Jimquisition: Joy Begets Anger

[Karadalis]

So what happens when I apply the message this video sends to say Anita Sarkeesian who has build an entire video series on hating things other people love because she doesn't agree with them.

That's not what her video series is about.

Yeah... "hate" is the wrong word here.

She barely shows any emotions kept for what i think is "smugness"... if you can call that an emotion.

But hate? No.. absolutely not. After all she needs all these old nintendo games or else she would be out of a job and back to making feminist frequency videos that barely anyone watches.

 

[Baresark]

I can safely see that I saw this in spades over the weekend on PC Gamer. They gave their aggregate game of the year award to Spelunky. The shit really hit the fan on that one. People were so mad it defied reason. I think Spelunky was a great game on the PC. They gave a lot of reasons why they all loved it. None of them had that as their actual game of the year, but they explained how they landed on that as an aggregate choice. It was crazy, so much acid spitting it was crazy. All because they all thoroughly enjoyed it. The comments were people getting pissed because they didn't select a Triple A title. People pissed because they didn't choose a game that would tax their over priced boxes. And people getting mad because it was a remake of a game from 2008. I was a bit ashamed to be part of that site. Then there was the obligatory comments about how PC Gamer is out of touch and everyone needs to move en mass to sites like Kotaku and RPS. It was ridiculous. Good to know that most gamers are children or adults that cannot act like adults.

Edit: I misspoke. Not most gamers. Vocal gamers. My bad. I'm leaving that up so everyone can see my mistake.

 

[chikusho]

Yes and no.

If you like a game thats cool... but if you go on the ineternet and declare it the perfect game because you personaly enjoyed it and ignored all the very obvious flaws AND get paid for said review... theres a certain amount of professionalism expected.

There are people who really really really like X: Rebirth

Wouldnt you call them out on their BS if they made a review on a website like the escapist and gave it a 10/10 claiming its the perfect game?

After all they did really seem to enjoy it despite all its grating flaws so they must be right.

Or do you call them out on their obvious unprofessional bias?

"Perfect" does not equal "not flawed".
If, in the reviewers opinion, X: Rebirth is living up to and/or exceeding everything it sets out to do it might very well be perfect.

 

[Mr C]

Loved DmC. Really solid game.

I get that some people didn't get what they wanted, but for me it was awesome. One of the best games that came out last year.

Great video.

Quoted as I also loved DmC, and heaven forbid, I loved 1 and 3 (2 was mediocre and I've never played 4).

This is the best vid from Jim in a while for me (don't hate me for it). I've never liked Tekken, but do not begrudge those who do. I'm one of the 3 people on the planet who like Too Human (dispite it's shitty boss fights, camera issues and a few unfair enemy types).

 

[crederbl]

Jim/Anyone, where does that picture at 1.20 come from?!
I remember it from a long time ago but can't remember from what and my life will not be able to continue until I find out. I have a feeling it was awesome in some way.

 

[Tono Makt]

I know that Jim is making a larger point about a certain section of chronically miserable people who aren't me but I thought I'd throw in my two cents because I think the two big examples he used are problematic to a certain degree.

I didn't buy or play DmC because it's not really my bag. But I know people who are big fans of the series who refused to buy it, and not because Dante got a different haircut. Ninja Theory, right out of the gate, went out of their way to alienate existing fans by trying to cultivate a "rock & roll" attitude for themselves. They dismissed the earlier DMC games that many people loved and, in a presentation, even photoshopped old Dante into a frame of Brokeback Mountain to illustrate how "gay" the original Dante was. Which is kind of homophobic, pretty damn petty and not exactly professional. (Seeing that is what took me from a "maybe" to a "definite no" in buying the game.) In trying so hard to go for the "this ain't yo Daddy's Devil May Cry" they willfully pushed away the people who were most likely to buy the game. Resulting in a giant flop, regardless of the actual quality of the product.

