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Gaming_Groove

Member
Apr 4, 2018
2,813
As someone who was I think constructive and fair in my feedback of his review, it's a little disheartening to hear Damiani talk down to his audience in that way. I respect the guy a hell of a lot and back him up on pretty much everything he's gotten heat for, but I think the attitude in that VOD is disappointing and not the way to address criticism of ones work. I recognize his comments may not necessarily be directed at me or my particular feedback, but it's a little messed up in general to state that your audience isn't intelligent enough to understand. That comment was unnecessary...his point was fine without it.
 

Ryan Bates

Member
Jun 21, 2018
28
I don't get why the eza community gets hung up on the most trivial of things sometimes. Its just a nothing issue to me.

I can understand the opinion that the review criticisms are trivial, but Damiani chose to deal with this by calling people who disagree with him "unintelligent" and calling their criticisms "dumb shit". I think if people get upset because of this it is warranted.
 

Glory

Alt-Account
Banned
Oct 9, 2018
187
I feel bad bringing this damiani review conversation up again but I'm my defense I think it's the first time I'm commenting on it. When damiani did his let's play of starlink he had this to say about the review controversy:

"It is not a full blown starfox game. I thought I made that clear with the review line of "There's friction between Starlink's vision and what you might expect from a Starfox game" which was supposed to be read between the lines that, come into this game expecting it to be Starfox, you're not going to be happy. This is not a Starfox game. Yea. But I guess, I'll be mean. I think some people aren't intelligent enough to read between the lines anymore. I guess I have to dumb down my reviews in the future to speak to... some people I guess."

I know that damiani gets a lot of flack from certain segments of the community but that's a really shitty and dismissive attitude to have about the situation. The guy made a review that some people didnt agree with. Calling those people dumb is the worst possible reaction. The quote starts around 2:40 in this video but I think getting the context beforehand is important too but I cant transcribe it all:

For what it's worth I think the review was bad too. It felt like damiani spent more time talking about how the game wasnt what he wanted it to be instead of talking about what the game is. Ironically enough, if he would have opened his review by talking about how integrated the star fox content is in the switch version of the game (like he does in the linked video) I dont think anyone would have had a problem with the review. I think most people (myself included) just assumed that the star fox stuff was a pretty minor part of the game and that damiani was just really focused on it for some bizarre reason.


Yep. Doubling down. It's about what I expected from Damiani.

888.jpg


I don't get why the eza community gets hung up on the most trivial of things sometimes. Its just a nothing issue to me.

I take it if this is what we're calling a controversy or the stupid peach bleach splash thing or whatever, its a sign EZA is running real smooth.

Everything is a nothing issue for you. It's okay to be critical sometimes. EZA isn't a cult.
 

Tankard

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,849
Brazil
I feel bad bringing this damiani review conversation up again but I'm my defense I think it's the first time I'm commenting on it. When damiani did his let's play of starlink he had this to say about the review controversy:

"It is not a full blown starfox game. I thought I made that clear with the review line of "There's friction between Starlink's vision and what you might expect from a Starfox game" which was supposed to be read between the lines that, come into this game expecting it to be Starfox, you're not going to be happy. This is not a Starfox game. Yea. But I guess, I'll be mean. I think some people aren't intelligent enough to read between the lines anymore. I guess I have to dumb down my reviews in the future to speak to... some people I guess."

Yikes. And some people will sure defend him about this answer too.
 
Oct 28, 2017
3,116
Damiani will just address those comments with "lol I was trolling, haha gotcha!" like he does every time someone picks him up on something.
 

Glory

Alt-Account
Banned
Oct 9, 2018
187
Damn, haven't had one of these in a minute.

Every fandom has its diehards that think whatever they're following can do no wrong. This isn't unique to EZA. Some measured criticism isn't going to make the castle come crumbling down so chill out with the insecurity. It's gross.

