Do games journalists actually need to be good at games?

Do games journalists actually need to be good at games?

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They should be above average.

Yes.

No, skill is a sign of toxic masculinity

>Vinny is stuck with these dipshits
Make it stop

They need to be good at understanding what constructive fucking feedback is, rather than opinionating everything, and base their review and rating on performance, gameplay, how everything works, and so on, rather than how it all makes them fucking feel.

You can go back to old review magazines from the 90s / 00s and reviews for the most part are mostly strictly constructive and explain what to expect from a technical standpoint in comparison to what the player might be looking for, rather than what the reviewer feels about everything and how it hurts their feel feels.

I think so. Why the fuck else do they need to be there? It would be like me starting a youtube channel to review yoyos or insert some other random thing when I know nothing about it.

They can't competently review games if they can't play them. The only reason they are there is becuase they couldn't do dickall with their useless degree because they are shit at everything else journalism related as well.

do you want unskilled people to cook the food your order at the restaurant ???? then fucking no, unless you want a poorly made salty food that stinks

Absolutely.

I mean, logically they'd have to be good enough to beat the games that they review, right?
I don't think they have to do well, just actually know about the game mechanics and that sort of thing.

The only thing games journalists need to do at this point is stop existing.

Why would I take the opinion on cars from someone who can't drive?

Would you trust me to review cars if you saw me drive down the oncoming lane and go in a ditch?
Would you trust me to review food if you saw me pour spaghettios all over my face like and autistic child?

We live in the age of opinion. Nobody cares about facts so much as how everything makes them feel.

Look at the news. Most of it is tilted towards that stations political preferences, and everything is manipulated in their opinionated favor, rather than giving people actual factual fucking news.

Game journalists are not developers

Abby is good though

Post more people being bad at games

Not necessarily, but they need to know and play games, that assures a minimum of competence when playing games.

If you see Polygon Doom gameplay, or that stupid cuphead gameplay, you can tell they don't actually play games at all, so how are they going to review games if they don't know them like other people do?

Otherwise it doesn't matter that much, specially considering not everyone is good at games and they're writing review for those people.

This.
youtu.be/N1DMMPkEQoI

>this game runs at a solid 60fps even at high resolutions. It is a 3d platformer based on a few gimmick mechanics surrounding a water pack kept on your back
What else is there to say objectively? Its hard to even talk about controls without going into "feel" and thats inherently subjective.

The problem isn't that they aren't good, it's that they're fucking braindead. They literally can not do something simple like "jump over thing", they can barely follow directions that are in front of their own face.

Being good or great at games can be somewhat difficult, and not all "casual" people, especially someone who might be playing the game while trying to judge it firsthand, while asking/answering questions/thinking up questions, and maybe even writing notes down. It could be difficult, because you'd be balancing so many things.

These people should be ATLEAST able to play the game at it's absolute most basic state; as in, moving, following objectives, getting a feel for the controls, probably played on normal or easy just so they can keep moving on while still playing an still adequately doing their journalism. But they can't, they just can't fucking do it. Literally animals can do it better than these people. People who have been lobotomized could do it. Children less than 4yr old can do it. Etc.

How it's even possible to be so fucking bad is beyond me. I just question how they even live their regular life if they can't accomplish something like "press these 2 buttons" or "follow the directions that are directly in front of your face in plain english". These people need to seriously GET GOOD

youtube.com/watch?v=d3pQ0oO_cDE

help me Sup Forums this webm makes me irrationally angry. I know im autistic but this shouldnt be legal

the majority of cars are sold to people who will never go near a race track and prob have an average of ~3 speeding tickets in their entire life

I see what you're saying, but I think journalists/outlets should be clear on the type of games they review: Why would I have a soccer mom review a GTR or a Nascar Racer review a mercedes smart car?

oh really ???? who would have guessed that you senseless cuckfag ???? what a piece of useless comment you made there

Perhaps he's just nervous, this is not as bad as other examples in this thread.

