The Skill of Games Journalists

 

Games writing the last handful of years has got a bad wrap over the last few years.  Whether it be the shoe-horning in of identity politics in reviews, giving perfect reviews to good or average games, giving bad scores to niche titles they don't understand or weird "gamer bad" opinion pieces, a lot of people on the internet have a certain disdain for gaming news sites and their writers.  One thing that often comes in to question is "Do games journalists actually need to be good at games in order to review them?"

Well to put it simply, yes they do you flipping twit, how on Earth is that even a question?!  But let's go into it a bit more shall we?

The first question that you have to ask yourself is, what even is the purpose of a game review?  What game reviews are SUPPOSED to do is help you make an informed decision as a consumer on whether or not you think a game will be worth buying.  Obviously these can't be written without a little bit of the writers own opinion on the title being peppered in but, as a customer, you would hope that the person writing the review would know what they are talking about.

Well that's where the problem lies with game reviews on these major sites such as IGN and Kotaku.  The writers for these sites aren't just clueless about most of the games they play, they seem to be clueless about the entire medium in general.  The biggest example of that that sits at the forefront of peoples memories was the review of Cuphead.  The person who put that review together struggled SIGNIFICANTLY with the tutorial stage of the game.  Specifically on one of the first jump where the player is expected to perform a jump followed by a dash to reach a high up platform.  Cuphead is considered to be a fairly challenging game but this is something that a 4 year old perform in seconds and yet it ellued this guy for quite a while.  Another example would be The Independant slamming Astral Chain on Switch for "not giving grades after combat encounters".  The only problem is that the game DOES do that, but foregoes the feature if you're playing the game on the casual setting.  Not that there's anything inherently wrong with playing the game on casual but avid fans of that kind of game will want to know how the higher difficulty levels stack up and they will not be able to get that information from a review.

These writers are not fit for purpose.  I'm not saying that every games writer needs to be a top 5 speedrunner of a game in order to write a review on it but to be able to get a good idea of how the game is really like you need to AT LEAST be able to clear it on Normal.  Playing a game on easy may give the writer an idea of basic stuff like the control scheme or maybe they can put down some thoughts on the story, but because they often miss the real meat and potatoes of a games content it is IM-POSSIBLE for them to write a review that will successfully help a person make an informed purchase.

Let's imagine if we weren't talking about game reviews and instead we were talking about cars.  Let's imagine you aren't much of a gear-head and you have zero idea what kind of car you want to fit your needs.  To maybe educate yourself on the topic a little bit before heading to the dealership maybe you'll go online and check out some reviews of car models that you might think fits your needs.  You find a car review and it says stuff like "the car handles terribly and all the extra features make it confusing to operate".  Only here's the kicker, the guy writing the review can't drive, like at all, and doesn't know a steering wheel from a gear stick.  In fact, the guy writing the review for this car sucks SO BAD at driving, that when he took it for a test spin in order to write his piece, he crashed into a food bank for starving children and everyone in the village went hungry that day.  The confusing features he talked about? He was referring to thinks like the indicator and gear box.  If you found that out about the guy who wrote the piece, you'd be pissed off.  You NEED a good quality of information to make an informed decision on a purchase that big but instead you got a guy who can't drive and a 800 word article about how the back seats are sexist and the colour of the tyres are racist.  

Well that's the kind of enthusiast press we have have with gaming.  Not passionate users who care about making sure you spend your hard earned money on the best games for you but shitters who don't know a face button from a d-pad telling you the bare minimum in the shortest possible time frame in order to farm you for traffic clicks to their shitty websites.

