosk, literally tial controller latency issues due to kits of signals in a small area etc etc etc

[@JustADudeYT]

5:34 the “hein?!” Is sending me 😂

[@starnorthstarnorth]

honestly, while i think the point of "most journalists probably aren't that bad at video games" is a good one as well as the fact that there is a lot of crunch culture within writing reviews that affects the quality of someone's given opinion on a game is an accurate thing to bring up, there is still something to be said about how a disproportionate amount of journalists will give games bad reviews for no reason other than "it's hard", which can do actual damage. Like Rain World, which Htwo brought up, it's an indie game- it doesn't have a big money company behind it. Reviews that say its bad, too hard, and unfair can cause unnecessary stigma behind it and cause people to turn away from the game- i've heard people say they didn't initially want to give Rain World a shot because they were told it was too hard. Rain world didn't get affected much by that, as its clearly still a well loved game, but a similar thing can and likely has happened to less fortunate titles, where their shot at fame was ruined by too many people trusting journalists that gave it a bad rep because they didn't seem to get that a game being hard was the appeal. I honestly think that most game journalists, though they aren't *bad* at video games, are genuinely not qualified to give good reviews as that requires more than just "not being bad", and while yes, the culture around trying to get your review to the top of the charts impacts the way those reviews are made, it doesn't change the fact that these are a bunch of non-experts trying to give a review on something they haven't interacted with enough to understand it.

[@Eric6761]

Honestly, the industry itself is bad, If you have to play a game in a rush just because it's yours job then you can't give a good review, opinions are formed with time, for example: You can find a trick to the boss, an secret passage that makes the boss easy etc

[@samuelantoniocastillomeza5034]

I think the industry should improve by both hirirng competent people who play videogames and also giving them proper time to review them, depending what kind of game it is, but I know so far it's wishful thinking.

[@ajdndbdjbdj]

‏‪3:36‬‏ oh my God i feel so bad for that guy imagine the pain he felt losing to the fjrst level

[@zucchini2339]

Loved the ror music for the outro

[@drakevick1646]

“Dude has the hand eye coordination of a rock” IM CRYING 😭

[@Ixarus6713]

As someone looking to become a games journalist as an entry point into writing for games, I'll try and make it my aim to undo some of the bs the industry puts out by giving proper scores and actually giving games the respect they deserve. I won't say I'm very good at games, but I'm at least miles better than Dean and have a decent amount of experience to back me up. Ive been playing (Dishonoured 2 and Persona 5 recently and I'm loving it) I just hope I'm never given a soulslike to revivew, as I'm exclusively terrible at those games. 😂 Have a good one everyone! ❤

[@pmdmakesmecri2]

Just be a KZbin Games Journalist. The only deadline is the one you set for yourself! And KZbin.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I miss the time when it was not all about giving a high number in the end. One magazine here used to have some "info box" where the reviewers (they usually had two review a game) about their opinion on the game. Basically a tl;dr to sum up the review.

[@hb-robo]

A noble goal but the publications that actually will have the means to pay you enough to live comfortably are not going to allow you to choose the score. That’s how the industry works. I agree with the others that it’s better and maybe even more lucrative to go into independent media or content creation.

[@insertsomememereferenceher8483]

Good luck not getting blacklisted by every single publisher

[@excalibro8365]

Why bother becoming a game journalist? No actual gamer read gaming news sites nowadays, only game publishers care about them. If you want to talk about or review video games, youtube is currently the best platform to do it.