At the end of the day no amount of criticism stopped Easy Allies from bonding with alt-right bigots, ignoring their community votes for group play, or in this case making incomplete game reviews. It's pretty much precedent two years into this journey that criticism means nothing to Easy Allies.

It's why I stated right from the start it's better to accept that Damiani isn't going to change because of any amount of criticism. It's better to accept him as a middle-aged Nintendo kid who's only going to look at the games he plays through the Nintendo lens. I'll continue looking at Ben and Blood game reviews and tune in to Damiani's live streams for the conversation and the trolling.

Nothing's perfect and that's okay.
 
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ObbyDent

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,910
Los Angeles
I really dug their conversation about crunch. A good meaty 40 minute conversation that goes in different places. Thank you Kyle for not shying away from it.
 

grmltr

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,751
Wow a really great discussion on labour in the workplace. Love that the allies address the implicit obligation within power structures. I appreciate their backgrounds and relations in the industry. This is definitely an industry wide problem.
 
Oct 25, 2017
11,039
I personally don't think damiani reviewed a multiplatform game very well. That's what I think. He did a good switch starlink review.

If that's all it was, then ok. But as a ps4 user, I don't think it was great. It was ok once you get around all the Starfox stuff.

At the end of the day, EZA seems pretty platform agnostic. Like, they aren't a Nintendo channel like gamexplain. I think more of an effort should have been put reviewing the game EVERYONE will play, rather than focusing hard on one specific platform.
 
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Karu

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,002
I don't get why the eza community gets hung up on the most trivial of things sometimes. Its just a nothing issue to me.

I take it if this is what we're calling a controversy or the stupid peach bleach splash thing or whatever, its a sign EZA is running real smooth.
I only speak for myself here, but if I think a piece of EZA-content is lacking, I want to express that in certain circumstances and I don't see how that is a nothing issue considering what we are all talking about here (EZA & videogames). Now, I can't speak for everyone and there are probably people who went out of line, but that does not diminish well-intentioned critique. Reading (and not watching, so I can't judge his delivery) Damiani's response to the people complaining... well... that is a bummer.

Edit: Oh god a Better Call Saul-spoiler mode, wheeee =)
 

MrMette

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,303
Belgium
As someone who was I think constructive and fair in my feedback of his review, it's a little disheartening to hear Damiani talk down to his audience in that way. I respect the guy a hell of a lot and back him up on pretty much everything he's gotten heat for, but I think the attitude in that VOD is disappointing and not the way to address criticism of ones work. I recognize his comments may not necessarily be directed at me or my particular feedback, but it's a little messed up in general to state that your audience isn't intelligent enough to understand. That comment was unnecessary...his point was fine without it.
I agree, I personally thought the review was a bit too Star Fox heavy, but it was an ok review that touched on most, if not all major gameplay points of the game.
But Damiani's comment (at least the one written down by klassical) is a bit overboard calling people unintelligent/dumb.

I do suspect it's because he gets some much shit thrown at him that it's getting a bit much at times (I can't imagine dealing with that stuff and I usually don't agree with the criticism), but it's still not a good choice to call your fans dumb (it's not a particularly smart thing to do either as it will make the situation worse).
It won't help with how people feel about the review and it will possibly make them react even worse next time something isn't as they expect it to be. I still feel like people were over-exaggerating about the review and that it was an ok review (which I would have done differently, but it wasn't bad), but I can't really defend calling your fans out in such a manner.

That said, I have a tendency to bypass all my filters when I'm angry as well and it sucks because I can't really do anything about it. It just comes out. I have got better with that over the years, but there are still instances where I just get pissed off and blurt out stupid things.

I understand how something like that can happen with the pressure of fans and the constant bashing on a lot that he does, but it's still not the correct way to handle it.
 
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MrMette

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,303
Belgium
I personally don't think damiani reviewed a multiplatform game very well. That's what I think. He did a good switch starlink review.

If that's all it was, then ok. But as a ps4 user, I don't think it was great. It was ok once you get around all the Starfox stuff.