So here's my proposition for how a review SHOULD be conducted

1) Make sure the person doing the review is at least somewhat versed in the genre of the game they are reviewing.  If you have a guy that loves JRPGs but hates fighting games, then for the love of God don't have him review Guilty Gear Strive, his opinion on that particular topic isn't worth shit

2) At least TWO playthroughs of the game in question, preferably the second being on an elevated difficulty or a New Game +.  If you really want to inform people about the easy mode have another writer whos less well versed in whatever genre give it a go for a little bit and just include it as some quick extra thoughts at the end

3) No rushing.  Stop trying to get reviews out either for or just before release day.  Some people "wait for the reviews" before buying, so how about making sure their wait is actually worth it?  If they really care about the game they'll buy it anyway and if they are on the fence an extra few days to make sure they get the information they need wont bloody kill them.

4) Keep your opinion as far away as possible.  Not 100% possible I know but if you think giant anime titties in whatever RPG you're reviewing are "sexist" then save that for a different article.  In the main review you can just include it as something like "a stylised look that might not sit right with everyone", for example. That's really what I mean by this

and I think that's all I'm really asking for.  Modertely skilled players giving me a basic rundown of what a game is like so that I can get a vague idea of if I want to drop 6-8000 yen on it.  It REALLY isn't  that hard, if YouTube boi with 500 subs and a mic from 10 years ago can do it then a salaried "professional" games writer can do it too

Translation Troubles

I generally try to avoid topics like this that involve identity politics but given that the guy on the bad end of this story is a dude who translated a number of Megami Tensei games, I at least want to throw my two cents into the sea of lava rage that is this situation.

First, and I kind of can't believe I have to clarify this kind of thing, don't call people nasty slurs.  Even  if you don't like the person you're talking to, there's a million different ways to insult them without resorting to this crass, needlessly upsetting bullshit.  Get creative, get classy, there's no need to use this hyper offensive language because chances are it'll just cause the user more trouble than it's worth.

So the story is a guy who's name I'm reluctant to use since he's already had enough crap thrown at him, released a fan translation of Ganbare Goemon 3 for the Super Nintendo.  In that game a character in the original Japanese text refers to themselves as "new half", which this guy directly translated as "tranny"

Oof, to say the least.

This of course triggers Twitter to go up in arms about the whole thing and start throwing all sorts of anger and abuse his way, which then leads to him basically purging his entire Twitter account and leaving nothing behind but an apology for what happened.  Depending on where you stand on his apology, he says that he wasn't fully aware just how offensive that word was and he didn't mean to upset people (to paraphrase)

To some extent I understand where the mob is coming from, I get that if someone is using an extremely popular platform to spread genuine hate against people of any walk of life, it's probably better that it be shut down, people don't deserve to feel shitty about themselves just because some idiot has ignorant, backwards views about what is and isn't ok.  But the translator in question never came across that way, he's not some "alt-right neo Nazi" using Goemon 3 to try and normalize nasty slurs into the common lexicon, he's just a dude who made a bad word choice when working on a passion project.

I'd be willing to bet money that if it was pointed out to him, without the vitriol, his reaction would have been "oh really? so sorry! I'll change that!" but instead we now have a passionate translator out of the space and a nasty taste in everyone's mouth.  

Sekiro doesn't need an easy mode, you daft sod

I was hoping this would die down, but it's been about a week and its still cropping up on my Twitter feed so its time for my hot take on the Sekiro easy mode debate.

If you don't know what's going on then thank your lucky stars but allow me to fill you in.  Sekiro was released not too long ago, a game that's basically a Souls title but set in feudal Japan.  Instead of fighting demons like in Souls or Lovecraftian horrors like in Bloodborne, you fight ninjas and shit.  My experience with the game at time of writing is extremely limited but it's fun as all hell and extremely challenging.

I can pinpoint this controversy starting when some daft cunt called David Thier on Forbes wrote an article titled "Sekiro: Shadows Dies Twice Needs to respect its players and add an easy mode".  Now lets ignore the fact that this guy is so stupid he cant even get the title right but this article sparked a bit of a thing on Twitter where a bunch of people who suck at games agreed wit him, and anyone with motor functions above that of a 4 month old baby thought that those people should fuck off.

