this is incredibly reductive and just misses so much of the nuance of john wick's story
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Don't You Dare Critique Video Games! (Jim Sterling video regarding Troy Baker's dismissal of TLOU2 criticism)
- Thread starter Raijinto
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Troy, Neil, and ND already have a massively successful game (both critically and financially), and are spending their time pouting about a handful of game critics saying "hey, I don't like this very much." That is pretty fucking thin-skinned in the nicest terms... I'm verging on giving the "jerking off" motion.
And yeah, the Schindler's List tweet was fucking dumb too.
And yeah, the Schindler's List tweet was fucking dumb too.
I think that this gives way too much credit to Jeff. It was just a really dumb analogy that I think he thought sounded cool.
Wow, this game is a gift that keeps on giving, what next? Kardashians episode of them critiquing the game? /jk
Jim makes great videos but I get a feeling he needs to step back a little from gaming industry, as shitty as a lot of things are there are still millions people working in it, majority a decent folk and sometimes decent people say dumb shit, or they get defensive when criticised, sometimes it's as simple as that and there is no big conspiracy.
Jim makes great videos but I get a feeling he needs to step back a little from gaming industry, as shitty as a lot of things are there are still millions people working in it, majority a decent folk and sometimes decent people say dumb shit, or they get defensive when criticised, sometimes it's as simple as that and there is no big conspiracy.
The same ones comparing this to a movie about the Holocaust are the same ones who will say anyone not liking the story to TLOU2 "doesn't get it". About that phrase...
Jim isn't taking down the game industry with a Youtube video. Let alone Troy Baker, Naughty Dog, Druckmann, or TLOU2
There is no comparison at all sorry and comparing anything to schindlers list is highly moronic, especially a video game about a woman who's father figure get killed and she goes on a killing spree to avenge him (It actually is the John Wick of video games with less Gun Fu).
If Jim steps back we lose one of the (if not the only) real voices of criticism the games industry have.
Tell me, how many stories about crunch, employement abuse, consumer abuse and power dinamics do we see coming and going weekly, if not daily? How many media outlets actually held companies accountable for all the shit they think they can get away with?
Yes, this is another video about TLoU2, but more than a video about TLoU2, it's a video about power dinamics between developers and media outlets, and how these are forced to be a cog in the PR machine instead of being free to express their own opinion, do research and hold studios and publishers accountable for their shit.
Jim is needed in the games industry, this video is needed in the games industry. Those of you who want him to "step back a little" are those who are uncomfortable with the realities of the industry you enjoy so much. You people are the ones who allow the silence to take control
You misunderstand, so let me be clear, what Jim does is a fantastic work, and absolutely needed and what I said I aid purely out of concern for his mental wellbeing, I do not and never did defend crunch, mistreatment, underhanded tactics, abuse or any of these things, don't try to suggest that I do or put me in some group of people that are trying to silence Jim.
How dare people have an opinion different than mine!?
This whole situation paints a clear picture of this industry right now and it also shows the motivation of most posters on this forum.
Let people raise their opinion, respect the voices of those who are involved and weigh in your opinion without bringing others down. Be nice, people. Be nice.
This whole situation paints a clear picture of this industry right now and it also shows the motivation of most posters on this forum.
Let people raise their opinion, respect the voices of those who are involved and weigh in your opinion without bringing others down. Be nice, people. Be nice.
I still can't handle the John wick /Schindler's list comparison.
The person who said it, must not have watched Schindler's list, right?
The person who said it, must not have watched Schindler's list, right?
In Jim's defense I don't think subjective opinions on corporate products and videogames was what Teddy Roosevelt mean't by The Man in the Arena speech.
