I'll admit, it took a really long time to find a bunch of people that aren't just attention seekers.

There's a handful of things I'll watch but I am yet to be convinced it's a replacement for reading articles. I don't really mind that a youtuber can go more in-depth or I can cross source plural opinions from them and metacritic, reading an authored piece by a person I like is something I still enjoy. Edge lost that core voice, but I still think people just brush them off to quickly these days. Haven't found much of a replacement in any medium, even web writing, although I am a Luddite as I don't think I've ever touched a podcast either.

For me it'll always come back to the lack of an Ebert for games. I came to him relatively late in the day but I didn't need to check a metacritic* rating of a film he's given 4 stars or 1 star to guage if I'd want to see it. I guess youtubers are reaching that point, people use The Top Hop One and The Fedora One in a similar way to Ebert, but they're still relatively fresh faced. And they have dumb voices do there is that. I never had to listen to Ebert, probably for the best.


*In fact fuck metacritic in its entirety, it's such a shit, shit thing. Who cares if a game has a metacritic of 90, unless you care about the opinion of 3Djuegos et al

I far prefer to get info (for pretty much everything) from reading than videos or even podcasts. I like to go at my own speed, not someone else's.

Wisdom of clicks chasing crowds.

But yeah, toobers don't completely replace what I used to get from Edge but they do a much better job at some other things than Edge ever could. I paid good money, release day money, for games that I should've liked judging by the review. 10 mins watching the right people on YouTube would've made it clear that it wasn't my kind of thing.

This game is boolshet, these fuckin' controls are terrible, the design is fucking TERRRible, hyuh hyuh hyuh

The advantage of youtube reviews is of course seeing game footage but also because you may find that it isn't filtered out in work. (We have the "games" filter in place).

Few people do a good video review simply because many think they can do it on the hoof with no planning - and they also don't seem to realise that a description of the game, while useful, isn't actually a review.

I think RT is a pile of wank as well, I'm just not interested in people I have no investment with adding their 10pence. It'd be like canvassing opinions from folk on the street and weighing them against your trusted friend's thoughts.

The whole Ebert thing is analogous to me asking H what he thinks about something, it has weight that just browsing 50 random opinions doesn't, plus I know his nuances - he dislikes Edgar Wright immensely - this same line of thinking works with Kermode too, I'd take any if those over a 'fresh' rating any day, because who are 90% of those momos and why should I care?

We've always been that pathetic. There was just no outlet for it until recently.

Letting a thousand bad streamers taint your view of games videos is like letting a thousand bad forum posters taint your view of games journalism.

Matthewmatosis and MrBtongue are a world away from teens on twitch with 0 views and there's nothing wrong with those 0 views kids anyway. They're part of a generation that take selfies at funerals because that's how they express themselves. They've grown up in a world where you've always been able to share everything with everyone. They never saw the planet without the web.

H's opinion has weight.

Never thought I'd see the day.

For me, the problem with youtubers comes from the conflation of "personality" with shouting / dumb voices. There is a lack of nuance and reasoning on YouTube, or again, it's conflated with "point by point logical fallacies." We don't have a Donlan in YouTube yet. We don't even have a Stanton. I'll be fucked if we get an Ebert anytime soon.


Also fuck Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic ET Al.

The only site you need is box office mojo. RAW NUMBERS MAN

Skade wrote:

I do, i have been too lazy to cancel my subscription, despite the fact i find myself reading less and less of the contents.

This. Me too. Although I did enjoy this months Naughty Dog feature.

b0r1s wrote:

When I mentioned metacritic I was talking about aggregated critic reviews, not individuals.

If 30 reviewers all give a game 20% you can be pretty sure it's shit. Likewise if it's at the upper end you can then decide if you want to take a punt or read on places like this to get a consensus.

I think one person telling you something has got 1 star is usually enough if you understand their opinion. How many times have games got such low scores with some number of fives thrown In the mix?

That's true. Plus those guys are generally doing more than just LPs, they're having fun with the form because they recognise the inherent stupidity of it

Tempy wrote:

Sterling's YT stuff is good but he also has base experience of writing for 7 odd years. Same with Matt Lees, the Shut Up & Sit Down guys, etc

The difference between them and TopHatMan is big. Even ThatFedoraOne built on writing experience, and it shows.

I guess though, the gate for publishing 7 years ago was much (infinitely) higher than now.