I will take the top 3 arguments that I saw that these idiots on Twitter were making and tell you why your opinion should be thrown in the bin and you should never be listened to again.

1. The game should be accessible to everyone.  It's too hard and drives people away

The short answer to this one is that the game just isn't for you. From Software made the game THEY wanted to make and THEY made an extremely challenging game that requires you to get to know it pretty well in order to win.  This isn't about From respecting you, it's about you respecting that a group of artists wanted to make a game that's hard as shit and that's what they did.  You crying about it is directly disrespecting the vision of these people who brought a game to the market with a very specific audience in mind.

Now I'm not saying don't play it, you just have to "git gud" (more on that later).  If gitting gud at Sekiro is too much for you, go play Breath of the Wild, go play Skyrim, go play The Witcher or any of the other hundreds of games that are more than happy to hand hold, quest marker, auto save every 30 seconds your way to victory for you.  There's nothing wrong with those games, I like those games, but sometimes I want to beat my face off a brick wall and for that reason I'm glad that Sekiro and SoulsBorne and as unrelenting as they are.

If From Software WANTED to put in an easy mode, then fine, no complaints from me.  But saying that From are "disrespecting their players" because you can't figure out how to parry correctly and learn a boss pattern are too just makes you look like an entitled little prick.  Their game, their rules, step up or step off.

2. The "git gud" mentality is "gate keeping" and turns people off the game

This point always makes me chuckle for two reasons.  The first being that this is the internet where people will call each other the most horrible, racist, bigoted shitty things at the drop of a hat for almost NOTHING.  People who play souls tell you get good at the game your playing instead of whining about it and THAT'S "gatekeeping"?  Are you insane?

The second funny thing is that if you go into a Souls community with actual questions for advice, tips, how you should set up a character and things like that, they are more than happy to help.  If you go in there with a positive, can do attitude, I GUARANTEE you that 9 times out of 10 you'll get some genuine help.  You are right in saying "git gud" is an insult but its not aimed at the lesser skilled looking to get better.  It's aimed at people like Thier and everyone who agreed with him, who got killed by the first few enemies and threw a strop screaming "this game needs to be made easier for ME!" on social media.

3. Making Sekiro hard is ableist

BAM! THERE IT IS!  It's 2019 so everything has to be some kind of -ist or -phobic, right?

This point is interesting because I do sort of agree that it would be nice if games COULD be a bit more accessible to people with limited functions so that more people could enjoy these games.  It's a big world of super fun media and it would be a shame to miss out on it because you were in an unfortunate accident or you were born with some kind of defect that leaves you unable to play.

But the game that you decided to pick on for this point was a Souls game.......are you really that fucking stupid?

Souls games ARE hard as hell, everyone knows that, but because of that people have done incredible things with it, they, got gud so to speak.
You think Souls is discriminating against you because you have no use of your arms? Well it's been provably done with feet only

and not just that guy.

People have beaten these games in all manners of ways with all manners of objects from Guitar Hero pads to Frying pans.  You might have a point if you went against literally ANY OTHER GAME with this point, but you chose a Souls game, you are just ASKING to be clowned on.

Sekiro doesn't need an easy mode, end of story.  Complaining that Sekiro needs an easy mode is like me complaining that a romantic comedy movie doesn't have enough horror elements.  Those movies aren't FOR me, there are plenty of other movies to watch.  Just the same, Sekiro might not be for you, there are plenty of other games you could play instead.  If you want to take the time to build your skills and achieve victory, the community will welcome you with open arms, but just don't cry when your caustic whinging makes people tell you to fuck off instead

Diablo Immortal: Just let it die quietly

So recently Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal and fans are PISSED.  In case you saw that banner and got excited because you didn't catch the story yet, don't get your hopes up too high because it's only a mobile game.  Here's a trailer

If you view it on YouTube instead of in the blog, HOO BOY that dislike bar.

