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[CecilRousso]

However if he can't get even the basic idea of movement in a videogame correct, should he be a trusted source to review them?

It's possible to think about that, come a conclussion, decide to read his texts or not, and do so without kicking up a big fuss on the internet, like what happened now.

Even if we for the sake of discussion disregard the absolutely worst people that actually threatened him and wrote racist stuff, we're still left with weirdly large group of people, who piled on to him, mob group style.

 

[Tain]

Dude seems like a fine writer.

I will not be going to Dean for opinions on 2D action games to dig into.

 

[vareon]

I read the original article. It is literally about Dean Takahashi sucking at Cuphead. He's not even giving any opinion on whether Cuphead is good or not, the article is just about how he sucks. It was not a review, it was barely even a preview.

The article is pointless, but he can write whatever he wanted. I guess some people are insecure enough that they have to point out how other people suck at videogames.

 

[Chun-Li]

As someone who had once designed games and watched people play, as painful as it is, this is actually normal.

The job of a designer, depending on the type of game, should be the ones that need to figure out if they should be catering to that group, and if so, there are many strategies to help players, especially in a tutorial like this.

I have seen people unable to do a simple jump attack in a fighting game tutorial in a playtest. Literally 30 minutes and the person couldn't do it.

Some simple solutions resolved that. Like telling them to use a specific button (the one with the most active frames). Also explaining that you should press the button as you're falling. Not while rising.

Edit:

We also ended up adding a tip prompt that occurs over time. And an option to skip so people don't get stuck on a concept.

 

[nynt9]

This whole thing was annoying and the 'yeah I see that the dogpile was uncalled for but he was very bad at the game' folks are nearly as annoying. Don't put the two on even footing. Ian Miles Cheong is a shithead of extreme proportion and nobody made him gatekeeper to the video game journalism business. And, by the way, if we're talking about a minimum level of competence before being allowed to partake, then he should have had his Twitter account revoked several thousand years ago because he is an idiot and wrong about eighteen different things on any given day.

I mean, this isn't a competition. We don't have to pick a side. IMC is a piece of shit, Dean doesn't deserve harassment for this, dean's play was embarrassing and him saying the developers previously worked on super meat boy is also embarrassing, gamergate is garbage and needs to go away. One can hold these opinions simultaneously and without equating their severity.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Its his job to review things. Even if he isnt reviewing something at the time, the fact that he was that incompetent was sad and a really bad impression if thats a typical experience when he plays games.

Also, holy shit at your second paragraph. The tutorial is literally the most blatant and obvious tutorial ive seen in years. LMAO

That's not his job right now though. He reports on the video game industry, he doesn't critique video games.

 

[Orb]

This thread is full of this:

You can critisize something while also not agreeing with people taking it too far.

 

[Pejo]

Man I miss the days when we could just laugh at someone sucking at games without people getting shitty and harassing each other or getting political and self important with a rebuttal about it.

Video games, am I right?

 

[Gotdatmoney]

A dude sucking at video games is not a big deal. If you genuinely think this is an issue whether he did or did not follow game instructions is so irrelevant. Leave the dude the fuck alone. He had a laugh at himself. It's pretty jokes. Now leave it alone.

Again, a hate storm over this is embarassing.

 

[Hektor]

This thread is full of this:

uhh

Feel free to point out those posts, i'm genuinly not seeing it.

Saying "But the gameplay was indeed pretty bad" isn't justifying hate spread by antman and his crew

 

[MUnited83]

Solving a logic problem for 6 year olds is not being skillful.

 

[Orb]

That's not his job right now though. He reports on the video game industry, he doesn't critique video games.

Considerimg this just came out, he clearly still does reviews and coverage.

Like if hes great at writing about the industry and things other than the games themselves, hell yeah! But when writing about games SPECIFICALLY and not the things surrounding them, he should habe some competence playing them.

 

[peakish]

So the guy won't be reviewing the game, was mocking himself for being bad at it and didn't think the video was good enough to be posted in the first place.

It's embarrassing that this has become a controversy. People got played by fucking IMC of all people.

 

[Mooreberg]

Man I miss the days when we could just laugh at someone sucking at games without people getting shitty and harassing each other or getting political and self important with a rebuttal about it.

