E3 2014

I may as well start off my first real entry with the elephant in the room. The absolutely despicable, misleading, and blatantly incorrect five minute long video Yahtzee released for E3 2014.

Well, to be more specific, it's the last minute or so that I have issue with. And looking through the comments on the video, I'm not exactly alone in my opinion.

It's not exactly a secret that there's been a bit of a dissonance between what makes the fans excited and what makes the press excited. While fans are much more interested in new games to play, the press is primarily interested in making money off of ad revenue.

Which, as you all know, is why the observers of E3 almost universally agreed that Nintendo had by far the best showing at the conference, while they were absolutely blasted by the press at large. There's quite a few reasons for this, namely that Nintendo Directs are quickly making sites like IGN redundant, The way they talked, you would think the only fascinating thing shown was Smash, and maybe Mario Maker. Splatoon in particular was swept under the rug by the press, while becoming absolutely huge with the fanbase the instant the trailer finished playing.

In his own way, Yahtzee is no different than the rest of the press. He knows his audience wants to see him slam Nintendo, so that's what he does, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to do so. He only mentions five games at the conference, and glazes over what they actually are: he dismisses Splatoon in a sentence.

You can bet on Yahtzee making a huge deal about how much he hates Smash 4, by the way. His Brawl review is still his most viewed video, last time I checked, and he's been very vocal since then about how he hates fighting games. I wouldn't be surprised if he reviewed the game twice, just for more views and exposure.

So yeah, on the whole, the video is not informative, not accurate, and is most certainly not very funny.

So just who is Yahtzee, anyway?

There are a lot of things you could say about the study of video games as an art form. In recent years, the idea that video games can be art has been a huge driving force behind the growth of the medium. Games are advertised as if they were movies, critics are calling every new release 'The Citizen Kane of gaming', and most people have absolutely no problem with this. 

Gaming has become a sort of hive mind, filled with pretentious people who don't understand what they're talking about. This isn't exactly a secret, but it is only now starting to become a problem. The Anita Sarkeeisan's, the Zoe Quinn's, the Ben Kuchera's, the Colin Moriarty's, the Adam Sessler's, and others in the industry are known for having absolutely toxic opinions in the industry that, to be completely honest with you, make absolutely no sense to me. 

And then you have Yahtzee. 

Yahtzee is a bit of an anomaly. Although he is strongly associated with the Escapist, as he is one of their most notable content providers, his fan base has a weird aversion to other critics on the site. Actually, generally Yahtzee fans don't have much respect for any other journalists in the industry at all. Comments from completely unrelated critics, such as Angry Joe, always have a swarm of Yahtzee fans dismissing everything that particular critic is saying, simply because Yahtzee disagrees. 

Well, why is this? Maybe Yahtzee often makes good points...? 

No. 

What you have to understand is that Yahtzee's appeal is nothing more than a simple fascination with the fact that he rarely likes anything he plays. He's extremely well known for attacking popular franchises, such as Super Smash Bros, Zelda, and Mario. Everyone who discusses Yahtzee brings this up. 

Yahtzee claims he is primarily a critic, and not a journalist. Although I do have to concede that this is true, I staunchly believe that Yahtzee isn't a particularly good critic. In fact, I'd argue he's actually pretty terrible. He doesn't understand basic game design, why sequels are so beloved in the medium, or what makes games so fun to talk about.  

In short, I feel he's ignorant, short sighted, and far too eager to please his fans. And I'm not alone in this! 

And thus, this is why I started this blog. Yahtzee does have many, many detractors, and for good reason. But I have not seen any detailed explanations for exactly why that is, and have decided to undertake the task myself.