Review Scores and Mainstream Games Writing

I make no effort to hide my disdain for "games writers" or "games journalists".  The crap that these people churn out, whether it be a poorly written review or some crappy clickbait opinion piece about how something (usually from a Japanese developer) is offensive just isn't worth the time of day.  Also the fact that almost every writer I encounter on Twitter or on some other facet of social media just seems to suck massively at games just boggles my mind.  It's OK to be a less skilled player and we all have our weak spots (mine is RTS!) but these are people who are being PAID to tell you about games and they can barely muster the ability to finish a game on Normal.

Imagine the show Top Gear

One of the reasons that show is so compelling even for people like me who aren't really into cars is that the three presenters for that show are very knowledgeable and passionate about the topic and listening to them talk motoring is really interesting.  It's true for anything, I am a HUGE fan going onto YouTube and firing up some video about musical theory or musical production and despite the fact that I know diddly jack shit about music theory but just listening to people who know SO MUCH about it I find really interesting.

But now, imagine Top Gear but replace the presenters with people who know NOTHING about cars.  3 people who can't drive, know nothing about the topic of cars or motoring and then they are paraded around on TV trying to tell you which car is good or what manufacturer you should pay attention to.  I'd bet you'd change the channel pretty god damn fast and I imagine the show wouldn't last very long.  That nightmare scenario of a TV show is what is currently happening in the games writing scene and it's an absolute joke.  To put it another way, imagine a movie critic trying to tell you what makes a movie good or bad but they only thing they ever watch are Marvel super hero movies, you wouldn't give it the time of day

"Sekiro is too hard", the guy who couldn't clear the Cuphead tutorial, the Astral Chain incident and so much more are just a few examples of just how there is a group of people that don't know all that much about gaming, aren't very good at it and in some cases I imagine they don't even really care that much, trying to get you to respect their opinion on a given title.  Granted in 2020 with the likes of YouTube and Twitch games writers have become somewhat irrelevant but its still mind numbingly frustrating when some trumped up Twitter addict comes along and tries to tell you what's good or not.

Although the people involved in the actual writing is sort of only half the problem, it's the way in which reviews are presented which is also shitty and dumb.  Most review sites will use a 1-10 scale; the writer will do MAYBE one playthrough of the game, write a couple of paragraphs about the mechanics and the story and then slap a number on the end.  When it comes the scale itself 9 and 10 usually mean a good game, 8 means an OK game, 7 is mediocre and anything below a 7 is complete garbage that isn't worth your money.

I can't help but feel that trying to boil down a complex opinion about a game or any piece of media for that matter into a number is an incredible waste of time.  People can't even decide on what certain numbers mean for certain titles, most recently evidenced by The Last of Us 2.  The game got many 10/10s and I saw many twitter threads of people arguing not only about if that score was deserved but what even "10/10" means.  Seeing someone unironically tweet "10/10 doesn't mean it's perfect" made me put my phone down and walk away from Twitter for a while because I cannot believe the stupidity of some people on that website.

The solution to this problem? Don't put so much pressure on the games press to churn out a review as fast as possible.  Make the standard for a review two playthroughs and go into A LOT more detail on various aspects of the game.  I know I was being mean to games writers in the above paragraphs but you don't even have to replace them. If it takes them a long time to get a review out because they found the game hard is a legit point that may help people make a more informed purchase in the end.  They don't have to be good at the game but the writers skill level should be taken into account so that a reader can find a writer who somewhat matches them and get an opinion similar to where they stand.  Also dump the number, with the extra detail given to the review you don't need the number, the writer has more space to properly articulate what individual aspects they like and didn't like

To basically sum up what I mean you should look to a channel on YouTube called Joseph Anderson.  This guy may be a little overboard in the other direction (his latest video on The Witcher 1 is over 4 hours) but even if you don't agree with what he says he is clearly a dude who knows what he is talking about and puts a lot of effort into these pieces.  If HE tells me a game is good I'm more likely to take an interest rather than some dude who rushed through the game once or maybe didn't even get to the end just so he could write 500 words with a 8/10 on the end.

