1679: Countdown

Tomorrow is a bank holiday here in the UK — a public holiday to you Americans; I'm not entirely sure why we place so much emphasis on the "bank" part, aside from the fact that it means the banks are usually shut — and also my last day of "freedom" before I become a cog in the corporate machine.

I've mentioned before that I'm actually quite looking forward to starting my new job. It's a daunting prospect, of course — it's a new place of work, new people to work alongside, a new role and a whole new industry to be a part of — but it's something that I'm eagerly anticipating, rather than dreading. Why? Well, partly because it's something new to do, and something that will help me feel like I'm leading a more "normal" existence — as pleasant as the freedom of working from home can be, it's a lonely existence that can become surprisingly stressful and trying after a while, particularly when you have no-one around you to bounce ideas off or just vent a bit of stress — and actually building a career rather than just constantly treading water.

The other reason is something that's become readily apparent since I stepped back from the games industry. In fact, it was already becoming apparent when I was still involved with it. And that "something" is the confrontation that seems to be at the heart of the various parts of the industry's interactions with one another on a daily basis.

Frankly I don't want to get into a discussion of what's been going on recently because it's all been done to death elsewhere, and it tends to lead to frayed tempers on all sides. If you're that curious, I'll point out that it started here, passed through here and will hopefully end here and leave you to make your own mind up, perhaps with some of your own research filling in the blanks. If you're shocked at what you read — if indeed you can be bothered to read all of it, since there's a whole lot there — then good, you should be; there are plenty of things under discussion that need examining without one side complaining about "social justice warriors" and the other complaining about "neckbeards". But unfortunately that's never going to happen because the games industry has a collective mental age of about 14 — and yes, I count all sides of the debacle in this group in this instance — and is thus unable to discuss anything reasonably or rationally without immediately jumping to the most extreme viewpoints possible.

I'm happy to be out of it, frankly. My new job may be in a somewhat more stereotypically "boring" sector — utilities — but I can pretty much guarantee that said "boringness" (and I use that term relative to the dynamism of the games industry) will bring with it a lovely atmosphere of calm in which people don't feel the need to aggressively state and restate their views on a daily basis; in which Internet hate mobs aren't dispatched to harass and belittle other people; in which I can just get on with my work, come home in the evening, switch off and just enjoy some video games.

Two more days to go then. Hopefully my posts towards the end of this week will continue with a positive outlook!

1676: Cleaning Up

Following yesterday's post, I've been having a social media cleanup. This started with the unfollowing of about a hundred people last night — some of which I felt a bit guilty about, as I'd previously considered them friends; in other cases, they were former colleagues that I'd thought I might stay in touch with. That already helped a great deal, but there was still some unwanted noise on my feed, largely through retweets and Twitter's irritating new habit of adding other people's favourites and random tweets from other people's followers to your timeline. Those people were swiftly blocked so hopefully I will never have to encounter them ever again.

All this may seem somewhat harsh, particularly for a platform as open and public as Twitter is. But some reflection has revealed to me that it's really the only way to handle it and stay sane. And it's not, in fact, all that harsh at all, really, when you compare it to real life: after all, we carefully cultivate our real-life friendship groups and, over time, tend to whittle them down to groups of people that we particularly like, enjoy spending time with and have something in common with. We — well, I — don't try to be friends with people just because I feel that I "should" be friends with this person. That's high school stuff, trying to get "in" with the gang of cool kids; that way lies only madness, or at the very least a life where you're unwilling to be able to just be yourself with confidence.

And so Twitter is the same for me, now, particularly now I don't "need" it for industry networking and the like. My Following list has been whittled down to the people I actually enjoy interacting with — a healthy mix of game enthusiasts, game developers whom I have some sort of personal connection with (even if that's just having met them and enjoyed a chat with them), anime fans, and a few people I know in "real life". I'm no longer following people I feel "obliged" to follow — people who are often held up on a pedestal as being "important" to some cause or another — and I'm not following any celebrities. Insufferable arseholes who get retweeted into my feed are quickly blocked without mercy — no sense feeling guilty about it, since I probably wouldn't want to follow them anyway — and those who do nothing but indulge in lame hashtag games for hours on end are also swiftly removed from my following list, at least temporarily; permanently if I haven't actually spoken to them for a while.