Video games, am I right?

Not really a new phenomenon. This happened last year with Ploygon playing Doom.

 

[Crossing Eden]

You can critisize something while also not agreeing with people taking it too far.

Considerimg this just came out, he clearly still does reviews and coverage.

You're exactly the type of person the original article is talking about.

In the video, Dean struggles with the tutorial and fails to pass the first stage. To paraphrase one YouTube comment, it's like watching an artificial intelligence slowly figure out how to run and jump at the same time. It's difficult to watch, and that made us at GamesBeat laugh. Dean is no professional esports athlete, and he's a good sport about being made into the butt of a joke. So he uploaded the video. But many viewers didn't see the humor. Instead, a lot of people are using this single video as evidence that people like Dean don't have the basic skills required to adequately assess games. Dean reviews about a dozen games a year and goes to lots of preview events, but most of his time is spent writing business stories about game and tech companies.

The preview wasn't barely even a preview. let alone a review and was uploaded as more of a self deprecating joke more than anything. To call into question decades of experience as a result of that is ridiculous.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

This thread is full of this:

Well that quotes a load of shit.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Considerimg this just came out, he clearly still does reviews and coverage.

Nothing regarding that video that just came out is him critiquing the game though. It's him playing the game poorly.

Believe it or not, not every single journalist is a critic for every single game they do a piece on.

Is somebody that reports on what movies are coming out doing the same thing as Roger Ebert had been?

 

[Tesser]

My reaction to this whole thing is essentially: "...but why would I want to watch someone embarrass themselves playing a game?". I don't get this small microcosm of the video game journalist/writer community who think it's a great idea to devote an entire video of gameplay to them playing it badly/wrong. All it does is put me off watching your content. Plus with the state the internet/community is in now, people are of course going to skew and perceive things in a number of ways.

 

[FaustusMD]

He wasn't even paying attention to the tutorials on screen when he played. It wasn't just his gaming skill that was lacking, it was his attention span.

As for the rest, I don't condone witch hunts. Everyone involved is childish.

 

[Interfectum]

Even if that video was a legit review and he gave it a 1/10 on metacritic this whole thing is still overblown. People need to get a grip and stop taking game reviews so personally.

 

[BTA]

So, I agree that you shouldn't hate people because they're bad at gaming, and any kind of harassment about this shit is infantile, gross and unacceptable. But about the justifications he offers for not playing the game well... he's a game journo? He is expected to have a certain degree of skill, he's in the business of playing games for a living. Even if he wasn't working at the time, he was doing what he's supposed to do well enough to earn money for it.

Should I, a portly 35 year old, play as a striker for FC Barcelona on the grounds that nobody should be discriminated for not playing football well? Should we have "bad gamer" quotas on magazines? Was it really necessary to shoehorn Trump in all this?

I'm sorry, but this sounds like blame deflecting, and not even a good example of it.

He recorded some video of a game at a convention; this isn't fricking eSports.

Even if he was objectively bad at a game (and again, convention environment here; I don't think he is), you can do some fantastic writing about games without actually being good at them. You are buying into the exact GG rhetoric that Ian shared this video to promote.

No, it is not normal and never should be. But he is REALLY downplaying how bad he was doing. Literally ignoring the tutorial text to try and work it out himself. This wasn't a lack of skill moment, it was a video'ed brainfart.

Its only worth it for the chuckle though. It has no meaning past that.



The section said press a button to jump and then, in the air right before the column, press x to dash. Seemed pretty clear to me.

The dash arrow is closer horizontally to the column than I think it probably should be; I feel like showing the player how to close the gap is more important than showing you can get over the column? I think actually showing the full path of the jump and the dash would be clearer.

Again, not specifically for someone who's used to games, but for the wider audience who might check a game with this aesthetic out. And it's not like people are going to feel patronized to by showing that path.

As someone who had once designed games and watched people play, as painful as it is, this is actually normal.

The job of a designer, depending on the type of game, should be the ones that need to figure out if they should be catering to that group, and if so, there are many strategies to help players, especially in a tutorial like this.

Basically this.

 

[JeffGrubb]

Its his job to review things. Even if he isnt reviewing something at the time, the fact that he was that incompetent was sad and a really bad impression if thats a typical experience when he plays games.

