Drama isn't easy: r/games fights over how much proficiency is required to be a gaming journalist

[u/SS_Downboat]

Context:

VenturesBeat, a tech website, uploaded a controversial video of journalist Dean Takashi playing ineptly through the tutorial and the first level of the videogame Cuphead. The video, which includes Takashi failing to follow basic instructions in the tutorial portion, was uploaded in jest, with the original description calling it "shameful". The video is accompanied by an article written by Takahi himself on the game's difficulty

Nonetheless, the video went viral, drawing ire from the gaming community and from well-known GamerGate journalists, drawing similarities to when a similar incident happened with Polygon, in which a journalist that did not review the game played (very poorly) and recorded footage of DOOM.

Takashi has since written an article explaining the context of the video: he was the only person from VenturesBeat who had attended GamesCom and was available to play it, despite being terrible at platformers in general. After recording the gameplay footage, he told his editor that the footage was unusable, but VenturesBeat decided to upload it anyway for humor.

George Weidman, a popular gaming critic on Youtube (also known as Super Bunnyhop), wrote his own piece defending Takashi, outlining differences between games journalism and games criticism. Weidman pointed out that despite Takashi's lack of skill, Takahi has written multiple well-researched pieces covering the business side of the gaming industry.

Drama:

• "Imagine being mad about this. Man alive. Gamers are fucking children. You don't need to be good at games to understand them, same goes for a million other pastimes and hobbies. This nonsense drama has more to do with gamer entitlement, immaturity and some odd sense of superiority."

• "Because the job doesn't always involve previewing and reviewing things. Holy shit! How can you be so intentionally dense he covers this in the article even! Did you even read it!"

• "The unavoidable fact is that anyone, at any level, is fully allowed to write whatever they want about any game at all. You're free to find that coverage useless, in which case your option is to simply ignore it. And that's pretty much where the story would end, for normal people."

• "In the world they've created in their minds, game journalists are the enemy. They're just interlopers who have no real interest in the hobby and use it to push their personal beliefs. So when a video comes out of a journalist playing a game poorly, they have to latch on to it and post it as often as possible, because they see this as proof that many journalists aren't really gamers."

• "You obviously did not read the article. Half of it is lamenting how people conflate games journalism with reviews."

Full Thread

[u/Jiketi]

As the popularity grew, you suddenly became bombarded with media friendly faces who are actually posers

There's also a lot of people who are accused of being poseurs who aren't actually such.

[u/polite-1]

Didn't we have a thread on this? It's pretty insane. The guys crime was being bad at a video game. It's not like he's even trying to hide it - it's literally in the title of the game and the focal point of his article.

[u/reelect_rob4d → u/polite-1]

Takashi reviewed an RPG and gave it a bad score because he didn't realize you could level up. Genres are less distinct than they used to be, but fucking leveling up is like half of what makes a game an RPG.

There's unskilled and then there's gross incompetence.

[u/[deleted]]

Maybe it's good to have people with different abilities play the game, since gamers of different abilities will play the game, so I can figure out if the game is good for me based on my own amount of dirty casualness?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Unless you've never picked up a controller before, I doubt that video's gonna help you much

[u/Kingofburgerz]

This is the dumbest outrage in the gaming community in a while, and that's saying something. However, I do think that the debate about whether critics need to be good at games or not is interesting.

[u/CuckMulligan → u/Kingofburgerz]

So it's stupid and interesting at the same time?

[u/Gunblazer42 → u/CuckMulligan]

It is. This specific instance of the argument is stupid, but the actual argument is interesting. You generally expect film and book critics to know the nuances of filmmaking and literary concepts in order to properly criticize work. But then, if you extend that to games, what does that mean? Do critics need to be able to play games well as well as point out and analyze tropes and mechanics used by games? Are journalists critics, or should they be held to a lower standard? Or should they be held to a greater standard than critics? But then, anyone can write a review, and some of them can influence the metacritic score of a game, which in turn can lead to a bonus or lack of bonus being given to developers by the publisher at times.

[u/[deleted] → u/CuckMulligan]

This isn't difficult to grasp:

the reaction (or, more appropriately, crazy overreaction) is stupid, but the conversation itself is not

[u/CuckMulligan → u/[deleted]]

I haven't really seen much of this "crazy overreaction" Mostly just people pointing out how much this guy sucks at his job.

[u/[deleted] → u/CuckMulligan]

Go back and look at the original r/games post about this. People were angrily writing upwards of 4, 5 paragraphs about this. And this wasn't technically his job.

[u/captainersatz → u/Kingofburgerz]

One of those things that's interesting but incredibly difficult to have a discussion about online because so many people are coming at it in bad faith. Kind of hate how "ethics in gaming journalism" became a punchline because it is a legitimate topic worth discussing for anyone with interest in gaming media, and now any attempt to even start conversation about it is hamstrung from the beginning.

[u/reelect_rob4d → u/Kingofburgerz]

If Dean Takashi reviewed VHS releases of movies in the 90s, he would watch them frame-by-frame and complain about the wiggly distortion and fucked up sound and ask why the opening credits for Lawrence of Arabia are on the second tape.

There's a difference between being good and being competent.

[u/Kingofburgerz → u/reelect_rob4d]

Point out to me where I defended the gameplay.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kingofburgerz]

idk I think the outrage over the Pride Month quest in Runescape was way dumber and worse

[u/Kingofburgerz → u/[deleted]]

You're not wrong. The old school RuneScape community seems particularly toxic.