It's kind of sad that we've got to the stage where this level of "friendship curation" is necessary, but it's a side-effect of the social media age and the fact that the Internet has brought us in touch with far more people than we'd ever be able to have met in reality. I'm pretty sure there's an "optimum" number of friends or acquaintances for a person to have, and over and above that level everything just starts contributing to an overall, growing amount of white noise — noise that occasionally becomes intolerable. I'm gradually — hopefully, anyway — finding a good balance that hopefully won't drive me mental, and which hopefully won't necessitate me abandoning the genuine friends I have managed to make via Twitter.

In the meantime, I'm trying my best to migrate a lot of gaming discussion over to the Squadron of Shame forums, which you can find here. While the Squadron of Shame was originally a group of people who came together on the 1up forums, I know I for one would be very happy to see some new blood over there, too — particularly if you are, like me, the sort of person who'd rather have a lengthy, wordy discussion about a favourite, underappreciated game than think that "lol" or "cool story bro" is in any way a valid contribution to a debate.

Hopefully I won't have to write about this sort of thing again for a while.

1675: Two Negatives Make Even More Negatives

Today has been one of those days where I've been considering jacking Twitter in altogether. What was once a friendly, fun, enjoyable place to hang out — and a place where I've been able to make a lot of friends I otherwise would never have come into contact with — is rapidly becoming an echo chamber filled with people that I don't particularly want to associate with. It's becoming somewhere where I don't feel particularly welcome.

I shan't get into details as the latest spate of Twitter outrage is plastered all over the Internet and really doesn't need any more publicity, but I will say that, as usual, both sides of the argument in question are acting like complete tools. There's the aggressive, unpleasant, filthy undercurrent of the Internet supposedly harassing people for their beliefs and supposed transgressions, and on the other side, the people defending themselves and their friends often stoop to personal insults, hypocrisy and outright ranting. Anyone left in the middle, wanting to take a rational viewpoint on the whole thing, is left branded as an awful person regardless of how much sense they're actually speaking — if you don't stand on the side of the group that has painted themselves as the "good guys" then you're worthless human garbage, no better than those that are supposedly sending "death threats". (And don't even get me started on the semantics of how that term is liberally misapplied.)

At the core of this never-ending parade of outrage, argument and public shaming is a group of people who claim to believe in "social justice". Who wouldn't want to stand up for social justice, right? The trouble is that the term "social justice warrior" has picked up severely negative connotations owing to the behaviour of some of these people supposedly fighting on the side of equality, freedom, all that good stuff. Which is daft, when you think about it — as previously noted, who would say they were against social justice?

And yet the criticisms of many of these "social justice warriors" and the way they go about their business are often valid. They use aggression, harassment, sweeping generalisations, public shaming — many (though, it must be said, not all) of the tactics they are quick to condemn the seedy underbelly of the Internet for — to get what they want. Disagree with the way they do things and you're "tone policing". Disagree with some of things they are saying and you are a misogynist, sexist, transphobic, terrible person who should be hounded until the end of time until you apologise, and then hounded further when you are forced into an apology because it somehow wasn't good enough. The people involved make this group huge, influential — and quite often in possession of a really quite unpleasant mob mentality.

I'm utterly sick of it. I don't care. It sets me on edge. It makes me anxious. I'm nervous about even posting this in case one of these armchair activists gets hold of it and decides to twist my words into something that doesn't even resemble what I originally said — as happened to YouTube personality "TotalBiscuit" earlier today.

This surely isn't what these people want. This surely isn't a good way to go about raising awareness of social issues. Certain quarters of Twitter now scare me and make me feel like I can't talk about certain things for fear of reprisals — from the side that paints themselves as the forces of Good. I've done my best to ignore, unfollow and even block the people who are most unpleasant about all this, but it's still not the friendly, welcoming place to hang out that it once was. And that really, really sucks.

I've culled my Following list by a hundred people this evening. If that doesn't filter out this never-ending, anxiety-inducing noise, I'm setting my account to private. If that doesn't work, then it's time to say goodbye to Twitter — for good this time. I wouldn't be the first from among my group of friends to do so — for these exact reasons — and I probably won't be the last.

1662: Moving Pictures

Call me a traditionalist, out of date, out of touch, whatever you like, but I'm really not a fan of the current obsession with video as the be-all and end-all of publishing things online.