I feel like now is exactly the wrong time to be making a comment defending institutions for bad apples and bad incidents. It's what the entire industry as a whole continues to condone, whether that be active or complicit otherwise. Sure, individuals commit the acts, but the fact that they think they can so brazenly take such actions in the most public spheres does speak to how much the game industry allows. With an increasing movement that is putting major executives and employees across the board in the hot seat for sexual misconduct, predatory practices against those with addictive personalities and those too young to understand their actions, and often times incredibly poor treatment of employees through crunch and other methods of work place pressure, in no way should anyone be pulling back from their criticism of the game's industry.
Yes, millions of people work for and in the industry, let's actively make their lives better and make those spaces actually comfortable enough to where people can work passionately on games without worrying how long their employment will last and being afraid of the toxic work place culture that has continually been revealed to be present in most major companies and developers.
It's not a conspiracy, but Druckmann has absolutely been showing his ass recently and Baker in particular has a history of fighting with critics that goes well beyond just challenging their views. Jim wanted to highlight their specific issues and then also use them as a spring board to discuss the inherent issues with the industry regarding developer entitlement and difficult relationship that exists between those who seek to provide games journalism with genuine commentary and the wider industry of developers and publishers who look at them as an extension of their own advertising.
I think it is ethical, yes. The "problem" occurs because both the reviewer and the company making the product are both running a business. The reviewer wants early access to product so that their reviews can be ready ahead of launch and ready to go when embargos drop and the company wants the best reviews possible on launch day so their product is shown in the best light possible.
This commonly leads to a few things:
- Large scale reviewers/influencers e-mail in and ask for free copies of stuff so that they can review it ahead of release. These e-mails often come off as sales pitches, with review companies/influencers highlighting the number of viewers or people their information with reach.
- A company, due to the above and the power shift away from a few notably reviewers to the wider internet of smaller reviewers, metacritic and influencers, has more choice than ever before about who to give their product to for review. And, since you often want to launch with the strongest word of mouth possible/also use some of the highest reviews as marketing material, it only makes sense from a business perspective to gather data on your end on who the most likely person to give you a good review is. That way you are maximizing time and energy, since you don't want to give a product away for free to someone who doesn't help you from a brand perspective.
As highlighted above, there's an ethical principle that must be adhered to both ways, and sometimes both sides really fuck it up:
- I've seen, when helping smaller companies and friends out, reviewers and influencers alike offer to review a product, but only if they get it for free. This causes e-mails to those companies to come off as quasi-threats. Of course, none of the bigger publications have done this, as far as I know, but I think that kind of situation crosses the line into unethical.
- I do not think not providing your product to a company that is unlikely to give it a good review is unethical. Reviewers should have budgets to buy things, no matter how big they think they are. A company is never morally obligated to give a reviewer free shit unless they want to. A company would be unlikely to provide a small reviewer with 100 followers a review copy and a company would be unlikely to say, provide Xbox Magazine a review copy of Last of Us II if they feel their target market does not overlap with the reviewer's audience.
- I do think that blacklisting reviewers or sending them rude e-mails such as "Why would we ever send you a review copy?", which I have definitely heard about, is absolutely unethical though.
Hopefully that gives you an idea of where I draw the line. As I mentioned in my last post, it's a very delicate balancing act at times and can be a bit like threading the needle.
I do not think a badly written review that gives the game or product a good score is a good review. If an article is needlessly pandering or obviously has a bias in its text/subtext, I'd also think twice about providing them with a review copy in the future. Personally, I'd aim for outlets that tend to give our products or similar products 8's and 9's (and 10's of course, but those would be vetted). Of course, this being an inexact science and products being different each time, you gather valuable data on if giving those free copies lead to 8s, 9s and 10s or if it led to something more varied.
I would not want to give someone who gives our product a bad review to get a free/prerelease copy, but due to the above, it can happen and is a risk companies are willing to take. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I fully believe a product marketer SHOULD build relationships with people who give your products bad reviews, simply because gathering data from the market is a fundamental part of your job and that data likely contains notes or actionable items of interest. I follow up with unhappy people (and happy people) all day every day and I do not want to only hear good opinions about our product, because then we become stagnant and feel like there is nothing to improve. However, that does not mean that a company has a moral obligation to give a reviewer a free copy. What I would do though, and this is just me, is maybe give some of the tougher reviewers a preview of the next game/version of a product when it is ready to gather an idea of if this next release has the potential to convert new people or if the target market focus should be a variation of the previous release.
