Does Yahtzee Not Know How to Have Fun Anymore? | Semi-Ramblomatic

The "mollifying statement": Of course, you're well within your right to say "I don't play games to have fun". The critic's job is a hard one, in which having fun is not always possible when trying to analyze and dissect the object of study for evaluation. The "but fuck you": It does bear mentioning that most of your audience probably does have "fun" as their main objective when interacting with the medium. And sure, we can quibble on about what "fun" comes down to for each individual, but that's not the point, is it? The point is that mixing up the reasons you do your job with the reasons you get paid to do your job might be what got The Escapist in hot water in the first place way back then, and ignoring that might just mean gaily skipping down good ol' memory lane once again. And I don't think anyone here wants that for Second Wind. The "hard pill": Academia doesn't pay Second Wind's bills, and as far as I know you aren't bankrolled by the Medici. You crowdfund your current business model. And, up to a certain point, your livelihoods depend on your wider audience extracting something of value out of your opinions. And to do that, at least some portion of the audience has to relate to your output in some capacity. You can disregard that for a while. After that, you're irrelevant.

While I agree that the twist at the end was a massive cop-out, imagine how great it would have been if he said the same lines and was wrong.

Some weirdly triggered comments here. At the end of the day I’m here listening to you and the rest of Second Wind because I respect and trust your expertise, not necessarily because I agree with your tastes. I tend to broadly agree but to riff on one of Yahtzee’s sayings, “nobody ever says that you should just turn off your brain and have fun if the other aspects of the game were great”. Or to put it another way, people are fine with RE9 turning ibto DMC halfway through but would probably support DMC fans if DMC6 turned into the first half of RE9 partway through and they were unhappy about this. Keep doing what you’re doing guys.

Though it is quite possible to forget how to have fun, I've found this is usually attributable to a mental health issue (e.g. depression, etc). However I agree in your case, I agree that it isn't that you have forgotten to have fun. It is that you are doing this in a professional capacity so you actually have to compartmentalise your feelings of having fun or not having fun as a seperate point of data in a larger analysis of the work that your a critiquing.

It’s an interesting argument Yahtzee, unfortunately it breaks down completely when you realize there is no “best” in matters of tase. There is only “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. People don’t go to game critics like you to determine what the objectively “best” game is, but rather whether they will subjectively like the game. In that context “is it fun?” Is probably one of the most important questions for you to answer, considering most of your audience is concerned about enjoying a game, not judging art. It is confusing to me, therefore, when you speak as though your job isn’t to let your audience know whether they will subjectively like a game or not. It come across as pretentious.

I do struggle to take seriously anyone who unironically uses the term “bootlicker”. It’s like “Chud” or “SJW”. I hear that and my brain goes “Nope, this person’s not worth listening to.”

Speaking as someone who used to be a whiny little turd murderer, I think complaints like that come from people on auto-pilot; they're based in a low capacity for self-reflection, and instinctual defensiveness. There're things I disagree with Yahtzee about . Maybe even some takes I feel I could criticise. But even in that, I have a better understanding my own perspective, and the perspective of others. It should be fun discussing differences in taste and values. There's plenty of toxic negativity on the net; deliberate shit-stirring that can destroy the joy of a piece of media, but that's not what Yahtzee (or anyone of Second Wind for that matter) does. It's fine to call out or disregard bad faith discussions, but if you lash out at good faith, it just comes across as emotionally insecure.

I enjoy dominos pizza and taco bell, but those don't equate to the best experiences for Italian or Mexican dining respectively. I think it's perfectly fine to enjoy a cheesy game and at the same time recognize what cuts it short from greatness.

All due respect to Yahtzee but this isn't the first time someone's accused him of not knowing how to have fun and it won't be the last. This isn't even the first time he's directly addressed these comments. I hope he understands that the vast majority of people still appreciate his work, not just ZP/FR, and part of the reason we're here is because he's so skilled at what he does. I also think it's worth noting that, sometimes, video games are allowed to be gratuitous so the people who enjoy bombastic action and hype moments can have their fun too. Whether or not the second half of RE9 was "fun" or not, most people can agree that the second half is weaker to a decent extent and hunting for the bomb parts was tedious. But I also understand that a lot of people enjoy a good setpiece sequence or action sequences in a game that was otherwise scary for half of its runtime. People like parrying and styling on zombies in a manner similar to DMC with the dude who inspired Dante. And that's okay, a well designed combat system is satisfying to a lot of people. I don't care for puzzle games but I'm not going to complain that the Legend of Zelda is bad because there are too many puzzles and not enough world exploration. And I think that's the disconnect that Yahtzee is having. He can appreciate a good action game but it won't tickle his brain the way a good word puzzle does. That's why the phrase "it's not for me" is so useful. It's the separation of one's personal preferences to appreciate something that you can understand the appeal of but ultimately don't internalize for one reason or another. I just hope this sort of thing doesn't get to Yahtzee and he receives this feedback in the manner it was intended: people who, while they disagree with his takes on more than a few things, we ultimately understand his point and are still entertained by his ability to communicate it intelligently and comedically