Also, holy shit at your second paragraph. The tutorial is literally the most blatant and obvious tutorial ive seen in years. LMAO

It's not his job to review things.

 

[Orb]

You're exactly the type of person the original article is talking about.

Yeah, and? I completely dont think someone that is inept at an interactive medium should not write about them to people who are influenced by their writing. Just because he thinks he can, doesnt make it fact.

I have no hate towarss gaming journalism and defend it when i can, but this video wasnt just humor. It was awful gameplay that he turned into humor after the fact to save face.

I know he rarely reviews things anymore, but thats irrelevant. If an actor rarely does roles anymore, theyre still expected to do well.

 

[tuxfool]

He wasn't even paying attention to the tutorials on screen when he played. It wasn't just his gaming skill that was lacking, it was his attention span.

As for the rest, I don't condone witch hunts. Everyone involved is childish.

Yup. This is a concise summary of the issue.

 

[Interfectum]

Yeah, and? I completely dont think someone that is inept at an interactive medium should not write about them to people who are influenced by their writing. Just because he thinks he can, doesnt make it fact.

I have no hate towarss gaming journalism and defend it when i can, but this video wasnt just humor. It was awful gameplay that he turned into humor after the fact to save face.

Did you even read the article?

 

[Hektor]

It's not his job to review things.

He is professionally reviewing games.

 

[time allen]

I mean, this isn't a competition. We don't have to pick a side. IMC is a piece of shit, Dean doesn't deserve harassment for this, dean's play was embarrassing and him saying the developers previously worked on super meat boy is also embarrassing, gamergate is garbage and needs to go away. One can hold these opinions simultaneously and without equating their severity.

OK, point taken: don't pick sides between the guy who, already nursing a boner for taking it to the Video Game Journalism Elite, knowingly instigated harassment, and the guy who is just simply not very good at Cuphead. Got it. Writing this out on my arm in sharpie for future reference.

 

[FF Seraphim]

Is this generating as much hate as that Doom video last year? I cannot remember who it was but someone who was either previewing or reviewing Doom just could not seem to play the game at all and boy were people not happy.
Of course my memory is fuzzy on that so I do not know if said journalist used his bad gaming skills to call Doom bad or not...

 

[Henrar]

Like how he gave Mass Effect a bad score because he didn't understand he could assign skill points?

http://kotaku.com/339632/takahashi-amends-mass-effect-review

Imo this guy should not be a professional reviewer/journalist.

Doesn't ME have a tooltip and a tutorial that explains that every time you level up you receive talent points?

 

[Crossing Eden]

Yeah, and? I completely dont think someone that is inept at an interactive medium should not write about them to people who are influenced by their writing. Just because he thinks he can, doesnt make it fact.

I have no hate towarss gaming journalism and defend it when i can, but this video wasnt just humor. It was awful gameplay that he turned into humor after the fact to save face.

No it was literally just humor. As was the preview. Which started with the following sentence:

I suck at Cuphead.

for a positive preview that's more an attempt at self deprecation more than anything from a guy who barely reviews games in the first place.

I think it shows quite well why Cuphead is fun and why making hard games that depend on skill is like a lost art.

So again using this as an example that a guy who isn't mainly a reviewer in the first place is ridiculous.

 

[Kalor]

This whole thing was dumb from the start. It was a good article to address it but the idiots who got mad over it aren't going to read it anyway. The fact that he posted this and other videos in the context of being bad should have prevented any of this in the first place.

 

[Orb]

Nothing regarding that video that just came out is him critiquing the game though. It's him playing the game poorly.

Believe it or not, not every single journalist is a critic for every single game they do a piece on.

Is somebody that reports on what movies are coming out doing the same thing as Roger Ebert had been?

I literally said coverage after reviews.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

My reaction to this whole thing is essentially: "...but why would I want to watch someone embarrass themselves playing a game?". I don't get this small microcosm of the video game journalist/writer community who think it's a great idea to devote an entire video of gameplay to them playing it badly/wrong. All it does is put me off watching your content.

So you're not the intended audience. That's fine. Doesn't mean it shouldn't exist or it should be used as an excuse for people to act like assholes. And yes even if you are going to say "that's not what I said", focusing on "I dont like thing" as opposed to actual harassment happening does show you're priorities are in the wrong place.