As the person who creates a game/product, you are well within your rights to choose who gets your product for free, if anyone. What is not ethical is either the reviewer/influencer or the company hinting at or making clear that a good review will be born out of giving that product away for free. It is unethical to say "Well, we are only going to give you our product if you give it a good review and blacklist you otherwise" and it is just as unethical to say "Well, if you give us a free copy, you'll score higher than if we have to buy the game/product on our own".
I also believe that a company cannot give your product to EVERY reviewer and influencer that wants one (again, some reviewers have 10 followers, some reviewers who don't overlap with who your target market is, etc all exist) so a company can and will prioritize, which is fine. If a reviewer constantly has a tone of voice (in writing) that does not match your target market, how you want your product to be presented to the large market or anything else, you are within your rights to not provide them with a review copy. This does not mean you stop them from reviewing it though if they want to, reviewers are always free to review your product just not FOR free.
As mentioned earlier, I think the thing that always gets lost in this is that a reviewer is also running a business, just as much as the company producing the the game/product are. When you consume a review from your favorite reviewer, you are consuming their product and there is a reason why you have that favorite reviewer in the first place (branding, messaging style, reach, contacts, other content on their site, etc). To me, a lot of the posturing between reviewers and creators that has been going on recently are two businesses having a fight in a public space and trying to weaponized their customers on each side. I think that is stupid, childish and a bad look from all involved and would not be how I run either business venture, at all.
People are still trying to defend the Shindler's List tweet? Of all the things you can go to bat on, you waste your time on that? Just admit it was a bad take and move on.
We (rightfully) made fun of it when someone called Metroid Prime "the Citizen Kane of video games" like 10 years ago
I don't especially agree with many of Jim's points in the recent videos, but I absolutely agree with you that his voice is needed.
There was a lot of the same reaction to Death Stranding, and Kojima's response to that as well. I get the feeling we're returning to arrogant Sony, where our games are perfect and we can do no wrong, and their fans will defend them every step of the way. Of course, the last time that happened, it gave us the disaster that was the PS3 launch, and I can't help but think history is about to repeat itself...
Lol this whole industry is so pathetic and juvenile, it makes me embarrassed to be a part of it.
Yeah, Angry Joe's review is about to be loud, obnoxious, and full of inaccuracies.
I mean, isn't this basically a driveby?
Also are people really still trying to defend Troy Baker and pretend the Schindler's List comparison wasn't in poor taste?
I don't think there was a dedicated thread to his embarrassing response.
I'm sure he's a nice guy but this really comes across as being full of himself.
I thought it came across as super fragile. Especially considering the tweet he quoted didn't mention any specific game.
An extremely over-the-top defense against a frankly silly and tiny tweet.
Yep, it feels like they just see them as 8, 9 or 10 generators, but you can extend that to the general public and even this site as well. Kallie Plagge gave TLOU2 an 8 and even got hate for that, and on this site most of the reception discussion is about scores: guessing the average, debating if review X will be pull the MC average down, stuff like that doesn't help either. It's been touched on in different threads but if I were to review TLOU 2 for a big site I wouldn't be comfortable doing that if I had some issues with it. The fact that reviewers get all the crosshairs pointed at them when the deviate from the 'norm'... That's pretty sad. I think this forum can help with this by making the review threads much less MC- and number focused.
One positive to come from all this is that it is kind of funny using that Theodore Roosevelt quote when talking about games.