At the end of the day, EZA seems pretty platform agnostic. Like, they aren't a Nintendo channel like gamexplain. I think more of an effort should have been put reviewing the game EVERYONE will play, rather than focusing hard on one specific platform.
While I agree that it wasn't the best multiplatform review (as there was a bit too much focus on Starfox, which sounded off to me as well), but I do think it's because of how this game is set up on Switch and how it was pushed by Ubisoft. If you check out metacritc, you can see that almost everybody reviewed it on Switch and I believe most of them talked extensively about Starfox.

I believe it's partly because of how Ubisoft made the Switch version so extremely different and then started pushing out the Switch version (or people wanted to review that one because of Starfox, which I understand even though that series doesn't mean anything to me personally). It was a weird situation to begin with and I'm unsure what would have been a good way to tackle it. It's the first time in years that there is this much difference between one version and the others and it's almost impossible to know what is actually different without playing both versions which would make people pissed off because they wouldn't have done their review on embargo.
 

MrMette

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,303
Belgium
I really dug their conversation about crunch. A good meaty 40 minute conversation that goes in different places. Thank you Kyle for not shying away from it.

Wow a really great discussion on labour in the workplace. Love that the allies address the implicit obligation within power structures. I appreciate their backgrounds and relations in the industry. This is definitely an industry wide problem.
Yeah, I really loved the discussion as well. It's one I didn't really expect and I hope everybody hoping for a crunch discussion on the podcast will be pleased.
 

JayC3

bork bork
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
3,857
As someone who was I think constructive and fair in my feedback of his review, it's a little disheartening to hear Damiani talk down to his audience in that way. I respect the guy a hell of a lot and back him up on pretty much everything he's gotten heat for, but I think the attitude in that VOD is disappointing and not the way to address criticism of ones work. I recognize his comments may not necessarily be directed at me or my particular feedback, but it's a little messed up in general to state that your audience isn't intelligent enough to understand. That comment was unnecessary...his point was fine without it.
Agree with this post. I don't think he was directing his comment at everyone who gave criticism (myself included), and I viewed it as general frustration, but still, it wasn't cool and venting like that should probably have been done offline. To be fair, though, there have been some seriously OTT reactions.

Changing topics, it's really encouraging to see that they addressed the crunch issue in the recent podcast, and in depth too. I've always thought that they do a good job in discussing sensitive issues, so I was sad that they seemed to shy away from them recently. Glad I was wrong in this case! I'm almost caught up with my EZA backlog so I hope I can listen to it soon xp.
 
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Oct 27, 2017
4,708
This thread:
- new fun video comes up: 1-2 posts.
- controversial video about top10 towns / review of Starlink / Huber not wearing glasses / EZA not talking about a certain topic : 10 pages each.

I get that some stuff is not what you wanted but jeez, let them do their thing, or at least be constructive and polite in your criticism, so they can grow from it.

Btw, i LOVED that Spoiler mode for Better Call Saul. Really fun to watch, i wonder if other allies saw it as well.

Gonna go watch their stream from BLOPS4 now, hope its good :)
 

Dmax3901

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,900
This thread:
- new fun video comes up: 1-2 posts.
- controversial video about top10 towns / review of Starlink / Huber not wearing glasses / EZA not talking about a certain topic : 10 pages each.

I get that some stuff is not what you wanted but jeez, let them do their thing, or at least be constructive and polite in your criticism, so they can grow from it.

Btw, i LOVED that Spoiler mode for Better Call Saul. Really fun to watch, i wonder if other allies saw it as well.

Gonna go watch their stream from BLOPS4 now, hope its good :)
Discussion goes in the direction it goes, as long as it doesn't cross any lines with hostility or personal attacks people should be allowed to express themselves.

It's a lot easier to talk at length about something you don't like.
 
Oct 27, 2017
4,708
Discussion goes in the direction it goes, as long as it doesn't cross any lines with hostility or personal attacks people should be allowed to express themselves.

