Clarifications on Cuphead, etc.

/begin ramble/



Okay, so what I've observed (but never learned to put into action) is that divisive topics simply don't translate into healthy conversations on Twitter. I'm also prone to losing my temper and telling people to go fuck themselves. I lose my patience easily these days, often when I see people making gross generalizations about groups of people (and yes, I'm guilty of this myself at times) or attacking others unfairly, unkindly, or with so much outrage and insistence that no matter *what* someone may have done, I feel like defending them.



So with this whole Cuphead thing... I don't like the dog-piling, the ganging up. I think it's very natural for other journalists to come to their friend's defense, whether or not they think his gaming skills are defensible. I don't know this person and feel utterly unqualified to judge them. I'm also a Jesus freak and seriously took his words to heart. "He who is without sin, throw the first stone." Yeah, I do that shit too. But I try not to. I try to be better than that because there but for the grace of god go I.



I don't like one video being the determining factor in someone's ability to do their job, either. I don't like what I see so often, which is people calling for people to lose their jobs over something trivial. I've had other game journalists call for my head in the past, and I will say this as clear as I can: I will never do the same no matter how much of a dick I think someone is. No matter if I think that yeah, it is odd to be bad at playing video games if your job is to write about them.



Do I think that game journalists should be good at games? Obviously that's a big factor in being able to properly critique games, and I strive very hard to be as skilled as possible at *as many games and genres* as possible. I don't always succeed (MOBAs are my enemy) and I'm probably past my peak, but I try. Many others are much better than me. Another big part of this job is being able to write, and I'm not sure which is more important, but I'd lean toward "being able to write." We're not Twitch streamers or eSports pros, after all.



I think some who write about the game industry can get away with not being good at games because they're covering business, not reviewing games, and if that's the case I say...stick to the business angle, don't do reviews. But by all means, still write about games. Write about how you're bad at games. Make it funny. Write for those people out there who are also bad at games but still like them. But be careful if you're going to review a game that's maybe too hard, because that might not be fair to the men and women who worked so hard to make that game.



But even so, regardless, I find it unbecoming to pile on. It rubs me the wrong way. And as a game journalist, what I see each time this happens is a chorus of gamers and YouTubers mocking game journalism writ large. I'm told that this is a strawman on my part and that this isn't actually happening, but it does.



And while I've spilled a great deal of ink criticizing the way game journalism works and defending gamers from spurious attacks from game journalists, I still find it discouraging and depressing to constantly see *my profession* under attack, and often unfairly. I know many great game journalists who are both skilled players and writers and put up with all sorts of bullshit from fanboys. I am regularly told I should be fired, that I must be "unethical" that I'm "biased" that YouTubers are where true gamers go (that bastion of ethics, YouTube!) and so forth. Sorry, if you don't deal with this you probably don't know how disheartening it is.



With this Cuphead incident I'm not defending any one journalist. It certainly isn't an 'ethics in game journalism' question. I'm saying that we should be less quick to judge, less demanding of rolling heads, and less...angry all the time? It seems to me that the internet has become a constant den of outrage.



On many sides.



I find myself frayed around the edges. Unwilling to jump into the mix. Unwilling to say what people want me to say, because I believe in readership capture and I see it all the time. I don't want to tell people what they want to hear just because it will make me more popular. And I certainly won't tell them what they want to hear just because it will avoid controversy. T



So no, I don't agree with the piling on over the Cuphead video. I also don't think that anyone who is very bad at playing games should review them. I just can't muster outrage over it. Hey look, now you know not to put much faith in this specific person's reviews. That's useful knowledge. Now let it go. Outrage is a strange drug. Righteous outrage is even more narcotic. And it's far, far too easy to get sucked into this addiction online these days. Social media is a crack pipe.



I guess what I really want is to do the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And this isn't always easy. And it doesn't always make you popular. But it's a worthy goal. So I'm sorry if I've been an asshole on Twitter. These days, sometimes I don't know what to do.



/end ramble/

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