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I'm inclined to give the guy slack because he wasn't actually reviewing the game, honestly. It's like the infamous video Polygon put out of Doom - yeah, it's kind of embarrassing, but it's just one guy's video preview and not a proper review, so it's not like the website is damning the game because the reviewer was inept at it. (Although I guess they kind of implicitly are doing that, surely at least some people will see the video and think it's the game at fault rather than the player.) I do think the footage of the guy playing the level is worse than the tutorial despite what he says though; the tutorial bit is goofy but the stage is just twenty minutes of him holding right without trying to comprehend anything about the game at all lol.

Venturebeat probably shouldn't have posted the video. Not that they or Takahashi deserve to be genuinely harassed or attacked over it, of course, but it seems like a bit of a mistake to me.

This whole thing was dumb from the start. It was a good article to address it but the idiots who got mad over it aren't going to read it anyway. The fact that he posted this and other videos in the context of being bad should have prevented any of this in the first place.

The video's title was amended after it went viral, actually. Originally it was just "26 minutes of Cuphead gameplay" or something.

 

[antitrop]

Is this generating as much hate as that Doom video last year? I cannot remember who it was but someone who was either previewing or reviewing Doom just could not seem to play the game at all and boy were people not happy.
Of course my memory is fuzzy on that so I do not know if said journalist used his bad gaming skills to call Doom bad or not...

The person that recorded the DOOM footage for Polygon was not the same person that reviewed it. The reviewer ended up giving it an 8.5.

 

[Orb]

No it was literally just humor. As was the preview. Which started with the following sentence:



for a positive preview that's more an attempt at self deprecation more than anything from a guy who barely reviews games in the first place.



So again using this as an example that a guy who isn't mainly a reviewer in the first place is ridiculous.

Its already been said that after he played he brought up how the devs said it was "merely" difficult, which means he was actually blaming the devs at first.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

I read the original article. It is literally about Dean Takahashi sucking at Cuphead. He's not even giving any opinion on whether Cuphead is good or not, the article is just about how he sucks. It was not a review, it was barely even a preview.

The article is pointless, but he can write whatever he wanted. I guess some people are insecure enough that they have to point out how other people suck at videogames.

You can see some in this very thread.

 

[SummitAve]

Vid looked like me trying to play Super Ghouls n Ghosts. I'm sure I could find an RTS, strategy game, puzzle game ect... that would make somebody who is super good at platformers look like a fool. There are so many types of games out there and so many different ways to experience games that I don't understand how you can create these artificial standards of play for people who write about games.

 

[BTA]

Like how he gave Mass Effect a bad score because he didn't understand he could assign skill points?

http://kotaku.com/339632/takahashi-amends-mass-effect-review

Imo this guy should not be a professional reviewer/journalist.

Doesn’t ME havE a tooltip and a tutorial that explains that every time you level up you receive talent points?

This was almost a literal decade ago, my dudes.

My reaction to this whole thing is essentially: "...but why would I want to watch someone embarrass themselves playing a game?". I don't get this small microcosm of the video game journalist/writer community who think it's a great idea to devote an entire video of gameplay to them playing it badly/wrong. All it does is put me off watching your content. Plus with the state the internet/community is in now, people are of course going to skew and perceive things in a number of ways.

If he hadn't posted it they wouldn't have any coverage of Cuphead at Gamescom; it's that simple. It's what he had, so they posted it.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Its already been said that after he played he brought up how the devs said it was "merely" difficult, which means he was actually blaming the devs at first.

It's almost like this was written in jest or something:

It was a bad sign when I took a long time to figure out how to jump off a stone and dash through the air to get over a bigger stone. Moldenhauer said the proper term was "challenging," not "difficult." But I quickly put the lie to that terminology.

There are a variety of ways to die unexpectedly. I died by jumping into a bush instead of jumping to a cliff. I think you'll all agree that at the very end of the video, it was very unfair that I died by jumping into the forest canopy. I think you'll agree that life isn't fair, at least in Cuphead.

Sounds super serial to me.

 

[Daffy Duck]

I should stream myself playing games badly on twitch, people can mock me all they want.