It's a lot easier to talk at length about something you don't like.
I agree, but pzople seem to forget that on youtube and reddit there are plznty of hostility and perzonal attacks... it just annoys me to see. I also get annoyed when i see new people in this thread just for saying what they don't like. Names and avatars i havent seen here ever, untill now just to criticize. An example of that is this random post a few posts back saying 'leaving my patreon pledge if huber dont get glasses in the next month'...
Is that seriously the only thing you wanna say in this thread?
 

Dmax3901

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,900
I agree, but pzople seem to forget that on youtube and reddit there are plznty of hostility and perzonal attacks... it just annoys me to see. I also get annoyed when i see new people in this thread just for saying what they don't like. Names and avatars i havent seen here ever, untill now just to criticize. An example of that is this random post a few posts back saying 'leaving my patreon pledge if huber dont get glasses in the next month'...
Is that seriously the only thing you wanna say in this thread?
I imagine that particular comment was a joke.
 

Deleted member 42641

User requested account closure
Banned
Apr 25, 2018
864
It's really sad how the alt-right people hate him so much. He's actually one of the most open Allies there is and the way he communicates with fans on live streams and toys around with memes make his involvement in live streams the best.

Anyone being "Alt right" instantly makes their opinion irrelevant

I honestly find myself agreeing with damani the most and always look forward to his opinions on things, cause hes the one who is able to articulate his points the best and is not afraid to say the truth.
 

HypedBulborb

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
1,921
Ugh, that Reddit thread, such a mess for such a minor thing. It's now turning into a Damiani is a terrible personality thing which is totally unfair, really frustrating to read.
 

Anti

Banned
Nov 22, 2017
2,972
Australia
Yikes. And some people will sure defend him about this answer too.
People already said i"t's not a big issue" and it is even using the #IstandWithDamiani. With that aside, calling out the community that supports you, and in many cases not only with their time viewing your content but on Patreon, it's not great. Some people actually made some constructive criticism and tried to give their honest opinion on the review. I know I did, not only thinking about myself as an avid gamer, but also from the perspective of casual users, kids or parents that might get confused by the review, but ok...
 
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Axass

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
1,384
My two cents.

The Starlink review was actually ok, it's just that Damiani focused it too much on one aspect that happens to be platform exclusive and not as meaty as it would appear to be from the review. He probably did this instinctively without much thought, also due to Ubisoft itself botching the marketing and basically making it seem like a Nintendo-only fanfictiony Star Fox game themselves; I guess it's because by the time the game went gold, the toys-to-life train had long departed the station and already crashed and burned, so they had to reconsider their advertisement strategy.

Some people leveraged a fair criticism, because due to the weird focus this is definitely on the lower tier of EZA's reviews, not talking about quality, but as far as information completeness goes it is. Others used the opportunity to shit on Damiani, because he has long had a target on his back due to some past events. So, there were fair opinions and exaggerated ones. Some people got needlessly overprotective, dismissing not only the hot takes, but even the fair criticism, because apparently we can't discern one from the other. Damiani was one of those, he definitely spoke out of line with his reply and offended both the people crapping on him and the honest people just giving their fair opinions.

That's it, we're all at fault, me, you, Damiani. Let's move on and not overreact one way ("Damiani is a terrible person, I want him out of EZA") or the other ("#IstandWithDamiani, it's a non-issue").
 

Glory

Alt-Account
Banned
Oct 9, 2018
187
This thread:
- new fun video comes up: 1-2 posts.
- controversial video about top10 towns / review of Starlink / Huber not wearing glasses / EZA not talking about a certain topic : 10 pages each.

I get that some stuff is not what you wanted but jeez, let them do their thing, or at least be constructive and polite in your criticism, so they can grow from it.

Btw, i LOVED that Spoiler mode for Better Call Saul. Really fun to watch, i wonder if other allies saw it as well.

