Tim Schafer is a douchebag

Yep... another GamerGate post. Yeah, maybe I should start another blog dedicated to just this. The rabbit hole keeps on going and going and going...

As many of you know, Tim Schafer has been a very vocal opposer of those advocating for people to go into the GamerGate fiasco with an open mind. He thinks that there's no discussion to be had here, the gaming industry is perfectly fine the way it is. He's attacked JonTron, promoted Anita Sarkeesian's videos, and denounced GamerGate has being 'dead.' 

He's just a man with an opinion, right? It's not like he's being PAID by these people or anything...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bw9iQSGCQAALPd0.png

Oh. Whelp... That certainly puts a damper on things, doesn't it?

 I've actually been thinking that something like this was going on behind the scenes ever since the whole JonTron thing went down... but I thought that it would be about Psychonauts 2, not some thing that nobody cares about.

Tim is a sell out, plain and simple. He promotes Sarkeesian, uses her connections to get his games funded, and then bitches on Twitter when people see a problem with this.

Anyway, I'm sure the new InternetAristocrat video will shed a bit more light on  how this all ties together. I'm kind of lost, to tell you the truth. There's some talk in the community about racketeering, which... I'm not even sure what that means, but apparently it's illegal as fuck. I think it involves something called... the Indiecade? If anyone could tell me what this is about, please go on ahead.

Zoey Quinn also doxxed Eron, her ex, apparently. Also illegal.

Hm. What else...? Well, I'd like to end this with a notice that GamerGate isn't JUST a journalistic issue. With people like as Tim, it becomes a development issue as well. People are being paid to develop and promote games in order to fit their agenda. The indie scene has been showing it's true colors over the past few weeks, and let me tell you... it's not pretty. Not at all.

I, however, am still having fun playing real games, and you should too! Hyrule Warriors is excellent.

"It's just his opinion!"

This was originally planned to be a deeper look into the Tomodachi Life video he did, but I really do think that everything there is to say about that has already been said. He jumped on a bandwagon that I'm told had no real reason to exist anyway. There are several other videos he released that had questionable timing, most notably the E.T. video. Generally, I wouldn't mind something like this. I know lots of online reviewers like to generate hits by talking about things that have been trending lately. Todd in the Shadows made an excellent video on the history of that Guardian of the Galaxies theme song, for example... but the way Yahtzee does it bugs me.

He doesn't say anything we already know. He tells us he likes Dark Souls because it was challenging, but it feels like he said this because that's what his fans wanted him to say. I know he didn't even finish Dark Souls II when he made the video for that... he was clearly fishing for hits from the Souls fanbase before they lose interest. I'm not a fan of Yahtzee's humor, but even his jokes in these videos tend to have a feeling of 'been there, done that...' Jokes about Quelaag being topless, the difficulty, and other things that were circling around Souls fans at the time. He didn't even finish Dark Souls II, if I remember correctly, and still said it was excellent, despite everyone and their mothers immediately pronouncing that particular game a disappointment.

He's a sell out, plain and simple. He just tells his audience what he thinks they want to hear, with nary an original thought to back up his claims.

But like I said, there's not really what I want to talk about today.

I've actually managed to find an example of the go to defense for Yahtzee fanboys.

"Glanced over the post to see what was mentioned about Yahtzee (since I don't know about this Sarkeeisian thing) and that article is a big crock. 

Yahtzee is, certainly, all about criticizing games. Even games which are relatively good will be insulted repeatedly by him. 

What the writer of that article fails to understand, though, is that his critiques are still entirely valid. Other critiques may mention good and bad parts of video games, whereas Yahtzee will point out the bad and put more of an emphasis on it. If you want to know if the game is good or not based on his critique, you have to discern on your own whether the bad really bothers you. 

Basically, rather than telling you what to play, Yahtzee is telling you what is bad about the games and you can make the decision on your own. Also, he doesn't hate every game he plays, he often says "this game was ok... but". He's basically saying that the game is good, but even good games have their flaws and, in his usual style, goes about pointing out and sometimes exaggerating those flaws for comedic value. 

I'm positive that Yahtzee enjoys playing many of the games he reviews... if he really hated them all as much as his videos suggest, he would have quit a long time ago."

It's an opinion! You can't criticize an opinion! - basically what he's saying. 

Yeah... I hear this sort of thing all the time whenever discussion turns to Yahtzee's worth as a critic, and I have to admit that's it beginning to seriously annoy me. 

My primary problem with this, of course, is this idea that Yahtzee is looking out for you, the consumer, by telling you exactly what HE sees wrong with the game. Except he doesn't do that! 

Yahtzee has a tendency to focus on really superficial things that don't really matter much in the 
grand scheme of things. He often makes baseless complaints that are either needlessly exaggerated, or even completely fabricated. Remember when he dismissed Kid Icarus: Uprising at E3 2010 because 'it was a rehash?' Yeah... he makes that sort of rash, meaningless judgement all the time, making it impossible to refer to him as an insightful critic. 

Like I said before, Yahtzee just says whatever he thinks people want to hear. This extends to everything he does, from how he tries to downplay Nintendo's successes in his articles (I'm thinking of his dismissal of ALBW, specifically... absolutely disgraceful!) from how he pans games for doing what he's been saying they should for years, HE PUT ASSASSIN'S CREED IV ON A GOTY LIST, among a whole host of other things.

Yahtzee's fans love him because he's predictable. He has no real original ideas of his own. He's a slave to their whims, and they know this.

Jim Sterling: "Don't worry guys... I'm taking a neutral stance. By the way, Zoe Quinn is innocent and nothing here is wrong."