It's peak fragility. Many peoples' GOTY candidate, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, is an 87 on Metacritic. An 87 Metascore is a stellar score. TLOU2 sits on a 94, which is absurdly strong for an aggregate score. By all measures, The Last of Us 2 is remarkably successful. Even with all of this, Troy can't handle that there are a handful of voices out there who are critically lukewarm on the title. To the point where he's quote Teddy fucking Roosevelt in defense of the game. For a game that's one of the highest rated games of the entire generation! I've seen more composure from a toddler being told they can't eat cake for breakfast.
"lol that Schindler's List tweet was such hyperbole"
"lol Troy is quoting Teddy fucking Roosevelt, completely overblown"
also
"I've seen more composure from a toddler"
I feel like many people should probably put down their phones and walk away from this conversation at this point.
Considering how emotionally embroiled you've been with several people in this thread, this sounds like a good opportunity for you to lead by example.
Emotionally? Really? Any receipts or is that just a word you like throwing around?
Edit: I certainly don't remember likening anyone to toddlers but feel free to prove me wrong
I mean, The Last of Us 2 is not a game about the holocaust, and neither based on real facts. So, of course, it is not about that it is being compared to. And it is a revenge story where you kill people like John Wick, but if he saying it is different than this, he is focusing on what is different from both.
I said that Jim missed the point in there because reading Jeff thread of 5 tweets, or just the first 2, you get the context of what he (Jeff) was saying. I totally agree it can be insensitive and a dumb choice for that matter, but if people are not arguing about that, then I disagree with them.
In his first tweet, he said the game is challenging, bold, and almost never "fun", and confront violence like other games normally don't. On his second tweet, when he makes the comparison, he also stated that there are times like in the movie (Schindler's List) where he "wasn't sure I could keep going". On his fourth tweet, he compares it (The Last of Us 2) to 2 seasons of the darkest TV show, and says it tore him up and he will never forget it. And on his fifth and last tweet, he said the game put him through hell, he didn't enjoy it and wasn't supposed to. (Complete thread: https://twitter.com/jeffcannata/status/1271336663587811328) That is how he was comparing the game to the movie. He goes on a later tweet to clearly state that: https://twitter.com/jeffcannata/status/1272285004085821442
Now, if the game achieves or does it well is another conversation entirely and I have no opinion whatsoever about it.
So, I don't think it is a bad comparison because the themes are different since he was not comparing that, but I do think it can be insensitive and he could've used another film that is not meant to be "enjoyed" as an example.
I didn't even want to discuss this and take away the light of what is the important bit: how Troy Baker handles criticism and shutting down critics. I put the blame on Jim for derailing his own video focusing on that bit and arguing about it :P
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On the topic of criticism, people have the right to say/do things and others have that right as well, so they can critic your actions. If it is not clear, critics are also to be criticized and I don't believe anyone is or will dispute that (I hope so). The problem is, people of influence trying to shut others' voices. Let me rephrase that. People shutting others' voices. That is a huge problem and when it comes from someone with that much influence, it is even worse. Knowing it is a repeated behavior is ... I can't even think of a word for it.
People should realize that everything is up to criticism and will be criticized. I do agree that people need to be thoughtful while doing so, but then again, this is not what is being discussed. And people, even more, Troy Baker, should learn how to handle it. As Jim stated, it wasn't even his part that was criticized. Matter of fact, it (his work) was praised in both situations.
The argument that a critic's opinion holds no weight because they haven't walked a mile in the shoes of the person creating or performing the thing they criticize has always been a nothing more than an empty dismissal of a differing opinion. You can be learned and studied and have insight on a subject without having actually performed the actions and/or resulting product being judged.
As for Jim's points about the industry strongarming people that disagree with the consensus? Yeah, that's been going on forever. This industry has always been able to bully journalists, cut off access and refuse review copies, especially when they're investigating actual stories with actual workplace issues. I just don't know how you prevent that from continuing.
As for Jim's points about the industry strongarming people that disagree with the consensus? Yeah, that's been going on forever. This industry has always been able to bully journalists, cut off access and refuse review copies, especially when they're investigating actual stories with actual workplace issues. I just don't know how you prevent that from continuing.