However controversy has once again reared its ugly head however this time it has nothing to do with the game itself and more to do with the people playing it. If you remember when DOOM was coming out and a dude called Arthur Gies played it and sucked massive cocks at it? Well it's that AGAIN. People are pissed off (rightly so) that so called industry professionals can't handle a fucking tutorial level and of course gaming press is shooting back by claiming people are over reacting.
I would recommend at this point to go look up the video, it's easy to find but I'm not linking it here because I don't want to give any of the idiots at Venture Beat views on their shit, embarrassing video.
Let me start by saying that I have ZERO respect for games journalism. It seems to be entirely populated by fucking morons who don't know anything about games and are more interested in writing clickbait or sucking corporate cock rather than ACTUALLY helping consumers in any meaningful way. I'm not the only one who holds this view either, go find any thread about the state of video game journalism on social media and you'll see a lot of people repeating that sentiment.
So big question of the day, do video game journalists have to be good at video games?
The quick answer is yes, of course they fucking do. The job of a reviewer or someone reporting on industry goings on is to assist the consumer. Therefore, you MUST know what the fuck your on about or your failing at the most basic facet of your job. No one is asking journalists to be pro gamers winning The International every year or speedrunners with 5 or 6 world records under their belt but we ask that you at least know how to finish the tutorial of any game that you might come across.
Imagine if you were trying to buy a car so you look up reviews of various vehicles. Imagine then you find out that the person reviewing the cars CAN'T FUCKING DRIVE. This is what the Cuphead/DOOM debate is basically all about.
If you are an individual and you make a YouTube video or write a thing for a personal site, it's OK to suck at games or suck at just that one game. For example I don't know shit about sports games so if I gave a scathing awful review or did a terrible gameplay video of the new Fifa and then called it shit, it's clear that it's just one tossers opinion on the sea of piss that is the internet. HOWEVER, if I was writing for a PROFESSIONAL news website in a PROFESSIONAL capacity and then couldn't even finish the most basic stage of a game with like, 2 button controls, of course people are going to question my ability to do the job. In the case of Cuphead it brings into question everything that Dean Takahashi has EVER said because clearly the man lacks the basic motor function to hold a controller properly.
Which leads me to my other point about this. Arthur Gies and Dean Takahashi didn't just show "bad" performances. People can have an off day or just be not particularly geared towards a certain genre, that's fine. These performances were INCOMPETENT. The kind of game play I'd expect from a child who has never touched a game before. No word of a lie, I could give my mother a copy of Cuphead and within 26 minutes she would finish the tutorial level. Even my wife, who doesn't game and who has put in some FANTASTICALLY embarrassing attempts at certain titles would probably finish the fucking TUTORIAL of Cuphead in 26 minutes.
You couple this with all the problems that games journalism has had over the years and now we're at a point where people have a problem trusting these websites. One stupid prick writing for some stupid website Game Revolution said "If one plumber fucks up your taps, do you never hire another plumber?" Which is a fair point in a way but he's missing the bigger picture and generally being an apologetic little bitch. If a plumber fucked up my taps, I'd hire a different plumber FROM A DIFFERENT COMPANY. So we now know that Venture Beat can't be trusted to pick up a control pad without probably choking on it, where am I going to go? Gamespot? IGN? Kotaku? Well these websites are also full of complete bullshit. People are mad because, if we're using the plumber analogy, that ALL the plumbing companies in the towns are staffed ENTIRELY by inept wankers.
You want game news? You want game reviews? There are plenty of enthusiastic individuals on sites like YouTube/Twitch or various blogs and personal websites that you can get your info from? This is ESPECIALLY important if you are into a niche series or niche genre. If you're into dungeon crawling who are you going to trust? Some cunt on IGN who played Grimrock once for 20 minutes and gave it an 8/10 or someone who has been playing games in that genre for fucking YEARS.
Sort your shit games journalism. Maybe if you hired some actual passionate people who aren't borderline brain dead, people wouldn't hate you. Stick to writing about "social issues" for easy clicks and leave the games, to the gamers.
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