 

[SummitAve]

My reaction to this whole thing is essentially: "...but why would I want to watch someone embarrass themselves playing a game?". I don't get this small microcosm of the video game journalist/writer community who think it's a great idea to devote an entire video of gameplay to them playing it badly/wrong. All it does is put me off watching your content. Plus with the state the internet/community is in now, people are of course going to skew and perceive things in a number of ways.

That's your own generalizing fault though. It's absurd to take his video out of context and apply it to all content. I honestly don't know how you even get on that path of thinking.

 

[NotLiquid]

He sucks at the game, no way around it - but maybe I'd have more sympathy for people criticizing his occupation if he even pretended he was reviewing it, let alone having a bad opinion on the game. While this calls into question my opinion on his capacity to review Cuphead (emphasis being Cuphead, not games in general), it doesn't make me think he's suddenly unfit to be a games journalist because that's a field that has to do with more than "feed my confirmation bias".

Based on Dean's history of being a journalist he seems to be pretty qualified to actually be a journalist within games. The video going up unedited was probably a mistake, but the only thing it should be taken as is as being a goof. A joke. Something to gawk at. But instead it became something it shouldn't be, and the fact that people will only see things that aren't there speaks to how infantile gamers still are.

Customers aren't stupid. If the only thing you are so concerned about is "a thing you like" being presented in a bad way then let me tell you; a customer can easily make an informed decision without you having to go to bat and invalidate someone else's experience. A customer could probably easily tell that Dean isn't playing the game right. There's no reason to care about his video beyond something to laugh or gawk at unless you're just incredibly scared that people are going to get the wrong idea of the game, in which case let me reiterate again; people aren't fucking dumb. Who gives a shit if someone doesn't like the game or that someone is left off with a negative impression despite them "not getting it"?

Not every game is for everyone but that doesn't mean games as a whole aren't for everyone. You can make a bunch of colorful analogies here but fact is; this guy isn't reviewing Cuphead, so his "skill" at the game is pointless. Call his game play what it is, but calling for his head in the field is where the line was effectively crossed, and I shouldn't expect any more from Ian Miles Shitface who's the most insecure motherfucker in the field.

 

[spad3]

Hmm...

Guy calls himself a professional plumber. Opens pipe under sink without turning water off.

Gets called out and ridiculed for not doing his job properly.

Is guy really professional plumber?

No.

Does he deserve to be ridiculed? Probably not.

But did his mistake go viral? Yes

Should he bitch about his mistake? Probably not.

 

[DrunkShogun]

He seems to be merging two thoughts. No one should ridicule a gamer if they struggle with a game but a journalist should be competent. In any field they write about you expect some level of quality. It did escalate quite a bit but that's the internet I suppose.

 

[Orb]

It's almost like this was written in jest or something:




Sounds super serial to me.

Ok, ill take the L on that, I only knew of that from twitter without a full quote. My mistake there.

Still, the video was put out as coverage, and is not clear that its self deprecation or anything. Every place i saw the video jyst advertised it as a demo with gameplay, and it took him several minutes to get passed the tutorial.

 

[TurnipFritters]

It is mind blowing that people are mad at him.

 

[Anung]

Him being harassed by shitheads like Ant-man obviously sucks. Fuck those pricks. Not going to lie though that it, like the polygon DOOM video, did make me chuckle.

On the wider topic of should gaming journalists be skilled at gaming? I'd argue no and they should primarily be good writers/journalists who write thoughtful articles about games. However, I think people who review games should at least be competent at understanding games and their mechanics if they want to offer a critical evaluation of a game. Unless the review is through the lense of someone who is unskilled at games.

The whole things a shitshow really.

 

[Interfectum]

Hmm...

Guy calls himself a professional plumber. Opens pipe under sink without turning water off.

Gets called out and ridiculed for not doing his job properly.

Is guy really professional plumber?

No.

Does he deserve to be ridiculed? Probably not.

But did his mistake go viral? Yes

Should he bitch about his mistake? Probably not.

The fact you are equating a plumbing mistake that could lead to hundreds of dollars of damage (if not more) to a guy playing a piece of entertainment badly says more about you than him tbh.

 

[benicillin]

Lots of people I respect in the industry thought that the hate this guy was getting was absolute garbage, so I'm going to side with them.