Now I get it, oh boy do I understand your rage.  A series with such a long and respected pedigree being reduced to yet another cash grab, probably gatcha in some way, premium currency pay to win mobile dogshit.  The fact that it's not just some little extra thing that Blizzard developed on the side but a thing that was shoved in your face at fucking Blizzcon like it's something you should be excited for.  The condescending attitude when an audience member asked "will we get it on PC?" and the guy, when booed for saying no, replied with "What, don't you all have phones?!".  You have every right to be boiling mad but just stop and think for a second.

There are tons of generic shitty hack and slash games on mobile already.  I hate to admit it but I sunk quite a lot of time into a hack and slash RPG on mobile called HIT for a pretty significant amount of time about a year ago.  All that time ended up being wasted though since it's just another deleted free game on my app store account now.  At the very least, we know that Diablo Immortal will have a degree of polish to it, so if you're going to play a shitty mobile hack and slash game at least a Diablo flavored one might be worth keeping on your phone for the occasional fiddle with on a bus or while you're dropping a fat shit.

Plus it's not like Blizzard are dropping everything to focus on this one mobile game.  Diablo 3 just got a Switch release so if Immortal really disgusts you that much but you want portable Diablo anyway, just go play that.  You don't see Final Fantasy fans losing their shit over Record Keeper or Brave Exvius, you can at least be happy that Blizzard are still giving D3 the love it needs to keep going for another console generation at the very least.  If you hate the look of it that much, it really is as easy just not downloading it from the app store.

Booing, disliking videos on raging online won't really do anything.  If no one downloads it though, if that game is dead from day 1, THEN Blizzard will know they cocked up.  I get that your mad but calm down and let it die quietly instead of giving it publicity so that all the know-nothings and curious children with a tablet don't end up keeping the game alive for years to come.

I personally will never play it because it'll never stack up to Dragalia Lost.

Spider Man, Puddles and Controversey

The new Spider Man game dropped recently and while I've not played it yet it does at least look pretty good.  I'm not one for comic book heroes personally but it does look like a generally pretty fun action game.  Something I'll absolutely grab once the price drops a bit. However I'm not here to talk about the game itself, but about some recent controversy that surrounds it regarding puddles.

The story goes that there's a room in the game that was shown during a trailer at E3 looking a certain way but when the game came out the room looked a bit different.  Now I'm not going to say flat out that the release version looks like shit but it does look worse.  It's hard to make a game look like shit in 2018 but there clearly is more polish on the trailer version than there is in the version players paid money for.

So this prompts a bunch of people on twitter to start asking questions to the developer, Insomniac, about what the hell happened.  Insomniac responded by shrugging their shoulders saying "we didn't do anything" which upset a number of people and then glorious internet drama happened.  Of course, when there's drama news websites flock to it to write about it (kind of like I'm doing lol) and put in their two cents.  To my surprise and horror (not really) there's a great deal of outlets calling the issue stupid and using the whole thing to take a jab at anyone who has THE NERVE to criticize the game.  For example one idiot on Forbes writes his article like gamers are nothing but a pack of hungry wolves just waiting to rip any game dev apart if they do meet their high standards.

It seems like that idiot along with every other idiot who wrote articles like that are missing the point entirely as to why people are upset.  Let's make one thing very clear straight away, the puddle isn't the reason why people are upset, it's the fact that we were lied to by promotional material, AGAIN.  If all the trailers for Spider Man were cutscenes no one would say shit but that was GAMEPLAY so I don't think it's so unreasonable to ask that the gameplay looks the same as your damn trailer.  It's also not the first time it's happened either, just off the top of my head Dark Souls 2 and Silent Hill Downpour are guilty of the same thing and it was JUST as bullshit with those games as it is with this one.  Imagine that you went to a restaurant and there was a picture of a juicy, medium rare, perfectly seasoned absolutely delicious looking steak on a menu, so you order it.  When it arrives at your table though it's well done and just not quite as appealing as it was in the picture.  So you eat it anyway because you love steak and yeah, it's still good, but it's not what you paid money for.  Do you see where I'm coming from here?