As for Mass Effect 3, my sympathies are limited. If you liked or loved Mass Effect 3, or even felt that the ending didn't ruin the overall experience... you're the majority. I'm sorry but the persecution complex that people have about this game (on both sides) is amazing. If you liked it, great. If you enjoyed the endings of Lost or the Battlestar Galactica remake, fantastic. No one is trying to take that away from you. But in all three of those cases, there is a rational, reasonable argument for why those endings didn't work. They may work for you, but they don't hold up to serious criticism. I like plenty of bad movies. I have watched probably every Dolph Lundgren movie ever made and genuinely, unironically enjoy most of them... but I'd never make the argument that they're good. Because my enjoyment of something doesn't supersede it's objective quality.

I had an argument last year with a guy who loved Aliens: Colonial Marines. (On an internet message board because of course.) He would not hear of any criticism of it. Any time I brought up a valid point, not in an accusatory manner or even dickishly, he would get wildly pissed off at me and accuse me of trying ruin the game for him. He was such a huge fan of the franchise that he literally could not tolerate any criticism of it. When I tried to have conversations with people in the wake of the ME3 controversy, I was called all manner of names. Professional game journalists, and please go back and read some of the posts from the major websites in that period, were wildly condescending and didn't help in any way to bring a level-headed response to the controversy.

This was a point I was going to make to refute much of Jim's argument in this case. It's not that gamers didn't like that reviewers gave ME3 great reviews, or that they didn't tell people that the ending sucked - that's to be expected from even the most biased and unprofessional game reviewer. You don't spoil the ending and you try to give games as positive a review as possible.

It's how they inserted themselves in the conversation after in arrogant, condescending and downright petty ways that turned the tide on that one. Reviewers too criticism of their reviews personally (often times justifiably so) and instead of doing what they normally do - move on to review the next game and ignore the personal criticisms - they got involved with the petty gamers who had nothing to lose.

Also with ME3, it was a time of plenty for those who wanted to troll. A simple statement like "The ending was okay." or "The ending wasn't all that good." was enough (at the height of the reaction) to spawn a 100 post thread full of flames and other insults. So trying to use the ME3 controversy is sort of like saying "Ford cars have always sucked! Look at the Edsel!". There's a bit of a truth to it (the Edsel was a terrible car) but it misses the larger picture.

 

[Jezzy54]

I'm so jealous of your signed Green Goblin picture! Also, I'm sorry to hear people gave you such a hard time for loving DMC, I love that game too.

 

[ShakerSilver]

I also would love to go off about how Bioshock infinite gets tons of hate for being a corridor shooter when the exact same people are waiting in suspence for the next half life game.

[HEADING=2]STOP.[/HEADING] Stop that right now. You're making a huge generalization that is just plain wrong. Lumping all critics together and dismissing as hypocrites is incredibly petty. You're dismissing any valid criticism in that way, and killing any possible legitimate discussion of the game. And at least Half-Life respects the player's intelligence enough to give them more than 2 weapons and some health packs.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I also would love to go off about how Bioshock infinite gets tons of hate for being a corridor shooter when the exact same people are waiting in suspence for the next half life game. But I feel that would be horribly off topic and just asking to start an argument with someone. So I'll save it for another video.

I am one of those people, and yes, I would love another "Half Life" game. I expect different things from the "Half Life" series to the "Bioshock" series. But even disregarding those expectations, my problems with "Bioshock Infinite" go way beyond it being "just another corridor shooter", even though that's essentially what it is. I can ENJOY corridor shooters, if they're good. "Bioshock Infinite" was not. Its core gameplay mechanics were its weakest point. Its world and its story were its strongest points, however:

- There was nothing interesting to actually DO within the world, other than watch what happened in it.

- I constantly felt as though I was WATCHING the story, rather than playing it or contributing to it. I never once even felt the illusion that my actions were contributing towards the story.

Honestly if "Bioshock Infinite" has taught me anything, it's to avoid any game that claims to "tell a story". Look, I want to make my OWN story. It's the absolute least that I expect from a piece of interactive media, and it's a requirement that more and more games seem to be failing nowadays. I thought "Bioshock Infinite" had a great story, and yet I had very little engagement with it. If you're putting me directly in control of a character in a story then let me make DECISIONS. Otherwise what's the freaking point? I don't empathise with his actions, which aren't necessarily the ones I would have chosen (and some of which seem downright silly to me.) And yet I'm supposed to "be" him.

