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[Conor_Fool]

Guy doesn't deserve harassment but this video is my own personal hell. I've had to take 3 breaks and I'm only 5 minutes in. This top comment is too on point, hahahaha

"This legit feels like when you were young and your mom got mad at you for hogging the video game and not letting your little brother or sister play, so she tells you to get off and let him/her play and you're just sitting there watching them fuck everything up you know in your head you can do better.
Thanks for awaking that feeling for me, Dean."

Whew

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

Some of you are missing the forest for the trees.

Yes, Dean Takahashi admits he is extremely poor at some games. The Cuphead video is one example of this suckiness.

But how did this lack of skill take away from his coverage of stuff like the cancellation of Titan or the defects of the original Xbox 360? How does his platforming skill translate into his competency at writing those stories or any of the other articles he wrote in his 25 years writing for video games.

Some of you insist on the nicest terms that you would never take someone like Mr. Takahashi seriously because of this self-admitted suckiness. That his credibility as a games writer is up for question because his level of competency at playing some games is not to your standards.

I hope you understand that you're just as ignorant as the mouthbreathers on Twitter and Reddit telling him to go kill himself. Not as awful, but just as misinformed.

I completely, utterly agree with this post.

 

[Lunaray]

Disappointing to see so many apologists for online harassment and toxicity in this thread.

 

[Delusibeta]

It is definitely a preview, but if you read it, it's basically all statements of fact of what the game's art looked like and what he did in the game. It's not an impression in the sense that he made any judgment calls like "this game is good" or "this game is bad". Nothing about the quality of the game.

I guess you could call saying the game has a good degree of difficulty an opinion and therefore something that requires a modicum of competence in, but I don't think he's really saying much of anything there as pretty much every preview and even the developer's own intent is to make the game with a fair amount of difficulty.

Basically, if my wife walked by and said wow this game looks pretty and there's a lot going on, she doesn't need to be competent. If my wife walked by and said this game looks like it plays like shit, then yes she would need to be somewhat competent to reasonably make that judgment..

Strongly disagree: he describes the video as a good demonstration in "why Cuphead is fun", which I do think demonstrates that yes, he definitely liked the game. Admittedly, he proceeds to do a terrible job in articulating why he liked the game, but still.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

It took him a minute and a half.

Hyperbole is useless and weakens your point. It would serve you better to be more informed about the topic.

Because one and a half is so far away from near three minutes. I already said I might be wrong. I'm still better informed about the topic than half the people in here going "these gamerz and their git gud BS" since they most likely didn't even watch the video.

Disappointing to see so many apologists for online harassment and toxicity in this thread.

Who is apologizing it? This thread is about his comments and everyting that lead up to that, not solely about that Gamergater who started to harass him.

 

[TurnipFritters]

Guy doesn't deserve harassment but this video is my own personal hell. I've had to take 3 breaks and I'm only 5 minutes in. This top comment is too on point, hahahaha

"This legit feels like when you were young and your mom got mad at you for hogging the video game and not letting your little brother or sister play, so she tells you to get off and let him/her play and you're just sitting there watching them fuck everything up you know in your head you can do better.
Thanks for awaking that feeling for me, Dean."

Whew

You're not actually obligated to watch it.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Yeah but that requires reading, and if half of the posts on this page are anything to go by, I don't know why people are complaining. They can't/don't read articles, so why should they care what he writes?

True tho.

It was not intended as a self deprecating video. They changed the title afterwards, the original was a normal ass title a la "Gamescom preview gameplay of Cuphead". There was no other context to begin with, at least not before he started fabricating said context afterwards. The article was written after the video title got changed. Listen, I got no problem with the guy, all the best to him. I won't take anything that he writes about games seriously and I don't get how anyone would let him write gameplay related stuff. That's all.

Literally in hte article:

I came back with video that I thought was unusable, but my colleagues thought it would be funny, too.

It was always intended as self deprecation as they could've uploaded it and just had an article without an accompanying video which is incredibly common. We genuinely have no proof to the contrary of his claim.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Because one and a half is so far away from newr three minutes.

I think it's problematic and again, weakens your point when you're objectively wrong about something that is there for everyone to see.

I just don't see the upside of misrepresenting the video, especially in a way that conveniently fits the narrative you are trying to tell. If you don't remember how long it takes him, either watch it to find out or just leave it out of your post.

 

[Interficium]

Guy doesn't deserve harassment but this video is my own personal hell. I've had to take 3 breaks and I'm only 5 minutes in. This top comment is too on point, hahahaha

"This legit feels like when you were young and your mom got mad at you for hogging the video game and not letting your little brother or sister play, so she tells you to get off and let him/her play and you're just sitting there watching them fuck everything up you know in your head you can do better.
Thanks for awaking that feeling for me, Dean."