Gonna go watch their stream from BLOPS4 now, hope its good :)

I don't understand. Who is stopping them from doing their thing?

Second, criticism doesn't have to be constructive. Do we need to write a 1000 word essay on why we don't like a specific game? Of course not. It's just as legitimate to say "I think the Bioshock Infinite is a slog" as it is to say "I don't like this review", and leave it at that. There's been more than a handful of posts in this very thread directed at me that haven't been constructive in the least. But that's okay. They don't need to be constructive. In fact, some people are just straight up bad at giving constructive criticism. Should those people not a voice?

Damn, haven't had one of these in a minute.

This is the biggest load of nonsense I've read in a long time.

This ain't it chief.

Believe me, Stinkinmushroom. I understand. You want to cultivate a positive atmosphere in this thread that's representative of the EZA product. But the bottom line is that EZA is a media company that reviews goings-ons in the videogame industry and they should be as open to the same criticism that they give to other companies like Rockstar, Nintendo, etc. A lot of people pay for their product the same way they do for any of those other companies.

The two worst parts about being an Easy Allies fan is the "got your money, don't care what you say, fuck off (with a smile)" mentality constantly displayed by the company, and the fans who handwaive even the most legitimate criticism away. I enjoy their content. I will continue to fund their Patreon and support them, just like I'm going to buy Red Dead Redemption 2 in light of the 100 hour crunch allegations. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't speak up if we don't like something. It's not the customer's responsibility to fix the product.
 

MrMette

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,303
Belgium
My two cents.

The Starlink review was actually ok, it's just that Damiani focused it too much on one aspect that happens to be platform exclusive and not as meaty as it would appear to be from the review. He probably did this instinctively without much thought, also due to Ubisoft itself botching the marketing and basically making it seem like a Nintendo-only fanfictiony Star Fox game themselves; I guess it's because by the time the game went gold, the toys-to-life train had long departed the station and already crashed and burned, so they had to reconsider their advertisement strategy.

Some people leveraged a fair criticism, because due to the weird focus this is definitely on the lower tier of EZA's reviews, not talking about quality, but as far as information completeness goes it is. Others used the opportunity to shit on Damiani, because he has long had a target on his back due to some past events. So, there were fair opinions and exaggerated ones. Some people got needlessly overprotective, dismissing not only the hot takes, but even the fair criticism, because apparently we can't discern one from the other. Damiani was one of those, he definitely spoke out of line with his reply and offended both the people crapping on him and the honest people just giving their fair opinions.

That's it, we're all at fault, me, you, Damiani. Let's move on and not overreact one way ("Damiani is a terrible person, I want him out of EZA") or the other ("#IstandWithDamiani, it's a non-issue").
That's a well thought-out take which I more-or-less agree with.

The two worst parts about being an Easy Allies fan is the "got your money, don't care what you say, fuck off (with a smile)" mentality constantly displayed by the company, and the fans who handwaive even the most legitimate criticism away. I enjoy their content. I will continue to fund their Patreon and support them, just like I'm going to buy Red Dead Redemption 2 in light of the 100 hour crunch allegations. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't speak up if we don't like something. It's not the customer's responsibility to fix the product.
I have never seen that mentality with EZA and I support them through patreon since day one. I really don't know what you are talking about as they do hear criticism and usually respond to it through CoJ or so. That doesn't mean they should always listen to it. Maybe EZA isn't for you if you think it's so bad.

Nobody says you can't disagree with some of their decisions or that you have to like everythin they produce (I have disagreed with some things as well and not everything they do is my cup of tea), but it's more the way you say those things that sounds like you aren't a fan at all. You are bashing on Damiani for a couple of pages now and it's rather pathetic. it all sounds to me like you are pushing an agenda rather than being concerned with EZA. They are nothing with your criticism if it isn't contructive. It won't help them become better and it just makes you look like an ass.
 
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jondgc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,208
Let's move on and not overreact one way ("Damiani is a terrible person, I want him out of EZA") or the other ("#IstandWithDamiani, it's a non-issue").