We all have our rights to our opinions and we all have our rights to not agree with someone else on their opinion, but rage and wraith over it is not acceptable. I dont agree with anyone giving Bioshock infinite an award, it was a game that made me feel depressed that people revere it as the peak of FPS storytelling. But im not going to be mad at anyone for that, just a tad dissapointed is all. Just like im a tad dissapointed that gamers flock to games like treyarchs cods or the GTA series.

I agree with this in spirit, although I've never played a CoD game and the last GTA I played was GTA3.

And can some of the posters on this forum please stop assuming that anybody who disagrees with the positive reception of "Bioshock Infinite" and other games is doing so because of some kind of "emotional backlash". There are good, objective reasons as to why I was disappointed in this game.

The only "emotional backlash" I'm getting here is due to the fact that I've been playing Ken Levine's games since 1996, he's the creator of my favorite game ever, and yet I feel that his last few have gone in TOTALLY the wrong direction. It is frustrating to me that professional critics are not pointing out some of the negatives of these recent games - and I'm not just talking about subjective experience here. There are objective flaws that can be highlighted, and this game had a lot.

I don't begrudge anybody who enjoyed "Bioshock Infinite" more than I did. I'm happy for them, and I wish I'd had the same experience. But I expect more than that from a professional critic. I honestly feel that "Total Biscuit"'s "WTF is... Bioshock Infinite" was the only write-up of this game that gave me an honest appraisal of both its positive and negative points. That should not be the case.

Sorry Jim, but in my opinion the critics FAILED. They utterly bought into the hype and glossed over the game's failings. It's fine to point out that you loved the game despite those failings - but it's dishonest to pretend they just don't exist.

 

[Jezzy54]

I find it odd that Jim talked about games as "pure joy factories" when he opened the video with footage from The Last of Us, which is, as Yahtzee put it, Naughty Dog's Oscar bait to the Summer Action Blockbuster of the Uncharted series. Slavishly adhering to the trope True Art Is Depressing. Not my cup of tea, but I see how some types of people would be fans. I understand being angry with someone hating something you like, because it's easy to take it personally. When I first heard Jim hated Assassin's Creed II, my first thought was "Dafuq is wrong with you?!" and I still think that sometimes. I haven't played Bioshock:Infinite yet, but I can see how people would hate it for not being enough like the first game, since the name "Bioshock" is now synonymous with the mood, atmosphere, and thought-provoking story that didn't talk down to you, the player (see the trope Viewers Are Geniuses).

There's a lot more to The Last of Us than just being depressing. The depressing parts work because the characters have other moods to compare sadness to and something to live for, and the game ends on a relatively hopeful note. Slavishly adhering to a depressing tone would mean a shallow, drawn-out series of non-stop tragedies with no meaning because there wouldn't be any variation.

 

[zinho73]

Rushed games like Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3.

What exactly was rushed about ME3? There was nothing rubbished about ME3 at all, people were just upset that they didn't like the ending, which was pathetic really.

The whole ending was either rushed or they lied, because the producers said they "won't pull a Lost, all your questions will be answered, you see the result of you every action" and things like that.

 

[Xdeser2]

Are you serious?
Are you seriously oblivious about all the sleazy business going on behind the scenes of game reviews?
Do you really not understand why people who bought DA2 based on the perfect score, opened the box and out fell a turd would be mad at the reviewer?
Would you as a consumer trust a single fucking review on IGN?
Do you really think game journalists don't have an obligation to consumers?
Oh wait, do you actually believe this is just about "random people on the internet liking something"?
Are you this naive or are you just balls deep in the swamp yourself?

Weak jim.
Very weak.

That is literally all it is.

Reviews are subjective. Games journalists have no "Duty to the consumer" in terms of opinions. Too bad if IGN liked something. get over it.

 

[zinho73]

While i generally aggree with that statement and think that raging idiots should be shut down at every turn, one has to look out while doing that to not shut down legetimate criticism.
For example i clearly didn't like greg tito's review of dragon age 2.
Not just because i personally don't like dragon age 2, but because it was not particularly well done in my opinion.
It left out a lot of aspects of the game and glossed over others.
And just to get a bit unreasonable at the end of this.
If he likes the button-mashing combat, blander characters and unfocused story good for him.
But, while visuals are a matter of opinion, i just can't see how anyone can call DA 2 the best - looking game of the year were Crysis 3 and the Witcher 2 were released.