Whew

Who is the mom in this scenario forcing you to watch the cuphead video?

 

[Conor_Fool]

You're not actually obligated to watch it.

A perverse part of me says otherwise

Who is the mom in this scenario forcing you to watch the cuphead video?

What

 

[Wamb0wneD]

True tho.


Literally in hte article:



It was always intended as self deprecation as they could've uploaded it and just had an article without an accompanying video which is incredibly common. We genuinely have no proof to the contrary of his claim.

Right, and we have none in favour of it. I'm not in here trying to tear the guy down, got better things to do, and the fact the guy actually got or is still getting harassed makes me look like an asshole, despite the thread not solely being about that issue. I'm out of here now, this leads absolutely nowhere.

I think it's problematic and again, weakens your point when you're objectively wrong about something that is there for everyone to see.

I just don't see the upside of misrepresenting the video, especially in a way that conveniently fits the narrative you are trying to tell. If you don't remember how long it takes him, either watch it to find out or just leave it out of your post.

Anyone who watches it could tell I'm not misrepresenting anything to a degree where I might come across as not genuine. It's not like he's doing any better afterwards. I got the actual number wrong, yes, but watching that feels like an eternity anyway. If you think that invalidates my whole point then go ahead.

 

[Interficium]

A perverse part of me says otherwise



What

 

[Calcaneus]

So the video was meant to highlight his bad gameplay in a self-deprecating way by VB, to the point that they even pointed it out in the title. On top of that the writer acknowledges this in his initial article. But it didn't seem like he was blaming the game for his gameplay or calling it bad design, so what wrong is being done here?

I'm not understanding why a writer being bad at a game and owning up to it is deserving of anything more than some light jokes. I mean yeah, his claims of the game being difficult doesn't mean much to anyone better than him, the same way a expert player calling it easy probably wouldn't mean much to me.

 

[eso76]

Well, it's not being bad at games as much as the video looking like he didn't really care about the game at all.

But whatever, he was playing it as a convention, like, I'd imagine, dozens other games before it: not the best place to experience games, plus it probably wasn't a game he was particularly interested in and he wasn't reviewing it anyway.

I am not familiar with his work, but I trust he became a game journalist for a reason.
People attacking him are, as usual, the real losers here.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Right, and we have none in favour of it. I'm not in here trying to tear the guy down, got better things to do, and the fact the guy actually got or is still getting harassed makes me look like an asshole, despite the thread not solely being about that issue. I'm out of here now, this leads absolutely nowhere.

We have a grown man who doesn't exactly have a history of misleading and lying to his audience and who's been spoken up for by several devs and other various devs in the industry vs..... a pointless suspicion that maybe he fabricated an entire scenario up to go along with this article.

 

[Conor_Fool]

Que??

 

[MYeager]

The only skill level required to write about games is the ability to articulate in a comprehensive way about your opinion of it. I'd rather read a review by someone who has played a game or two but can describe their experience clearly so that I can decide how useful that information is to me as a consumer or not than one written by a professional tournament game player that can barely express themselves. Finding someone good at both is optimal but even then they're likely to run into a game genre they haven't experienced, or new one as emerging genres develop, and it's not going to matter for all consumers anyway.

My highest read review was a kids game mostly read by parents to determine if it was appropriate for their kids and they didn't exactly care about the interplay of game mechanics or risk/reward systems.

But it's also possible to just not be good at writing game reviews, something anyone who has read user scores on Metacritic can attest to. That doesn't deserve harassment because it's also super easy to just ignore and move on or leave constructive criticism if you feel the reviewer has areas where they can improve.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Anyone who watches it could tell I'm not misrepresenting anything to a degree where I might come across as not genuine. It's not like he's doing any better afterwards. I got the actual number wrong, yes, but watching that feels like an eternity anyway. If you think that invalidates my whole point then go ahead.

You said "three minutes or more." It's literally the first part of the video. It definitely is not a genuine statement from you. Maybe it's not intentionally disingenuous, but again you could have actually checked it (immediately realizing you are wrong) or just not included it.

I didn't say it invalidates it, I said it weakens it. I thought that was pretty clear.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

We have a grown man who doesn't exactly have a history of misleading and lying to his audience and who's been spoken up for by several devs and other various devs in the industry vs..... a pointless suspicion that maybe he fabricated an entire scenario up to go along with this article.

So self deprecating.

Looks to me like a guy who likes to make up excuses, yeah.