The worst part about this whole thing is that if you look up the game on metacritic, despite the controversy it still has an 87 rating.  People are still enjoying the game despite their gripe with the graphics so all these outlets are shitting on gamers for what? Being upset about promotional material lying to us about what the game looks like?  It's understandable that things change over the course of development but don't wave the game in our faces going "LOOK AT HOW GREAT THIS LOOKS" and then make it not look like that.  For some, they are paying money BECAUSE they said it looked that good. 

Sure, it doesn't ruin the game and sure, it's not really THAT much of a big deal.  For me though, seeing the response of the gaming press further cements the idea that gaming media is nothing but a massive collection of gaming shitrags not worth giving the time of day to.

The Journalist Skill Debate Again

Cuphead is an upcoming run and gun game coming out soon that I'm fucking excited for.  It looks like a cartoon from yesteryear and mixes that with challenging game play similar to things like Contra.  It looks awesome and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

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.

Yoko Taro: The Hero

Nier 2 is on the horizon and I'm hyped as all hell.  If you don't know what Nier is then I don't blame you because it was a little niche but it's easily one of the best games on the PS3/360 and while it wasn't so hot in the game play department, the story was awesome and the soundtrack was out of this world.  If you can get your hands on a copy of the first Nier game before Automata comes out then you totally should give it a go.

Right now he is working as the director for Nier Automata and this guy is a fucking nut.  He always comes out in a big mask shaped like one of his characters and all of his videos are a bit mental.  I watched an announcement this morning about how if you pre order Nier Automata you get a T-Shirt and it ended with him rolling around on the floor rubbing the T-Shirt over his body.  He's fucking great.

Apparently there was a bit of controversy with the upcoming game though because some people don't appreciate the main characters ass being on display.

Outfit is hot as fuck by the way.  A photoshopped image of the character appeared which showed the character climbing a ladder or something and you can see what looks like a butthole.  Of course, certain groups on sites like twitter got all upset and stuff except the image in question which you can find with a simple google search isn't actually from the game itself.  There's a company that makes porn games called Illusion and a lot of their games have really in depth character creation tools so someone made a model of the character and then used it to take the screenshot so at the end of the day these people are just getting upset over nothing.

But the absolute best thing to this whole situation is Yoko Taro's response

The general gist of the tweet is that because of the controversy a lot of rude pictures have been made of the main character but collecting them is a pain in the ass so he wants someone to send them to him in a ZIP file every week.

WHAT. A FUCKING. LAD.

There have been tons of examples of games being changed or censored in some way, especially during localization, because there are lots of crybabies on the internet nowadays who will get all up in arms if you dare to have an ass showing or a character in a bikini or some shit so it's nice to see a developer who embraces this side of things.  No artist should ever have to change their shit just because some prick on twitter or tumblr is "offended", these people should be told to fuck off and their stupid whining ignored.  According to his wiki page as well he likes to be blunt with his opinions and feels that fans deserve truth and honesty.

So let's take a moment to appreciate Yoko Taro, truly a hero that we all need right now.

Children and Video Games

Let's talk about the relationship between video games and children shall we?  This is a topic that tends to fill me full of large amounts of rage because every so often an article is brought to my attention about how games are terrible and are "corrupting the youth" and all that shit.  More often than not these articles have two main points which are either games and too violent for kids OR that kids are playing games too much and they have some kind of addiction.  Well let's address those two points.

1) Violence

There is a large portion of gaming which you could quite easily consider violent and there's probably a portion of those violent games that you wouldn't want a child to see.  Take the above picture for example which is a scene from Dead Space 2 where failure results in the hero taking a large metal tube through the face via his eye socket, that's something that maybe you wouldn't want a young child to see.