First: Yahtz, WTF are you doing replying directly to a Youtube comment? Do you just enjoy pain? You might as well put your dick in the garbage disposal. I mean, yeah, you can probably get views on it and therefore income, so yay for that, but it's inevitably going to get you a hurricane of BS comments from people trying to force you to engage with their points. (Yeah, that also counts as engagement which leads to income but... you're gonna lose a LOT of brain cells reading through all that. Unless you have an intern you're trying to torture by making them triage it??) Second: My experience of watching your reviews, going back many many years, is that I haven't played the vast majority of games you review, and I'm mostly here for the colorfully profane metaphors and complaints rather than the detailed analysis. I haven't played RE9 yet but I did watch a streamer I like, who is generally intelligent and knowledgeable about games, play through it and he had an absolute blast (and screamed a lot; he's a self-described chicken) and I had a blast watching him play (and scream/curse). So when one of your criticisms of the end was "It wasn't realistic/believable!" my reaction was a flabbergasted, "Yahtz, have you MET Resident Evil?!" That doesn't mean I think you're bad at criticism in general, just that you kind of missed the ball here. And there's so much INCREDIBLY BRAINDEAD AND CRAPPY media "criticism" out there on Youtube (Shitical Stinker, anyone?) that it's off-putting to see what -- to me -- seems a pretty shallow and thoughtless criticism arising from a person who usually makes thoughtful and smart comments (and also profane. Really, really profane.) Like it or not, if you don't support your critical -- or commendable -- points well, you're going to get roasted about that. I mean, you're going to get roasted regardless but there's a difference between being mindlessly roasted by CHUDs and being carefully basted and sauteed by people who can effectively support their opinion that you Done Fucked Up. A recent example: there was this one popular but extremely stupid Star Wars Youtuber who said the "Andor" series was "bad" because "It had bricks and screws and that's not Star Wars!" Except it totally is Star Wars and apparently his real beef was that there weren't enough lightsabers in the show (like, zero) and he makes money creating replica lightsabers, ergo, "SHOW BAD CUZ ME NO MONIES". He got roasted so hard (deservedly) that he flounced off in a huff proclaiming he wasn't going to "waste his time" on "Andor" any more. (Don't let the door hit you where the Maker split you, pal.) If anyone hopes to be taken seriously as a media critic, do not be that guy. Support your points. Every one of them. Or it's fine to just say "Idunno, something just didn't click", as long as you don't pretend that constitutes a well-supported critical argument.

Don't sell yourself short Yahtz, you can be an expert. After all, ex is something that has been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.

I watch Yahtzee for his takes and humour. Granted I learned through years accept other people having different opinions about creative works. So I feel pretty comfortable with his takes. Same goes for any other review really. I read them as accompanying pieces. If I completely disagree, I just leave at that.

One point of disagreement. You can say "It's good just not for me." as a critique because you can still recognize quality even if you don't like the item. In fact, as a critic isn't it your job to acknowledge you may not be the target audience? It doesn't mean that everything is good because someone likes it. It means some people like bad things.

I've been watching you for more than 20 years now, and your ability to be blunt and direct and use ridiculous metaphors is a large part of your charm. I also remember the 80's, and I know for a fact that large media companies will absolutely shovel shit games at us until we lose faith in the medium if they think it will make them money. More than telling me what's "the best", I lean on you to tell me when the hype train has got out of control and to help me avoid wasting my money on the new ET game. I greatly appreciate knowing when something is bad and why and how it's bad and to have that wrapped up in hyperbolic potty humour. But I think all of that is a lot less entertaining when you point it at your audience. We're all here paying money per month so you can make videos. There are obviously way more of us than there are of them. So what is this? A plea for solidarity? Are you just antagonizing your audience? Is this the most interesting thing you have to say right now?

What's weird to me is that, if anything, it feels like Yahtz goes a little easier on games than he used to in the early days. I came away from his RE review thinking it was mostly positive.

The real value of criticism is analysis and insight about media. Whether it's "good" is manifestly *not* what professional criticism is for, not least because (as YC says in the video) there's no such thing as an objective review. Someone purporting to be a critic could certainly write "you'll probably like/hate this" as a guide to whether you think you're going to have fun, but that can be surfaced by looking at things like audience ratings on Steam: If it's got a lot of positive reviews, I probably will like it. *Probably.* Just like if a critic says I'll probably like it. But critics can do more than that: They can (and, I believe, should) provide the aforementioned insight and analysis about art. What does this work say about the author(s)? What does this work say about society and culture? What points is it trying to make? What implicit or explicit values does it convey? That sort of thing. If all one cares about is "is game fun??" then that's fine, and there are plenty of places to find out if game fun. But insight takes a very different kind of effort and experience than "is game fun" and we'd be poorer without it.

I trust Critics to provide information on what makes the subject of their review good. Critics are very right about the new Mario movie. It does not tell a good story. It's just fan service. Sure we may not like critics poking holes in the ballons if our joy parade, but if they didn't do that, we will get carried away into slop valley.

Never stop wanting more from art, or they’ll give us the bare minimum they can get away with

When I hear statements like this I think of this quote, "Sometimes you what a fine stake, sometimes you just want a cheeseburger. But regardless of which one you want, you what it to be well made." Then I think of Yahtzee comparing himself to the Food critic from Ratatouille, and I feel like he's lost lost what its like to just enjoy a cheeseburger. Nothing wrong with high standards, and he is right that as a video game critic he goes in with a different mindset from everyone else. That said, its that mindset that made the food critic miserable until he was reminded WHY he loves food so much. I think Yahtzee has just lost the reason why he loves video games. Hence this entire rant that seems more like he's filling air, rather than taking someone else's criticism of him.