I just want to say, completely measured, with a fresh night of sleep behind me, that I don't think I have ever fundamentally disagreed with another viewpoint on this forum as deeply as I have the criticisms of this Starlink review, haha (with the glowing exception of any alt-right nonsense that may have cropped up in the OT). I agree though that it's in everyone's best interest to leave this one behind us and move on to greener pastures! Too many amazing things coming in barely a week. I hope we have pages of discussion on Ian's secret project - I can't wait to see this thing.

Glory said:
The two worst parts about being an Easy Allies fan is the "got your money, don't care what you say, fuck off (with a smile)" mentality constantly displayed by the company, and the fans who handwaive even the most legitimate criticism away.

EDIT: Not even this scorcher by Glory can unseat the Starlink review criticisms!
 
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Hamchan

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,966
That Taylor Swift or Halo ship game was one of the best games. Well done to whoever made it.
 

Micke

Member
Oct 29, 2017
15
It's not like the review of Starlink was controversial or something dramatic. It's just that it was a bit...off. People should be able to give their opinion, negative and positive.

Didn't watch the video (yet), but it's a bit weird if Damiani called people stupid (or something similar) for disagreeing with him. On mobile so I can't watch it or quote people who noticed this.

Everyone makes mistakes and everything you write can't be perfect. That's totally fine.
 

Servbot24

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
43,155
It's not like the review of Starlink was controversial or something dramatic. It's just that it was a bit...off. People should be able to give their opinion, negative and positive.
they should and they did

and then they did it again

and again

and some more today
 
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Axass

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
1,384
Speaking of something else positive for a change:

- EZA in the recent podcast proved once again they can tackle controversial subjects with the utmost care and insightfulness when they want to. They do it rarely, but when they do it's always been like this.

- Damiani's idea for the last Friend Code turned out exquisite, despite my initial skepticism, especially due to the heavy integration of fan suggestions and thanks to the live challenge segments. I think they could actually produce an interesting limited run series from such a concept.

- EZA has been putting out an outstanding amount of content lately and is ramping up the exclusive shows production (3 Spoiler Modes in a month already) and promotion (with the quick videos on YouTube).

- Ben is Ben, so he's always great, no matter what he does. Same for that handsome, clever man that is Brandon "silky voice" Jones.

- Box Peek is about to hit, the development of new episodes seem to go much more smoothly now and Bosman will soonish be free to work on other stuff and/or possibly return to abandoned shows.

Hate & Deject
 

jondgc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,208
EZA in the recent podcast proved once again they can tackle controversial subjects with the utmost care and insightfulness when they want to. They do it rarely, but when they do it's always been like this.

Yes - this segment is extremely well done. I definitely was skeptical of their ability to handle this issue with nuanced and insightful discussion, and that's on me. To all those calling for this discussion you will not be disappointed. Kudos to the panel for how they handled this topic.

Axass said:

This is amazing, haha. Stealing this to use in the future for sure.
 

ShadyK54

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,272
Texas
- EZA in the recent podcast proved once again they can tackle controversial subjects with the utmost care and insightfulness when they want to. They do it rarely, but when they do it's always been like this.

Yup. I really appreciated the different perspectives from their other jobs as well.

- Box Peek is about to hit, the development of new episodes seem to go much more smoothly now and Bosman will soonish be free to work on other stuff and/or possibly return to abandoned shows.

*holds up "Amateur Gundam Construction" sign*


The cult has needed a new slogan.
 

Sheldon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,340
Ruhrgebiet, Germany
This controversy will really take off once Damiani claims four spots in the Top Ten EZA Reviews. But say what you will about overrepresentation, I dunno what I'd want to lose out of Starlink, Ni no Kuni 2, Fire Emblem Heroes or Breath of the Wild just to force a Bloodworth nod in there. Altho maybe Brad getting three entries was a bit excessive.
 
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