No, you dont care if your apples are bad at being oranges.

It’s his first time playing sunshine
Calm down boyo

They don't need to be skilled; but they do need to be aware of their own deficiencies in comparison to people familiar with the genres they're covering. For instance, The Wonderful 101 isn't a casual title, but if you give it a day, you can quickly recognize the general kind of audience it's actually meant for in spite of its otherwise super kid-friendly aesthetic.

From there, you can measure whether the game is mechanically sound and if the level design and gameplay consistent in terms of what its trying to offer. That's enough to tell if a game is worth getting.

Not him but he meant the analogy doesn't work at all and you're retarded.

They just need to have convenient opinions.

>I just question how they even live their regular life if they can't accomplish something like "press these 2 buttons" or "follow the directions that are directly in front of your face in plain english". These people need to seriously GET GOOD
Well. I can tell you that people no longer know how to make their own coffee. There's always a guy to do that for ya.

Stop making shitty analogies you fucking retard. Game journalists don't make games like how food critics aren't chefs.

>Gameplay
REEEEEE STOP USING THAT WORD

No, but they need to have enough of a brain in their head to recognize the difference between it being their fault and it being the game's fault.

In the OP webm, if that guy had gone and written an article about Super Mario Sunshine and said that part of the game was designed poorly or was too hard or a failure, then he should rightly expect backlash because what he wrote wasn't true, it was his mediocre skill making it difficult for him.

I dont mind them when GB is bad because they are the first to admit they're shit at it rather than blame the game

What is this fresh new meme?

Is this guy mentally handicapped? Serious question.

i don't expect them to be top tier speedrunners, but they should understand the basics a fucking child could. though learning from mistakes isn't something those dipshits can do.

He's just an awful person who can't play video games.

The thing is, there are so much reviewers nowadays, than technical opinions don't matter much. Why listening to some guy telling you it's a hard or easy platformer when you can see him in action describing how frustrating or rewarding it is...

then lets substitute this with a fucking waiter hten boom, the waiter fell down on the floor with all your food, everything is gone because hes a fucking unskilled waiter and he couldnt deliver the food without making all of it fall from his hands then, are you satisfied now you cucker ????

It's a banned word.

Not necessarily good, but at least have a basic understanding of how to play.

You’re bad at analogies user

That just brings the issue that alot of publishers look at metacritic now instead.

Not necessarily. When writing about a subject it's good to see what both a casual audience thinks and what a hardcore audience thinks.

However that whole problematic gameplay shit is for tards

No they don't but they shouldn't consider their lack of skill when critiquing a game

Tbh I don't think it matters for games writers as long as they know the right questions to ask. Reviewers should absolutely be expected to be competent however.

Who is this idiot?

No. If they suck at videogames, they should state so and only do reporting.

If they want to review or have opinion on games, that's another story.

It says Bizzy Turdsworth right there

They don't NEED to be, but I'd ever become one, I'd try my best to actually play well.

fucking hell, just use the Fludd

What passes for game "journalism" these days is absolutely disgusting, there's one guy on Polygon who wrote an article on Rock Band 4, in which he tried to make himself seem "above" vidya as a whole.
archive.is/j7x2t
So yeah, fuck Colin Campbell, fuck Polygon for making this kind of "journalism" acceptable, and fuck every game "journalist" who can't be arsed to finish the fucking tutorial level

Well, people choices are heavily influenced by these kind of reviews, so it's not illogical to expect developers paying attention to that.

Most of the publicity from games actually comes from amateur reviewers and let's players. It's been like that for a while, only that before youtube, we had even more payed critics roaming at forums and websites like Gamefaqs, IGN, or Gamespot.

then fuck off and die

No, unacceptable. This would only be tolerable if he's never played a 3d game before. Saying "his first time playing Sunshine" in this situation is like saying "he's never driven a Toyota Camry" when he clearly's never fucking even been in a car.