I may as well turn this entire blog into an analysis dealing with everything wrong in the gaming journalism industry. There's been an absolute insane amount of mudslinging going on behind the scenes. Journalists proclaiming that gaming is 'dead,' calling all gamers misogynists, censorship of serious issues... etc. etc.

But along comes Jim Sterling, telling us that it's okay to look at things rationally! It's okay to take sides in the conflict... as long as you don't harass Anita Sarkeesian. It's okay to question Zoey Quinn... as long as you accept that she totally didn't do anything wrong.

Jim Sterling, in my mind, is trying to be the anti-TotalBiscuit in this situation. He's preaching tolerance and trying to find equal ground, but his words come off and empty and hollow... almost as if he doesn't even understand the situation. He even admits to not even watching Anita's videos! Um. Isn't that kind of thing your JOB?

I've heard lots of conspiracy theories floating around about how Jim actually kind of wants to support the #Gamergate but can't because his job prevents him from doing so, but watching his newest Jimquisition, and reading his tweets, doesn't give me that impression at all.

If anything, I think he totally deserves the 'SJW' label, despite what he says. He's defending Anita for no other reason than the fact that she is a woman who says she's been harassed on the internet. There are numerous reasons to dislike Anita's work. People didn't start to care about her background until she started making all of these outrageous claims.

Oddly, I've been noticing that although The Escapist has stopped censoring the Zoey Quinn scandal, you can't get away with speculating about how this effects Anita. I know one of my comments pointing out that people had very good reason to believe that Anita faked those threatening tweets got deleted.

So basically, The Escapist is censoring certain things, but letting other things be. I suppose that's a bit better than what certain other sites have been dealing with the controversy (Oh, Kotaku...) but it's still a disgusting practice. They're trying to get people burned out on the Zoey Quinn thing, without being able to discuss just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

If gamers keep pressing the issues, the gaming media will be forced to reform... and they DO NOT WANT THIS. Believe it or not, but there are perks for being as corrupted as they are. They like being sent gifts. They like having a laid back job where they praise the stupidest shit, theyLIKE acting all smug on Twitter.

Remember, the gaming media is basically an extension of the PR department of Xbox and Playstation. All those shit games that became successful last generation can be traced back to these people. This could be an absolutely huge blow to their business. Being forced to advertise their products through honest methods? That wouldn't end well for them at all.

What I'm saying is that the gaming media is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent change. They're scamming people, and they know it.

The Escapist on the Zoey Quinn 'Quinnspiracy'

There's been a lot of controversy in the world of video games in the past few weeks.

Mass censorships, a press trying their hardest to control a story, and indie devs scrambling to protect each other over twitter.

I'm absolutely convinced that there is nothing to this story at all.

Now, that being said, Yahtzee himself has actually been rather quiet on the subject of the controversy. No one seems to have approached him and asked for his opinion on the subject, and I can't seem to find one. Personally, I think Yahtzee is waiting to make a statement on the matter. It's a real mess of a situation right now, and picking the wrong side could be absolutely devastating to his career and reputation.

That has not, however, stopped The Escapist itself from taking a hardline stance against Zoey Quinn's detractors, and I can't say I'm surprised by that. Like most other sites, they've composed a narrative of a charming young lady being harassed by cruel, heartless soldiers of the patriarchy.

I don't know enough about The Escapist as a site to make an accurate call on why they need to support Quinn, but I imagine it's for reasons similar to Kotaku's. Short, quick, indie games that discuss social issues are easy fodder to write entire articles over. In a world where sites need to keep gathering new information every day to keep their user base coming back... well, let's just say that people like Quinn, who are much more talk than actual talent, are a huge boon.

So in short, The Escapist is protecting their bottom line. They'll throw Quinn under the bus if they absolutely have to, but they'll just brush her aside and find someone else to talk about. Yahtzee doesn't really consider himself a 'journalist' so he's not really under fire for the allegations surrounding Quinn. Getting involved, for now, would probably not end well for him. That terrible Tomodachi Life video he made is a pretty good example of him sitting out controversies, and then trying to profit off of them after people had cooled down.

I'm not even sure who Jim Sterling is, really, except that he's The Escapist's other Cash Cow and that he supports Quinn. That's enough reason to dislike him, I guess. I think he may have been the guy behind the AVGN roast, and if he was... he really, really needs to apologize to James.

I can't watch the video right now from where I am, I'm afraid, so I'll have to hold out on explaining why he's wrong about Quinn. I may edit in later, but I'll likely forget.

Now, what I do have access to is articles 'explaining' why Anita Sarkeesian had to vacate her home. Apparently, following the fall out from the GamerGate scandal, Sarkeeisan received very frightening threats on her and her family.

Of course, we figured out that she faked it herself almost immediately, but you would never have known that if you had gotten your news from these people.

I also like how they outright say that games are not immune from criticism, and then immediately go ahead and delete every comment disagreeing with all of Sarkeesian's nonsense, regardless of how well thought out they were.

Women in the industry, real developers, get lots of respect from fans. People like Quinn get slammed for more concrete reasons. Like being a terrible person, for example. Shutting down charities, promoting games through illicit methods, even the Five Guys incident. And on top of that, she's not even a real developer! Gone Home was pretty bad, but at least it could imitate being a real game!

Sites like Kotaku and The Escapist are attempting to push this idea that women are being downtrodden and abused in industry, when we know that isn't the case. Samus Aran is a beloved video game heroine. Tell me... who makes the most sexist comments about her? The gamers who love her and aspire to be as brave as she is, or the journalists who whine every time she comes out of the suit?

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.