All found in the Gaf thread where that stuff came up.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1422272&page=4

Again, I'm out. Have fun.

 

[Crossing Eden]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1422272&page=4

Again, I'm out. Have fun.

Literally how does that contradict his statement about thinking the video would be useless to upload and his peers asking to do so anyway as a joke? Or the article itself that was written in jest? If you don't have an answer for that then try actually staying out this time after taking so many Ls ITT.

 

[Interficium]

So self deprecating.

Looks to me like a guy who likes to make up excuses, yeah.

All found in the Gaf thread where that stuff came up.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1422272&page=4

Again, I'm out. Have fun.

Where's your red lines and red text "connecting the dots"????

WHAT'S HIS CONNECTION TO ANITA?!?

 

[Crossing Eden]

Where's your red lines and red text "connecting the dots"????

 

[Glix]

Here’s where my nonapology starts. Gamers need to stop being mean to those who aren’t skillful.

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

 

[Crossing Eden]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

No he's not and no he shouldn't.

 

[TheSpoiler]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

You should try to make a comparison that isn't so drastically hyperbolic to prove your point.

 

[Niceguydan8]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

How do you know that he's not proficient at other types of games that he does review, though? He didn't review Cuphead.

Do you really think that not knowing how to air dash for a minute and a half means that he sucks at every other genre of video games where air-dashing probably doesn't even exist?

 

[Interficium]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

What if I told you a lot of game developers aren't even good at their own games.

 

[zashga]

Everything about this story is embarrassing.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

But he's not blind. He played a game badly once at a conference. And apologized for it.

This is like being an art critic who critiqued a painting upside down. Whoops! Their mistake! How embarrassing! Let's all accept their apology and move on.

 

[chaobreaker]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

Terrible analogy aside, Dean is not just a critic. He sometimes critiques games but he writes about the industry as well.

Does that make him comparable to a "legally blind art critic?" Would you bemoan an art writer with 20/20 vision for writing about the history of avant-garde art but not high renaissance art?

 

[RMI]

it's weird that we need to talk about this. I watched a bit of that video and must admit watching him not clear that jump in the tutorial was something else, and he may very well be terrible at games, but that it has turned into a thing to discuss for a week is really something.

This just seems like a don't feed the trolls situation. Props to Dean for posting that video and just rolling with it, and not apologizing to anyone about being bad at games (seriously, like did I just write that?), but it seems like the people getting agitated by this can be lumped into a camp of crazy gamer gate holdouts who are just waving this thing around as proof that games journos are bad... or something.

what is the end goal of attacking this guy? His bosses certainly don't care about whether or not he is good at games, so why the hell does anyone else. He's clearly been doing the work long enough and hasn't faced a campaign of hate for his incompetence up to now, so it's not like being good at games is critical to his function at work.

This whole thing is pathetic.

 

[dark10x]

This is true. The issue is you aren't just a rando who is not skillful. You are a critic. If you cannot play games properly and have no feel for them, you should get a different job.

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

This guy is not really a reviewer, though. Look at what he has written over the years and it should be clear that his focus is on the business and tech side of the industry. He isn't reviewing games on a regular basis and it's simple to ignore the rare times that he does.

That's why this whole situation rubs me the wrong way. Dean DID NOT review Cuphead. He was never going to review Cuphead. He barely ever reviews games period. Whether or not he's fit for his job isn't even up to us to decide.

His lack of skill certainly deserves criticism (and I was floored by how awful that video was) but the situation has changed - he is being attacked and threatened. It's bullshit and I'm sick of it. It is not right.

I'm mortified by just how MEAN everyone has seemingly become as the internet becomes more prolific. It's just a sea of assholes treating others like absolute shit for no reason. Compassion, empathy, caring etc...all dead concepts to so many.

 

[CosmicQueso]

It's like being a legally blind art critic.

JFC

 

[galvatron]

While the hate this guy received is nonsense, I feel like Dean is doubling down on telling people that they're wrong to expect an expert opinion of someone giving a "review". I'm fairly familiar with Dean Takahashi's writing from VentureBeat and, as he clearly discloses, he's much more a business journalist than a game reviewer.

Imagine if you read a book review and it complained about the complex vocabulary employed in telling a story and later you see a video of the person reading the aloud and struggling to read fairly common words...one would not be rude for dismissing the value of that person's opinion on the effort involved in enjoying the book if they thought they could read it much easier. However, it would be very rude to write to them and berate them over their reading trouble, which seems to have happened quite a bit...