However, not all violence in video games in made equal.  Take something like Street Fighter for example, it's violent sure but not overly so to the point where a younger audience should be banned from viewing or playing it.  You can't just make a blanket statement that all games are too violent for kids and just ban them from everything, it depends on the game and it also depends very much on the child.  When I was a young lad I was playing Doom on the Sega Saturn, a game FAMOUS for it's high violence levels but now I'm 26 and I've still never shoved a chainsaw through a persons abdomen.

The problem is that people look at a game with it's guns or fighting or whatever and without knowing anything about the games actual content start ragging on it as "unsafe" for a younger audience.  Let's take something like Left4Dead, you can look at that and go "oh well it's full of guns, zombies and death there's no way that it's an appropriate game for kids".  Well I'd argue that Left4Dead is all about team work, resource management and group planning which are skills that would be quite beneficial to pick up at a young age, no?

All games nowadays also have age ratings and guidelines to tell you what sort of audience it's appropriate for and even a vague overview of what some of the themes might be in that title.

 With these clearly labelled on the box you have no fucking excuse.  This is a decent guideline for a parent to get a good idea of what they are buying for their children.  So if they know and trust their child can handle certain themes then maybe they could turn a blind eye to the age guideline and buy a certain title.  However if your child is begging for something like GTA, you ignore the guidelines and then get all shocked when there's guns, sex and gambling in it then you have only yourself to blame.

That's ultimately what it comes down to, the parenting.  If you're raising your kids right, guiding them through every aspect of their lives and helping them grow then there won't be much of a problem even if they do end up seeing or experiencing something a little over their head.  However if you're the kind of shit parent who buys your kid Mortal Kombat and then let them plop in front of it as a distraction so that you can take 5 then don't go acting all surprised when little Jimmy gets set home from school for trying to gouge a kids eyes out with his thumbs.  That's not MKs fault, that's YOUR fault for not helping your kid understand the basics of fantasy and reality, it's not like the box or download page didn't warn you.

2) Addiction

Video game addiction is another stupid topic written by people who usually have no fucking clue but let's just address video game addiction in kids.  It kind of goes hand in hand with what I said in the last paragraph where it all ultimately comes down to the parenting.

Kids are sort of stupid but it's stupid due to a lack of life experience rather than just being uneducated.  You put a kid in front of a video game and they start playing it and having a good time then OF COURSE they are going to want to do just that for the rest of time.  I work with kids and I've been in situations where I'll be playing a classroom game which involves nothing more than a ball and a box and sometimes the younger kids would be more than happy just to play that one thing all fucking day so imagine how intense playing something like a video game must be.  You tell a kid that they have to do their homework or something and of course they are going to be upset when the alternative to crushing boredom is video game fun.

That's why the parents role here is very important.  When I was a child I didn't have any sort of time limits placed on me like the whole "2 hours a day" which is what I've seen some websites argue.  For my parents it was all about helping me understand priorities.  Sure, I didn't WANT to do my homework but if I didn't do it then I'd get in trouble which may lead to detention which may lead to a greater deficit of gaming time so I knew that if I wanted to enjoy myself then I had to get the important shit done first.  "Business before pleasure" is what my mother always used to say and if your kid isn't getting their priorities straight then that's on you as a parent for not teaching that to them.

But you could argue that even if they do get all their important shit done and the ONLY thing they are doing is video games then that's just as bad.  Well once again that's also a parenting issue because like I said before, kids are dumb, they don't know where to go looking for things that pique their interest, they are completely reliant on you as a parent for that.  Sure, video games were my main thing growing up and even now but my parents were constantly poking me with suggestions for other things to do.  All sorts of suggestions, most of which didn't take till later and some didn't take at all but the point is they were TRYING.  While you as a parent shouldn't rely on games for this it can happen where the content of a game may inspire some kind of other interest.  For example the initial reason for me wanting to learn Japanese was because my dad bought me a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga and I was exposed to this other language that I thought was cool and now I can speak Japanese, live in Japan and have a nice job.  Like I said before, you can't just slam them in front of the TV and expect that stupid box to do all the work.