Everything just gets mixed up in the sea of rage.
I completely agree with you. Tito's review is mediocre at best.
Also, the rage does not come because the reviewer liked the game, but in most cases because the reviewer failed to address the features of the game properly.

I understand that a review is not just an opinion (although it has a lot on it), but a tool to orient consumers. When reviewers fail to point flaws, quirks and lack of features it just feels unprofessional.

Not a reason to hate, but reason enough to be disappointed I would say.

I can honestly say that although Tito seems a real nice guy, I lost my respect for him as a reviewers and simply did not read his articles anymore.

 

[JarinArenos]

Calling Dragon Age 2 the pinnacle of RPGs, and what games should be, was pure advertising, I dont care that he enjoyed it, I bought it because before that point I trusted escapist reviews. But no Greg fucked me over there by not mentioning the inherent flaws in the game of which there are many.

That's the point I think I was reaching towards but wasn't coherent enough to make. For reviewers, trust is a currency that gets built up with honest reviewing. Greg basically blew his wad in one spot for a lot of people and his reviews will never be fully trusted again. I can't think of any similar setup for Mass Effect 3 or Metroid: Other M, offhand, but I'm sure they existed. Greg just makes such a good example.

- kinda like how I think twice before clicking on any dramatic-sounding headline with Andy Chalk's name under it.

 

[Catrixa]

I feel like the issue isn't jealousy over liking a game, but rather disappointment and fear of future disappointment. From the viewpoint of a consumer, games are only made when they're assumed to be highly profitable. For all we know, companies won't invest in a project they're not guaranteed to make bank on. And this is what they tell us they do, so what else should we believe? Thus, if a game is successful, companies will want to make similar games to continue making money off of that successful idea behind the game.

Take DMC. I can't go into a lot of gory details, because I didn't catch the whole controversy when it was happening, but from what I know: due to character differences and gameplay differences, the DMC reboot is vastly different from the old DMC. People who played the old DMC, and enjoyed it to the point of being fans of the series, found the reboot to be disappointing. To compare it to similar events: how many TV shows were affected by the writer's strike? If any of them became severely disappointing afterwards, because they were now being written by different people (who may not have any clue what the original writers were building up to or had designed), it should be understandable why fans of DMC might see the new series as taking the game in a completely unwanted direction.

Add to this: if a game is popular, that is what the company will sell, regardless of "objective" (see: this is not a thing) merit. To fans, this easily means "You are a minority, thus we do not care about your love of the series. Until the very second we stop making more money than we spend on these, we will run this ship into the ground." If the only way you could see to get your beloved series back was to rage against those who seem to be causing the problem (spending money on something they like, which has been touted as the guaranteed way to get more of something you like), wouldn't you be able to understand why others would do this? What else can fans of a series do when developers won't listen?

tl;dr: People who feel trapped often lash out at things that may not be their captors, especially if their captors are unreachable.

 

[zinho73]

I know that Jim is making a larger point about a certain section of chronically miserable people who aren't me but I thought I'd throw in my two cents because I think the two big examples he used are problematic to a certain degree.

I didn't buy or play DmC because it's not really my bag. But I know people who are big fans of the series who refused to buy it, and not because Dante got a different haircut. Ninja Theory, right out of the gate, went out of their way to alienate existing fans by trying to cultivate a "rock & roll" attitude for themselves. They dismissed the earlier DMC games that many people loved and, in a presentation, even photoshopped old Dante into a frame of Brokeback Mountain to illustrate how "gay" the original Dante was. Which is kind of homophobic, pretty damn petty and not exactly professional. (Seeing that is what took me from a "maybe" to a "definite no" in buying the game.) In trying so hard to go for the "this ain't yo Daddy's Devil May Cry" they willfully pushed away the people who were most likely to buy the game. Resulting in a giant flop, regardless of the actual quality of the product.