I feel sorry for the abuse the guy received, but I also feel like he hasn't been aware of how video reviews have democratized criticism. His "joke" video gets presented in the same context as reviews from dedicated video game publications and he should have taken that into consideration when making it.

 

[Crossing Eden]

While the hate this guy received is nonsense, I feel like Dean is doubling down on telling people that they're wrong to expect an expert opinion of someone giving a "review". I'm fairly familiar with Dean Takahashi's writing from VentureBeat and, as he clearly discloses, he's much more a business journalist than a game reviewer.

Imagine if you read a book review and it complained about the complex vocabulary employed in telling a story and later you see a video of the person reading the aloud and struggling to read fairly common words...one would not be rude for dismissing the value of that person's opinion on the effort involved in enjoying the book if they thought they could read it much easier. However, it would be very rude to write to them and berate them over their reading trouble, which seems to have happened quite a bit...

I feel sorry for the abuse the guy received, but I also feel like he hasn't been aware of how video reviews have democratized criticism. His "joke" video gets just as much if not more exposure than reviews from dedicated video game publications and should have been while taking that into consideration.

No one is supposed to be treating this as a review......and fresh perspectives can if anything offer a good critique. Hell often times reviewers are playing games they straight up aren't used to playing. You think all the journos who got paid to review Nier A were CAG fans? And there's the issue that he didn't offer anything but a positive review.

 

[chaobreaker]

While the hate this guy received is nonsense, I feel like Dean is doubling down on telling people that they're wrong to expect an expert opinion of someone giving a "review". I'm fairly familiar with Dean Takahashi's writing from VentureBeat and, as he clearly discloses, he's much more a business journalist than a game reviewer.

Imagine if you read a book review and it complained about the complex vocabulary employed in telling a story and later you see a video of the person reading the aloud and struggling to read fairly common words...one would not be rude for dismissing the value of that person's opinion on the effort involved in enjoying the book if they thought they could read it much easier. However, it would be very rude to write to them and berate them over their reading trouble, which seems to have happened quite a bit...

I feel sorry for the abuse the guy received, but I also feel like he hasn't been aware of how video reviews have democratized criticism. His "joke" video gets presented in the same context as reviews from dedicated video game publications and he should have taken that into consideration when making it.

Another terrible analogy. Dean was overwhelmingly positive over Cuphead even as he was struggling with it during that video.

 

[level1]

I'm not even going to debate the harassment, because it's pretty obvious that whoever displays this kind of behaviour is fucking scum.

But I just watched the original video and..am I the only one who thinks that the instructions in that tutorial were not presented intuitively AT ALL? I honestly think that trying to figure out that second jump in a similar manner to Dean is going to be very normal for most players

 

[Niceguydan8]

I'm not even going to debate the harassment, because it's pretty obvious that whoever displays this kind of behaviour is fucking scum.

But I just watched the original video and..am I the only one who thinks that the instructions in that tutorial were not presented intuitively AT ALL? I honestly think that trying to figure out that second jump in a similar manner to Dean is going to be very normal for most players

To me it seemed fairly obvious as somebody who has prior knowledge of an air-dash, but I do see a lot of room for improvement in order to make it easier to understand for those that don't already know the mechanic. They do a good job of showing the parry jump and instructing the player to use the third parry jump to jump up to the ledge with an arrow. I feel like they could probably do something similar with the jump. Show an arrow indicating the jump and then show a horizontal line where the player is supposed to dash.

I also think they could move the dash prompt in between the two pillars rather than more towards the right.

I think the best solution as I see it is to introduce the jump, introduce the dash separately, and then introduce the obstacle that they have in currently. Introducing the dash as an air-dash just seems kind of strange.

 

[Zojirushi]

Fuck man it's that ridiculous Doom situation all over again. Games community stays being the worst.

 

[888]

So self deprecating.

Looks to me like a guy who likes to make up excuses, yeah.

All found in the Gaf thread where that stuff came up.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1422272&page=4

Again, I'm out. Have fun.

A dash is usually horizontal not vertical. I was like jump off the rock and press Y dammit.

 

[PSlayer]

It rubs me the wrong way that this person is trying to frame his ineptitud at even clearing a tutorial going viral as "GG is going after me", i mean, i only know what this person did because Tumblr was having a laugh at it.

I understand what this whole "let people be new to games and be bad at games" is about but seriously, it sounds like trying to distract the fact that he was being made fun of for being unable to follow basic instructions literally spelled out for them in the screen.

It's disingenuous to frame the mockery as gate keeping when, for example, gamers all around the world mock Egoraptor for the same thing in his let's play videos (ie, falling to read instructions and then struggling with the game).