I have numerous feelings about this, not least of which is the fact that as a former member of the gaming press, it smarts to see my particular skillset — writing compelling words about my specialist subjects — being sidelined in favour of video, but as a consumer of online content, it also frustrates me immensely, too.

Put simply, I like to read. I prefer to read. If I see an interesting-sounding link on social media, I'll read it if it's text, but if it's video I will, nine times out of ten, not watch it. And this is true whether I'm sitting at my computer or browsing on phone or tablet — though it's particularly true when I'm browsing on a mobile device, since due to patchy network reception and exorbitant data charges, watching video on the go is often, to say the least, a somewhat subpar experience. Text is much more desirable in these circumstances. (This is to say nothing of live broadcasts, which are even less desirable than video on demand to me.)

There are types of content where it's simply easier to refer to text, too. Take game guides or tutorials in general, for example; while video can show you the things the creator is trying to teach you in context, it's difficult to refer back to specific points or cross-reference things, whereas this is a snap to do with text. Again, if I'm using a mobile device to browse this information, I much prefer having the information open in front of me to keep referring back to, rather than watching a video and having to take as much in as possible, perhaps over the course of several viewings. It just doesn't seem like a very efficient means of delivering information — particularly when that information is complicated.

This isn't to say video can't work, of course. Video is a great means of delivering educational content that you passively absorb rather than actively refer to while working on something. Crash Course on YouTube, which my friends Mark and Lynette introduced me to recently, is a good example of this.

And video is great for comedy, when said comedy has been written to be performed in the form of video. Glove and Boots is my current favourite example of this:

I just get a bit annoyed when people make sweeping declarations about video being "the future" of online content, as if those of us who still like to read words on a page rather than watch and listen are somehow irrelevant. Like so many other things, there are plenty of different tastes out there, and lots of different ways of doing things. Rather than only pursuing one to the exclusion of all others, let's accept that fact: continue to provide relevant, interesting content to all people and all tastes, not just the fashionable, young market who, at this point, are obsessed with video. My individual opinion may not matter all that much, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person out there who will close a tab without checking out an "awesome" link if the link turns out to be just another video.

1646: Tongueface

I can't remember if I've blogged about this before or just pondered it on Twitter — and, writing this on my phone from bed, I can't easily check — but what the hell. Let's do this!

I do not know what the tongueface smiley — a colon followed by a P — means. Or rather, I have the odd feeling that a significant number of other people in the world think it means something different to what I think it means.

To me, tongueface smiley represents someone sticking their tongue out, and that in turn is something that I've always considered to be a mild rude gesture — a childish, non-offensive and somewhat light-hearted alternative to flipping someone off. You'd perhaps use it as a response to someone gently mocking you, or revealing a piece of information that, while not earth-shattering or mortifyingly embarrassing, you'd still prefer wasn't public knowledge.

Here's an example of how I expect it to be used:

Phillipe: You're putting a shelf up? Can you even do that? I thought Andie wore the pants when it came to DIY.

Pete: :p

Or possibly:

W'khebica: Hey, everyone, did you know Amarysse fell off Titan Extreme on the first Geocrush?

Amarysse: :p

You see? Both situations where, were the conversation happening face to face, you might want to actually stick your tongue out, assuming you are seven years old.

However, I've noticed an increasing use of tongueface smiley as a form of punctuation — a la the use of "lol", which thankfully seems to be dying down a bit — and I honestly can't get my head around it, much how I couldn't get my head around how people could possibly be laughing out loud at the most seemingly mundane and stupid things.

I'm not against the use of smileys per se — I use them myself quite a lot as a means of making things like flippant comments abundantly obvious — but I remain confused by the current and widespread (arguable) overuse of tongueface smiley.

Perhaps I'm just too old to understand. :p

1601: On Not Assuming the Worst is the Most Representative

I had an interesting conversation with my friend Calin the other day. Calin is someone I've known for quite a while, have shared lots of interesting and enjoyable gaming stories with over the years — mainly through the Squadron of Shame — and even managed to meet face-to-face on one occasion at PAX East in 2010, an event which, as a whole, I regard as the last great thing in my life before everything came crumbling down shortly afterwards. (I have since largely rebuilt my existence, but there's still some work to do after that chaos.)