[u/Kingofburgerz → u/Kingofburgerz]

The amount of outrage is stupid, but I think the discussion has some merit.

[u/itsallabigshow]

People boo-hooing about that shit again? Talk about gamers being sissies.

[u/SnapshillBot]

All hail MillenniumFalc0n!

Snapshots:

1. This Post - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

2. controversial video - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, archive.is

3. an article written by Takahi himsel... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, archive.is

4. GamerGate journalists - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, archive.is

5. a journalist that did not review th... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, archive.is

6. an article explaining the context o... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, archive.is

7. wrote his own piece defending Takas... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, archive.is

8. "Imagine being mad about this. Man ... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

9. "Because the job doesn't always inv... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

10. "The unavoidable fact is that anyon... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

11. "In the world they've created in th... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

12. "You obviously did not read the art... - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

13. Full Thread - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is

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[u/[deleted]]

[u/Mystic8ball → u/[deleted]]

People are just worried that reviewers may be blaming a game when the issue is them not understanding the mechanics. For the critic in question I think one of the biggest arguments against him was that he straight up forgot you could level up in Mass Effect and complained that it was too hard, and that was in a review he did.

I guess people just don't want another Natural Selection 2 incident where some critic working for Gamespot reviewed the game without understanding how to play it, giving it a negative score which affected its final metacritic ranking. Gamespot themselves admitted the dude had no idea what he was doing and re-reviewed the game but Metacritic refused to update the score.

[u/krungus_mchungus → u/Mystic8ball]

he straight up forgot you could level up in Mass Effect

Okay, not to sound mean but does this guy have some kind of learning disability?

[u/Jiketi → u/Mystic8ball]

For the critic in question I think one of the biggest arguments against him was that he straight up forgot you could level up in Mass Effect and complained that it was too hard, and that was in a review he did.

Are there any genres that he's good at? If there are, then send him to review those. If he isn't, don't let him write reviews and relegate him to news coverage.

[u/Statoke → u/Mystic8ball]

People are just worried that reviewers may be blaming a game when the issue is them not understanding the mechanics

But who cares? How can you possibly work up the anger to be mad at this? I've read plenty reviews (this wasn't even a review) where I've thought that the person writing it has no idea the fuck they talking about but I didn't want to try ruin the guys career over it.

[u/Palentir → u/Mystic8ball]

People are just worried that reviewers may be blaming a game when the issue is them not understanding the mechanics. For the critic in question I think one of the biggest arguments against him was that he straight up forgot you could level up in Mass Effect and complained that it was too hard, and that was in a review he did.

This actually makes a lot of sense to me. In most games, seeing the content requires passing a level, completing a mission, or a certain level up. If you can't do that, you don't see the content. At that point, you can't do a fair review because you didn't see much.

[u/[deleted] → u/Palentir]

That said, games are literally designed to be beaten. When players aren't understanding mechanics devs don't blame the players, because it's not about forcing people to prove themselves worthy of our mighty challenges, it's about them having so much fun they give us money.

Sure, there's a level of incompetency that you give up on out of practicality, but if someone can hold and use a controller you work hard to not frustrate them.

When a dev hears someone forgot about leveling up they don't go "ha, what a moron. Fuck them and their money." They go "oh shit, we need to re-examine our hint system for mid/late-game to watch for this behavior. The $60 from the dude that likes narrative spends just as well as the $60 from xX420noscope360Xx."

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Devs cant just change stuff, changes take money and time.

Also

When players aren't understanding mechanics devs don't blame the players, because it's not about forcing people to prove themselves worthy of our mighty challenges, its about them having so much fun they give us money.

Devs are a varied bunch, some devs like the director of Ninja Gaiden actually made the game harder, and director of Bayonetta didn't care when people thought his games were too difficult. There isn't one way to make videogames, it's an art with countless approaches.

Some directors may not even meant you to have fun. Goichi Suda has made games that can be called anti-fun like Flower Sun and Rain. Again, games are art, not all of them are made the same way and for the same purpose.

[u/Esrou → u/[deleted]]

But why are people still whining about it?

Just gonna paste my reply to someone else here:

It probably wouldn't be such a big deal if the guy then didn't go on to say that anyone who criticizes him is a trump loving gamergater, and that multiple personalities made articles saying that basic game playing literacy isn't needed to review games. Otherwise this probably would have died down a couple days ago.

[u/[deleted] → u/Esrou]

considering it took me 30 seconds to find the "gamers are dead" article on the linked drama I'd say he has a point.

Hell, I worry much more about reviewers failing to criticize overwatch and the new shadow of more for their lootboxes than any other ethical breach.

[u/CaptainCupcakez → u/[deleted]]

Say for example you were really into cars. You really enjoy car shows, and watch them for reviews of cars.

You watch the shows most recent review of a brand new BMW/Mercedes/whatever and the guy showing it off cannot drive. He constantly stalls it while trying to pull away, he takes corners at 10mph, and he never changes gears past 3rd gear.

Now understandably you'd be a bit annoyed. This guy is supposed to be showing you the best this car has to offer, but he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. How did he get a job reviewing cars?

It's the same scenario here. How did this guy get a job reviewing games if he literally can't play a very simple platformer. Honestly the only explanation I could actually believe is he was drunk/high/on prescription medicine when he recorded these clips.

[u/Prince-of-Ravens → u/[deleted]]

But why are people still whining about it?

Imagine all games idiotizes down to the level that people like that journalist understand them.

Some people see this trend already happening and don't like that.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]