Pretty much this

 

[Dali]

He shouldn't be harassed but I watched as much of that video as I could tolerate and I think he really doesn't understand exactly how bad he's playing. I mean he got hit by the first flower guy in the level almost every time in the span I watched. There's one enemy on the screen and you [should] know when and where he is coming from and you can't avoid taking damage from it?

 

[galvatron]

No one is supposed to be treating this as a review...... You think all the journos who got paid to review Nier A were CAG fans?

So, if no one is supposed to be treating it as a review, why are you bringing up qualifications for reviewers? And full disclosure, I don't know what CAG stands for in this context...

To answer what I think you're getting at with your question, if you find proof that you aren't likely to agree with a reviewer you should probably get a second opinion. That video was proof for some people that they would disagree with him. An opinion on a game has exactly as much value as the listener wants to lend it...but, harassing him/ threatening him about any of that was completely out of line.

 

[Niceguydan8]

So, if no one is supposed to be treating it as a review, why are you bringing up qualifications for reviewers? And full disclosure, I don't know what CAG stands for in this context...

To answer what I think you're getting at with your question, if you find proof that you aren't likely to agree with a reviewer you should probably get a second opinion. That video was proof for some people that they would disagree with him. An opinion on a game has exactly as much value as the listener wants to lend it...but, harassing him/ threatening him about any of that was completely out of line.

Character Action Game, I think.

Nobody is treating it as a review because it's not a review of the game. Or rather, the people that have any knowledge about the actual video and article realize that it's not a review. There's nothing to suggest it is a review, so I have no idea where anyone is getting that from.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I agree with everything except his assertion that the game should be accessible to people of every skill level.

Dean, I get it. You're an incredibly valuable asset to the industry, and you have way, way more knowledge on most of this stuff than the rest of us. But devs should not be compelled to dumb their games down to such an abysmally low skill level.

 

[level1]

To me it seemed fairly obvious as somebody who has prior knowledge of an air-dash, but I do see a lot of room for improvement in order to make it easier to understand for those that don't already know the mechanic. They do a good job of showing the parry jump and instructing the player to use the third parry jump to jump up to the ledge with an arrow. I feel like they could probably do something similar with the jump. Show an arrow indicating the jump and then show a horizontal line where the player is supposed to dash.

I also think they could move the dash prompt in between the two pillars rather than more towards the right.

I think the best solution as I see it is to introduce the jump, introduce the dash separately, and then introduce the obstacle that they have in currently. Introducing the dash as an air-dash just seems kind of strange.

Agree 100%, the steps you outline above would be very useful in making it more intuitive. I think given that it's a tutorial most players will be in a frame of mind where there they follow instructions very literally, so if an instruction just says "dash", most people won't immediately figure that they have to go back to the previous obstacle, jump off it, and then dash

 

[MHWilliams]

So, I try to stay away from topics and gaming side on a regular basis like this, but here's a lengthy article I wrote that should hopefully illuminate the process and thinking behind similar situations as the one Takahashi found himself in.

 

[Crossing Eden]

So, if no one is supposed to be treating it as a review, why are you bringing up qualifications for reviewers? And full disclosure, I don't know what CAG stands for in this context...

Character action games. I didn't bring up qualifications for reviewers, you did. It's a positive preview that just happened to have a guy who had a hard time with the game because he's not used to platformers.

To answer what I think you're getting at with your question, if you find proof that you aren't likely to agree with a reviewer you should probably get a second opinion. That video was proof for some people that they would disagree with him. An opinion on a game has exactly as much value as the listener wants to lend it...but, harassing him/ threatening him about any of that was completely out of line.

One incredibly common outcome of game previews is that the people doing said previews from hands on sessions at conferences are usually not the people who're also writing a full review.

 

[Aressa]

Does the game controls badly or something? Becuase I watched the video and i'm not the most skilled player but that was really bad.

I'm sorry Dean.

 

[Yukinari]

It rubs me the wrong way that this person is trying to frame his ineptitud at even clearing a tutorial going viral as "GG is going after me", i mean, i only know what this person did because Tumblr was having a laugh at it.

I understand what this whole "let people be new to games and be bad at games" is about but seriously, it sounds like trying to distract the fact that he was being made fun of for being unable to follow basic instructions literally spelled out for them in the screen.

It's disingenuous to frame the mockery as gate keeping when, for example, gamers all around the world mock Egoraptor for the same thing in his let's play videos (ie, falling to read instructions and then struggling with the game).

Its amazing cause Arin does it on a daily basis and shows no will to improve so youd think him of all people would try to use the internet as an excuse.