Anyway, the point is: Calin is, if you must put a label on such things, a "gamer". And yet he confessed to me that he's not entirely comfortable admitting that any more, for fear of being lumped in with what he regards as "gamers". His definition of gamers, it transpires, are those who are the most vocal on the Internet, and often the worst examples of the gaming community. They who shout loudest get the most attention and all that.

This is, of course, a gross generalisation about the entire community of people who enjoy computer and video games, and I said as much in our conversation. The IGN and Gamespot comments sections are not representative of the entirety of humanity who enjoy computer and video games, in other words; there are plenty of other people out there who don't rage and swear at one another, who don't tell writers to kill themselves over reviews they disagree with, who don't act like spoiled children when things that they, personally, aren't interested in show up.

And yet I can understand Calin's position somewhat. As I noted above, those who shout loudest get the most attention, and it's entirely natural to start believing "gamers" as a whole are the scum of the Earth if the representatives of the community you seem to hear the most from are the ones who are acting like complete tools.

In vaguely related news, earlier today I observed a Twitter exchange between the members of Witch Beam, developers of the excellent upcoming arcade-style shoot 'em up for PC, PS4, Vita and Wii U, Assault Android Cactus. They were feeling disheartened by a tweet from a member of the Gamespot community who made some disparaging remarks about Sony "only" having titles like Assault Android Cactus — smaller-scale, lower-budget but no less interesting or enjoyable games — to show at E3, while Microsoft was promising that its Xbox One-centric E3 presentation would focus on games, presumably triple-A by implication. I commented to them that it's not worth worrying about the opinion of people who believe that triple-A is all there is to video games. In a way, those people are also judging something in its entirety by a small subsection of it — in this case, that anything outside the big budget triple-A space is somehow unworthy.

The important thing in all this is to remember that not everyone agrees on everything, and not everyone behaves in the same way. For some people, trash talk and being a jackass online is just part and parcel of the way the modern Internet-connected world works. For others, they prefer to spend their time actually playing games rather than typing comments or tweets to each other online. And for others still, they prefer to engage in intelligent, lengthy discussion about things some people may not have heard of. (I kind of straddle the latter two categories.)

Of those groups, the people acting like jackasses are but a small part of the whole. They're a problem, for sure, and it's difficult to know what — if anything — it's possible to do about their behaviour. (Hint: It's not posting lengthy social justice-themed editorials on the sites they frequent; that just makes them defensive and even more inclined to be obnoxious.) But here's the important thing: they are not everyone. They do not represent an entire medium. They do not represent the entirety of people around the world who are interested in games. Chances are, in my experience, there's a considerable amount of crossover with those people who believe in nothing but triple-A.

Fuck those guys. If you enjoy games — however you enjoy them — enjoy them in your own way, and never, ever feel ashamed of something you enjoy because of the behaviour of people you probably have nothing to do with on a regular basis. In an extreme case, simply think back to how it all was before the Internet came along and ruined rational discourse for a lot of people; everyone could enjoy video games without feeling ashamed, guilty or disgusted then, because you never, ever came into contact with the more objectionable parts of humanity. Simply stay out of comments sections and only talk about games with your friends, just like things used to be. Works out pretty well for me, personally.

And if you're one of the jackasses I've mentioned in this post? If you've ever told a writer to kill themselves over giving a game an 8 when you thought it deserved a 9? (For those who don't frequent gaming sites, this actually happens on occasion, though it's usually over more extreme differences of opinion.) If you believe there is only one "true" way to game, and that everyone else's interests and passions in one of the most diverse creative mediums in the world is somehow invalid? Take a good, long, hard look at yourself and decide whether or not that's the person you really want to be.

1569: Life Gets In the Way

I was chatting with my friend Lynette earlier about various things, and the subject turned, as it often does, to anime. Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a lengthy spiel on how emotional the ending of Angel Beats! was — though I did watch the last episode today, so expect some thoughts on that shortly. No, instead, it's going to be about the frustrating feeling of discovering things that you really like when it feels like it's almost "too late".

I don't mean that I'm too old for anime or related media, of course — I really hope the day never comes when I feel like I've "grown out" of the things I love today — but rather I feel like the opportunity to enjoy and share these things with friends has been, to a large degree, mostly lost.