What I'm saying in a very long, poorly put together way is don't get your games info from places like IGN, go find someone who actually gives a shit

The Last of Us Part 2 leaks and Naughty Dog (Spoiler Free)

The Last of Us Part 2 has been delayed and of course, the internet is not happy about it.  People are (or from what I can tell on Twitter, were) excited for this game and some users in particular are not taking the news of the delay very well.  However as you can probably tell from the title, delays are not the whole story with this, there have been big leaks regarding the story and while I have read them myself, I'm going to write this post without referencing them directly.

Before I get into the real meat of this issue though I'm going to once again touch on the issue of spoilers.  While its true that ruining the big twists of any piece of fiction for a new user makes you a bit of a dick head, at the end of the day, spoilers don't really matter do they?

For example, to take a non-TloU example, imagine that you're playing Final Fantasy 7 (PS1) for the first time and someone tells you that Aeris dies.  No more details than that, they just run up to you, scream that in your face and run away.  If you are the kind of person who, upon hearing that, throws a tantrum and stops playing the game, then I'm sorry but quite frankly you're a little bitch.  If anything a spoiler like that should have you asking questions of who, where, why or how and having you pushing on just to see how exactly something like that came to pass.  Hell, when I was streaming Resident Evil 7 around the time of its launch, some dude came in my chat and spoiled the game for me.  Only his spoiler was lacking in any detail so my reaction was one of more intrigued excitement rather than being upset or angry.   I even ASKED my friend for what happens at the end of the FF7 Remake because I had these ideas about the plot and when he explained what happens it sounded so batshit that it just made me want to play the game MORE so I could hurry up and see it for myself .

But the spoilers are only really half the story here when you start to look into just why these details were released in the first place.  From what I understand there has been some kind of pay dispute between Naughty Dog and an employee and when the company wouldn't cough up the money he was apparently owed, he coughed up the spoilers to the internet.

A quick google search can get you all manner of articles about the working hours and the working conditions at Naughty Dog and they sound pretty bad.  "Crunch" has been a problem within game development for a good while and can have some really negative effects on the people that are being subjected to it.  Hell, one quick Google search of "Naughty Dog working conditions" quickly gets you an article that references a tweet from Jonathan Cooper who states

This isn't cool, even a little bit.  These people are being worked to the bone and for what? so you can have some grimdark movie-game about a not-zombie zombie apocalypse.  Factor these statements in with the apparent reason for the leak and its easy to paint a picture in your head of the Naughty Dog offices being filled with overworked and underpaid staff.

If you're the kind of person who is currently on Twitter throwing a tantrum about <redacted> happening or Druckmann being a "SJC cuck-tard" then you're an idiot that's missing the real problem here.  Sure you can dislike the direction of the story or dislike Drukmann and his attitudes (of which there is good reason to, mind you) but what the real focus of all this SHOULD be is the way that, not just Naughty Dog, but studios in general treat their staff during a games development.  I think this story breaking off the back of "Gearbox (Borderlands) underpaying staff with promise of bonus based on sales and then not paying the bonuses" should have people getting quite upset.

These are the people that make your fucking games for crying out loud.  They put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into these things and they deserved to be compensated for that much work.  You can bitch and moan about the story or the delay but without the team behind this stuff you wouldn't have it any way, shape or form in the first place.  If you want more content like this that you really enjoy you should at least be making sure that the creative teams and minds behind it aren't dropping dead in the process of trying to get it to you because you know, a dead or hospitalized developer can't make games.

There's word in Japanese, 過労死 (karoshi), that literally means death by overwork, its been a huge problem here since long before I arrived in the country.  You HAVE to look after your staff because best case they get mad, leave and spoil your video game and worst case they just fucking die.  It's cool that these people have such passion for what they are doing but if we want to keep enjoying the fruits of their labor then we have to make sure that these people at least don't work in literal hell holes.

It's good that you're mad that this shit got leaked, just make sure your anger is being channeled in the right direction.