---

The bottom line is that it comes down to parenting.  If you're a good parent who can teach your kid to live like a normal human being then they will turn out OK.  Even if they aren't massively successful in later life, but at least as people they will be OK which means they probably won't be completely fucked even if they do grow up to be lazy or whatever.

Any parent who blames ANY medium be it games, movies, books or TV for some kind of adverse effect on their kid is essentially admitting they have failed as parents.  If your kid is violent it's YOUR fault for not properly teaching them how to respect other people.  If your kid is "addicted" to gaming then it's YOUR fault for not teaching them how to have a sense of self control and understand moderation and trying to scapegoat just shows how irresponsible and how unready you were to have that child.  Don't rag on my hobby because YOU suck at life.

Your Controversy Is Bullshit

Just who the fuck is this sexy sideways beast?  Well his name is Mark Ankucic and he has quite the story to tell.

Basically, he's an Aussie games writer that got fired from his gig for showing some kind of support for GamerGate, a can of worms I'm not about to get into.  Anyway, after being dropped from his job he set up a pen name known as Sandy Beaches and starting contacting a number of publications to try and get his pieces published.  What kind of pieces was he trying to get published? Well stuff regarding sexism in games and gaming feminism and his shit was ate up by a site called The Mary Sue. 

Despite much frustration with his pieces due to being misinformed and over exaggerated it turns out that everything he wrote for The Mary Sue was complete and utter bullshit.  Sandy Beaches was his little experiment to see how much bullshit he could get away with as long as he was posting as a feminist gamer and the results are pretty staggering.  You can read his story in much more detail here

https://medium.com/listen-to-my-story/what-i-learned-as-feminist-critic-sandy-beaches-f1ee45a7e0aa#.rro5h1f5l

One of my favorite lines from his article is this

"And that’s where the rub is. You write a hundred headlines claiming something, and people who don’t know anything about the actual topic will believe it."

That right that there has been the problem with any gaming controversy.  It doesn't matter if it's sexism in games, violence in games or table top being satanic, it all stems from the fact that the people writing and commenting on these things don't know JACK SHIT about the topic they are writing about.  They just read what other people have written and then parrot those misinformed opinions without doing any actual research of their own.

But what about these people writing the first few headlines?  The ones that all the idiots go ahead an believe without doing any research of their own?  Well it's one of two things.  One is that they are actually fucking stupid enough to believe their own shit or the second is money.  Writing click-bait controversy because they KNOW that there are enough uninformed idiots in gaming that will eat that shit up and happily jump on a bandwagon.  All those clicks will generate plenty of dosh and give the writer a nice fat paycheck .

Let's say you're writing a review for a game, this goes double true if you're writing a review of some obscure JRPG or something.  You COULD review it straight up but unless it's a big name game, chances are you aren't going to get all that many clicks due to a general lack of mainstream interest.  Throw in some controversy though and BAM! clicks for days as people flock to your review in order to find out just how "terrible" the game is.  Call it sexist or claim that it will one day fuel the next big school shooting and people will be retweeting, commenting and sharing out the asshole.  KA-CHING.

So next time you read an article about how X game is sexist or Y game is too violent, just stop and remember the story of Sandy Beaches.  Just think how much that shit is being spun to fit a current controversy for clicks.  If you do however just genuinely believe that shit, please go and educate yourself, the truth behind these gaming controversy's are never as terrible as certain publications make them out to be. 

Removing Hatred is Dumb

A while ago a did a post about the game Hatred, which can be found here.  If you don't want to read it, then it basically says that while I didn't like the look of it, it didn't deserve to be banned or changed just because you are "offended" by it.