The same guy who thinks having a button to skip boss fights should be an industry standard.
archive.is/CiwuS

>2017
>First time playing Sunshine
This is a crime in and of itself.

To be fair Mario Sunshine is one of the worse core Mario game.

calm your tits, sir, it's just a game

Post Dan clearing the sand bird.

So, what are his arguments? I literally see no reason why it could be bad.

Why there's always people who just say "this is bad" and don't say why? It makes their opinions worthless.

Post the watermelon festival speed run Abby did

Thanks.

It depends for who they write. There is nothing wrong if a hosewife journalist writes about some smartphone game for a hosewife magazine. But it would be strange if someone who actualy knows some shit in vidya actually reads that article.

Better question. Why do you read articles that are written by people who cannot vidya and know next to nothing of it?

>What is Peugot

I have a feeling he'd just block you if you asked that, and/or reply with UGH, JUST NO, CAN YOU LIKE, NOT?

His reasoning is that, despite writing being his job, he doesn't seem to understand that words are context sensitive.

Isn’t Vinny a video editor? I don’t think he has ever written a review or news article

They should at least be competent. They're getting fucking paid for this shit and have allegedly been holding controllers for one or two decades going on, they shouldn't EVER be stuck on a tutorial of a game that has gone gold.

This is retarded. A game can look amazing, it could have tight controls, it could run well, it could be long, and with all of that it could still be a completely garbage game.

You can't just review a game from a technical perspective, what one person values is not the same as another person. A game like Sunshine is a very polarizing game, you can hate FLUDD or you can love it and that makes or breaks the entire game. Even though the game runs well and has tight controls, it is still polarizing based off of subjective merits.

>first time playing sunshine
>2017

Why is he even on the show?

Giving an opinion is OK when you actually know what you're talking about.

I don't want Dean Takahashi's opinion on cuphead's controls because he's clearly dogshit at all videogames. I would respect Critikal's opinion on cuphead's controls because I know he has played more than 10 minutes of vidya.

has this guy ever seen a dictionary?

How do you get stuck in the beginning of Bayo1 guys like this why pointfinder are in every game and bashing on Flying to the moon just shows how big of a faggot he is

No, fuck you, fuck the people that tolerate you, and fuck the dumbass in the OP particularly.

That's what would be expected of them considering how much games they have to play and how much of their lives revolve around videogames. And the supposed interest in videogames one would expect from getting into such a profession.

That said. I really don't think being above average is a real requirement for a video game reviewer. In fact a reviewer plainly being average probably serves a purpose when it comes to communicating with and selling games to average people. In other words the masses.
That said. It's pretty damn alarming when they're of below average skill. Pretty hard to fathom even.

Yes they do. It shows that they have experience in the medium they're reviewing and allows them to accurately juxtapose different strengths and weaknesses with different pieces of the medium. If you cant make a simple jump in a platformer then why the fuck should I think you're able to accurately gauge difficulty? If you cant make it past a tutorial, why the hell should I believe you when you say controls are complex/obtuse? If the only games you play are "cinematic" games with tons of simple mechanics, why would I think you know about actual gameplay?

ya and he plays like a girl who's never played a video game in their life

They should have actual knowledge on the subject at hand, which comes from EXPERIENCE.

I don't understand. Why is gameplay a bad word? Is because games that lack any real gameplay get shitted on as games and this bothers the developers of those games?

That article made me sick.

being good at mario sunshine doesn't make it a good game

To think, people get paid for this useless drivel. His article partially says nothing of the game, and ultimately, he took 5 minutes of my life to come and tell me "eh, don't care. Ask someone else I guess" and he got paid for it.

i don't think any of the people at giant bomb consider themselves "journalists" or at least i would hope they understand they are essentially let's players that made a business from their work

and who gives a fuck if someone is shitty at mario sunshine in 2017 even if they are a journalist, the jury is long out on that game

They don't need to be good, but they should at least be competent enough to grasp basic controls of the games they play. Like, it's getting to the point that Pewdiepie actually seems good compared to these guys.