I mention this because of my aforementioned conversation with Lynette. Aside from this blog — where, as we all know, I'm pissing in the wind — Lynette is one of the few people I have the opportunity to enthuse about anime with on a fairly regular basis. And it's somewhat frustrating to both of us that we're several thousand miles apart and consequently unable to get together regularly for cocktails, popcorn and a few episodes of some favourite anime series, perhaps educating one another on recent discoveries that we want to share. It's something we'd both really like to be able to do — indeed, we have done it before, on the occasions when I've had the opportunity to visit her and her husband Mark (also a close personal friend, and also someone with whom I can enthuse about anime) in Toronto.

This is one unfortunate side-effect of the whole "global village" (hah, bet you haven't heard that term since a '90s issue of PC Format) thing the Internet has brought about. It's never been easier to find like-minded friends who share the same interests and passions as you, but the thing people don't mention about that seemingly great development in socialisation is how frustrating it is to not be able to get together with those friends on at least a semi-regular basis. (Unless you're loaded enough to be able to simply hop on a trans-Atlantic flight at a moment's notice whenever you fancy it, in which case I think I hate you a little bit.) I have friends literally all over the world — America, Canada, the Middle East, Japan, Australia — who I would love to hang out with and do all sorts of mutually enjoyable things with (no, not that sort of thing, pervert) but am unable to do so. I'm fortunate enough to have these friends in the first place, of course, but by gosh, I sometimes wish they were just around the corner so I could drop them a text, invite them over for an anime evening and subsequently have an enjoyable time.

Why not ask your local friends, you might wonder. Because my local friends all have their own passions and interests — and, with us being the age we are (we're not in university any more!) a lot of them are doing distinctly "grown-up" things like grouting their bathrooms (whatever that means) or having children. I certainly don't begrudge them any of those things, but it can be sad and frustrating when it's difficult to get people together for anything more than the most cursory of social occasions. Life gets in the way, in other words.

So, uh, anyone local want to hang out and watch some anime? We have popcorn.

1507: Why I Went Back, and The Fear

I was going to write about something else today, but after Mr Russ Pitts kindly linked to a piece I wrote this time last year in an excellent article regarding online abuse and trolling, I felt I should probably elaborate on some things that have happened since then.

Firstly, despite what I said in that piece, it transpires that I did eventually go back to Twitter. Why? Because, to be frank, I was lonely; I have a lot of friends on that social network, and it was difficult to stay in touch with them via other means. It's also a particularly convenient means of reaching out to people for my current profession.

So I went back. However, I did so under a new username and a new email address — and being much more mindful of what I shared in my 140-character bio.

This is in itself kind of silly, really; I have to effectively "silence" an aspect of my personality based on my previous experience, and cannot be fully open about the things I enjoy or love, because it might attract organised bile and vitriol not just towards me, but towards people close to me, too. Thankfully, on the few occasions I have happened to mention ponies recently, things have passed without incident — I suspect the charmers at the "GNAA" have moved on to new victims by now.

Thinking of all this brings up an important consideration that I don't believe a lot of Internet commenters stop to think about before spraying vitriol over an article they disagree with: the fact that the words you read on the Internet are, for the most part, written by an actual person with a brain, a heart, a soul and, you know, feelings. People disagreeing over various things is a fact of life — the world would be a boring place if everyone felt the same way about everything, as The Lego Movie suggested in a somewhat hamfisted way — but it's the way you go about those disagreements that is important to consider, because arguing your case in the wrong way — or wilfully misreading or misunderstanding something someone has said — can have a severe impact on their mental health.

I've been fairly open on this blog about my own self-esteem issues and occasional feelings of "imposter syndrome" — the feeling that one day, you might be "found out" and have everything taken away from you. I consider myself hugely lucky to have the job I have, working alongside people I have respected enormously for many years — since childhood in at least one case. There are days when I feel like I'm even quite good at what I do — but there are also days when I seriously consider throwing in the towel and going to do something "invisible" with the rest of the drones in the daily workforce.

The difference between those two types of day can often be just a single comment. Just one, regardless of how many otherwise positive or supportive comments you might have that day — one single, unpleasant, negative or abusive comment can completely ruin the day of someone like me.

I'm not saying all games journalists are like me — though from some conversation during the establishment of TakeThis.org, which Russ mentioned in his post, mental health issues of various descriptions are alarmingly widespread in our profession — but it's surely just basic human decency to not, in effect, walk up to someone and start hurling abuse at them. And yet it happens. And not just from inconsiderate gamers angry about the score you gave Titanfall, either; sometimes even people who claim to be fighting for worthy causes can be needlessly aggressive, confrontational or even abusive, too. It's a plague across the whole Internet.