So the story is that Hatred was on Steam Greenlight and it had a bunch of thumbs up before Valve came along and pulled the plug.  They said they didn't want that shit on their store and it will not be made available on Steam.  Since then people have been getting all uppity about it and I wanted to address 3 things.

1)  It's not Censorship

This is a word that has been flying around my twitter and other places regarding the topic of the game being pulled and I can't help but feel some people have forgotten what the word censorship means.  Censorship is the SUPPRESSION of speech, public communication or what have you by people in authority.

Steam and Valve are not some major authority figure in gaming that decide what does and does not get released, they are a business.  That business has decided that a game like Hatred is not something they want in their store and have decided not to make it available as a result.  They are well within their rights to do that.  Now, weather or not they are buckling to pressure from a vocal minority of Social Justice retards is another discussion entirely but Hatred isn't being censored.

Just because it's not available on Steam doesn't mean it won't be available somewhere else.  Nobody (that I have seen) at the time writing this article is attempting to stop the production and sale of Hatred, they just want people to ignore it.

Censorship is the outright banning of a game like Rule of Rose in Europe, this is just business people making decisions and whiny idiots on the internet.

2) Removing the game is actually a dumb move

I never gave a flying fuck about Hatred really.  I saw the trailer and saw how 2Edgy4Me it was and how shit  the game play looked and decided just just ignore it and not think about it.  If Steam had let it get released to their store, the interested parties would have bought it and then everyone else would have ignored it or not known about it.

But no, you couldn't leave it alone could you?  Now you've made a big deal about it and given the game a lot of publicity but on top of that you've made it all taboo too.  It's like if someone puts a big fat flashing red button in front of you that says "DO NOT TOUCH" and nothing else.  Of COURSE a little part of you is going to want to touch it and see what the fuck happens, that's just human goddamn nature.

Hell, even I'm now more interested in purchasing hatred because of this event.  In my head it's like "Jesus, if it's too bad for Steam, a platform with games like Postal and Hotline Miami I just gotta see it now".  Thanks to Steam pulling the game off Greenlight I'm now filled with this perverse sense of curiosity and providing that it doesn't cost too much I could totally see myself buying it now.

3)  Hatred is nothing new

Why are people so bothered?  I mentioned Postal in the above section and that is a similar kind of game that got a similar kind of reaction.  But look at Postal now, it's pretty obscure and your average gamer probably won't know anything about it.  It's got infamy, sure, but there is a HUGE group of people who just know it as "that violent game that stirred some shit back in the day" and nothing more.

Let's not forget that a lot of people like to kill lazy afternoons with games like GTA.  But these lazy afternoons are not usually spent doing missions, oh no, they are spent putting in a cheat for all the guns and then murdering every single person in sight.  Man, woman, police officer, faceless tosser behind a car wheel, it doesn't matter, they are going to die for your entertainment.  I've done it, you've probably done it and a lot of people that I know have done it.  Getting pleasure from watching little pixel people die on a TV does not make you a terrible person and if you believe the opposite then you are a fucking idiot.

But I know why people are offended, it's because people WANT to be offended.  They want an excuse to have a nice little rage and get on their high horse about how good a person they are and how shitty a person the creators of Hatred are.  Being offended at a game like Hatred makes people feel good because they don't have to worry about dissenting opinions.  If someone says "well I quite like the look of that", you have an excuse to call them a shitty person, act holier-than-thou and have a majority of people agree with you.  These people are fucking morons and if I could slap you through my internet connection, I would.

---

Hatred still looks shit but I guarantee there's a lot more people looking forward to seeing what the fuss is about now that you've hyped it up this much.  Just leave it alone, let it fall into obscurity and go find something that makes you happy.  It's not hard, for fucks sake.

---

EDIT 17/12/2014:  I've discovered that Hatred has been brought back to Steam Greenlight.  That's cool and all but people are still moaning about it.  They still don't realise that talking about it so much is what's getting people interested.  Just shut the fuck up already!