That's part of it. Its also because journos don't actually like or play games. So they don't have the vocabulary to describe gameplay. So they resort to cliche bullshit ("This is the dark souls of X") or identity politics. Because they have nothing else to talk about.

I always figured gameplay = the way the game plays i.e the game mechanics. Example: the gameplay of the Ratchet and Clank games primarily involves 3D platforming and 3rd person shooting.

For the the times he just walked off the platform without jumping, that was apparently because of a ton of input lag because they're running it through a bunch of equipment and are using a wavebird.
But yeah, they're awful.

Think how fucked up the world would be if everyone put this much effort and passion in their own job.

Don't you get access to the hover nozzle at that point in the game?

>>You can go back to old review magazines from the 90s / 00s and reviews for the most part are mostly strictly constructive and explain what to expect from a technical standpoint in comparison to what the player might be looking for
This is an absolute lie, take your nostalgia goggles off. Game reviewers that are either major shills or just plain bad at video games have always been prominent even since the days of Nintendo Power and Game Informer. Many broken games would get good reviews just because they had tits, spaceships, or "a message," while many decent games would get poor reviewers due to having a little too much violence or not enough safety nets for the reviewers' tastes.

they don't need to be esport good, but it sould be mandatory to be able to finish any game in normal difficulty, like any 14 year old kid that plays 4 hours a day after school.
You can't compare them to sport journalist, gaming is a past time for kids.

I understand what he means in that it can mean a lot of things like

>How the game feels to play
>How the game is paced
>How the game's typical objectives play out
>How progression works
>How are the physics
>What happens when you take damage?
>What happens when you die?
>Can you die?
>etc.

It's not such a nebulous concept. Just very broad. Gameplay IS essentially the game.

>tfw the average person puts that much effort and passion into their job and that's why our world is fucked

>Some are adamant it means "playing the game"
It does mean that though.
>while others spit that it's specifically the actions of the player interacting
This is also true though. Because this interactivity is actually how you play the game.
These aren't mutually exclusive at all. This guy isn't particularly bright, is he?

>yet others rage it's a term to describe game footage
Only in the superficial sense. You'd see a game running and you'd expect it's from someone playing a game. But if they aren't actually interacting with the game then they technically aren't playing it.
It's kind of the equivalent of turning on a music player without actually listening to the music.

>while more claim it's a term for the games mechanics...
Yes. Because as mentioned above. That's how you interact with the game. That's the gameplay. How is this complicated?

You literally get it in the very very beginning of the game

>Do games journalists actually need to be good at games?

Real talk? Naw they honestly do not have to be good and can be as super shit as possible at vidya.
That is not to say that it does not help or whatever to be good or competent at vidya.

Now do yall mean vidya journalism alone or are yall nerds also including vidya critique that is often goes along side of it. If its impromptu shit like it seems in OPs image then naw shit should not matter since nerds there are "working" and not really getting into shit or having fun with it. But if its just shit reporting on shit that it does not matter since as long as people are actually MEDIA LITERATE then they can sparse through the facts and ignore the commentary. Since even if its a site or whatever opinions. There are still facts and i am able to think for myself so ill go get those and ignore the shit that aint fact to make up my mind about shit.
Editorials are just editorials so them being purely opinion pieces even if i shit said in it is dumb or whatever it is just clearly and opinion piece so whatever.

Now when it comes to vidya crique shit is a tad trick since what should matter more is what the critic is critical of and if that matches close enough to what one is also critical of. So even if the critic is positive or negative about something one feels the opposite of. They will point it out. Which is good for the person consuming that shit since with the facts as to how and what is in it one can make a decision as to purchase shit or not.


So shit is actually super nuanced and the free market and capitalism is a fucking thing so naw not really. It is fine to dislike and not tolerate people yall may think are shit. But all that tends to usually mean then it is up one not be a lazy fuck and dig past he mainstream and support outlets that you actually enjoy and give you facts and the type of facts that you most want well enough.