As for Mass Effect 3, my sympathies are limited. If you liked or loved Mass Effect 3, or even felt that the ending didn't ruin the overall experience... you're the majority. I'm sorry but the persecution complex that people have about this game (on both sides) is amazing. If you liked it, great. If you enjoyed the endings of Lost or the Battlestar Galactica remake, fantastic. No one is trying to take that away from you. But in all three of those cases, there is a rational, reasonable argument for why those endings didn't work. They may work for you, but they don't hold up to serious criticism. I like plenty of bad movies. I have watched probably every Dolph Lundgren movie ever made and genuinely, unironically enjoy most of them... but I'd never make the argument that they're good. Because my enjoyment of something doesn't supersede it's objective quality.

I had an argument last year with a guy who loved Aliens: Colonial Marines. (On an internet message board because of course.) He would not hear of any criticism of it. Any time I brought up a valid point, not in an accusatory manner or even dickishly, he would get wildly pissed off at me and accuse me of trying ruin the game for him. He was such a huge fan of the franchise that he literally could not tolerate any criticism of it. When I tried to have conversations with people in the wake of the ME3 controversy, I was called all manner of names. Professional game journalists, and please go back and read some of the posts from the major websites in that period, were wildly condescending and didn't help in any way to bring a level-headed response to the controversy.

Bottom line: the irrational responses people have are never just on one side of the argument.

BTW, this is my first post. Hi!

And a great post. Agreed.
ME3 ending WAS bad.
Tito's review WAS lacking.
DMC new thing WAS weird (and maybe unnecessary).

There were disproportional responses to those things and the gaming media likes to hide behind the more extreme arguments avoiding any discussion whatsoever, which is sad.

 

[Britpoint]

Even worse than the weird anger of people who didn't like a thing being angry because I do like a thing, the really horrible bit is it makes me actually feel bad for enjoying something.

It's not a new thing, although it is certainly more out of control and vehement than it used to be. But for as long as I can remember people have had 'guilty pleasures' - a game or TV show or kind of music that they enjoy but hate to admit. Because other people will think worse of them for it. That's so terrible, feeling guilt just because you smiled at something your peers don't like.

For example I remember being home alone one day when I was a kid, just idly going through TV channels. I came across an episode of Desperate Housewives. Kept it on to see how bad it was, ended up kinda liking it. And then I thought: "I will get picked on so much if anybody finds out I liked this."

On the plus side, for those of us who finally get over our fears of other people's opinions, we have so much more to enjoy. Now I'm off to watch the last episode of a tacky ecchi anime before bed.

 

[ShakerSilver]

[HEADING=3]Stop liking what I don't like![/HEADING]and
[HEADING=3]Stop disliking what I like![/HEADING]

are equally petty. When someone likes something you hate they are encouraging the industry to produce more of what you hate, and it's made even worse if they can't articulate why the liked it and fail to acknowledge any flaws with it.

That is literally all it is.

Reviews are subjective. Games journalists have no "Duty to the consumer" in terms of opinions. Too bad if IGN liked something. get over it.

They're professionals. They're expected to be professional in they're critique of a game. No amount of hype, buzzwords, or "emotions" will a review any less professional. Reviews need to tackle games objectively (not exclusively so, but it's still a very important part).

 

[Dragon Zero]

I cannot clap hard enough. You have expressed something I've been trying to put to words for a while now. Thank God For Jim!

 

[Luminos564]

I think this is a kind of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" Jim. No matter what your opinion, someone out there is going to bash or criticize it. You liked CoD? Oooooh, be prepared for a verbal hoedown for liking a game whose core fanbase is not well liked. You hated or otherwise didn't praise Smash Bros Brawl as some sort of video game Second Coming like Yahtzee did that one time? Be prepared for a verbal brawl over the "injustice".

See, this is why I avoid general opinions on games and play what I damn well please. I am one of those weird mutants that can even enjoy a game like Cross Edge, broken, sometimes nonfunctional mess that it is. I even enjoy FFXIII, even though the current popular trend is to loathe it and stigmatize the game as "having killed Final Fantasy for good".

As weird as it is for people to be legitimately angry over positive opinions on games, I've been a gamer for a pretty long time now. I've seen more than my fair share of BS gamers do to other gamers and other members of their community that I just accept this as some new thing that'll die down eventually...I hope.