This leads to what I call The Fear, which in turn leads to what Russ talks about in his post: the assumption that "do not engage" is the only way to deal with bullying, abuse or even just plain unreasonable comments. There are days when I write things and I'm genuinely afraid to look at the comment section — it's an irrational fear, I know, but it's what this age of anonymous abuse has wrought.

And what a ridiculous situation that is, when you think about it. People who write for a living — many of whom are considerably more talented than I am — are subject to The Fear on a daily basis. You never can tell what it is that's going to attract the next batch of abuse, or death threats, or defamation, or simple spitefulness. It's a horrible feeling.

And yet we still stick around, for the most part. Why? Because even amid all this, we love what we do, and we love engaging with those people who like to have a reasonable discussion about things without necessarily agreeing on everything — those people who, if we're honest, make up the majority of our feedback. Sometimes we even become friends with those people.

But as I say, it only takes one nasty comment to undo all the good those people do for us. Just one.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could live in a world where we could just love what we do without having to worry about The Fear ever again?

One day, perhaps. But there's a long road ahead before we get there.

1494: Another Pledge for Positivity

Earlier today, my friend (and former copy editor) Keri posted this Pledge for Positivity. And it's something I applaud; there is too much negativity around right now, for a variety of reasons. Things being taken out of context and branded as offensive; groups of fans berating each other for the most ridiculous of reasons; those who enjoy niche interest entertainment branded with less than complimentary names; those who enjoy mainstream entertainment branded with less than complimentary names.

I'm not going to say "this has to stop" because that causes people with a stick up their arse to start bleating about "tone policing". Instead, I'm going to try and follow Keri's example and remain focused on the positive things in life: the things I enjoy, the things I feel passionately about, the things I want to share with people. Things I don't like? Fuck 'em; I've got better things to do with my time than waste on discussing things I have no interest in or attempting to have rational debates with people who have no interest whatsoever in being rational. Such is the way of the Internet.

As it happens, making such a pledge for positivity isn't all that far removed from what I generally try and do day in, day out on the Internet anyway. I steer well clear of whatever issue-du-jour people are angry about on Twitter today, and instead focus on talking with the people who share similar interests, but not necessarily identical tastes. Enjoyable discussions inevitably result; just the other day I had a lengthy discussion with someone who didn't like Final Fantasy XIII as much as I did, in which we remained rational, civil and articulate throughout. Neither of us changed the other's mind, but that's not what it was about — we both came away from the interaction feeling like we'd learned a little about the other's position. And that is a far more valuable result of communication than coming away understanding that, say, someone is angry but not really knowing what they want you to do about it.

As such, you can expect the things I talk about to continue much in the same mould as they have been previously — positively. On here, I'll continue to talk about things I am enjoying and having fun with, or things that I am excited about. In my professional capacity, I tend to concentrate on things that are interesting or noteworthy rather than deliberately controversial — the most controversial thing I wrote recently was a positive piece noting that Final Fantasy XIII perhaps wasn't all that bad and people should maybe give it another chance (note: NOT "anyone who doesn't like Final Fantasy XIII is a douchebag who should probably be killed" or something similar) — and I'd much rather write something praising the interesting things that have been done well than tearing something a new arsehole for one reason or another.

Of course, the latter part sometimes comes with the territory — some stuff is genuinely simply unmitigated crap, though it's significantly less likely to come across something with absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever today than it once way — but even then I tend to try and look for the positive where I can. Take my review of Time and Eternity, a game that was reviled by most of the games press, but which I had a good time with despite its flaws. Rather than focusing on its flawed aspects, I chose instead to concentrate on what I did like about it, and as a result produced a review that I'm still pretty pleased with today.

Why am I talking about this? Well, aside from Keri's post, I was also pointed in the direction of this excellent article about the upcoming Senran Kagura Burst for 3DS — a game branded "damaging to the industry" by people who haven't played it. The Tiny Cartridge post was something I found particularly admirable and all too rare in the modern business — it was someone returning to an issue and proving willing to educate themselves, and being pleasantly surprised in the process. In this case, it was taking another look at Senran Kagura Burst and discovering that no, it's not just about boobs and fanservice; it's actually about some well-defined characters with realistic, human flaws — something which I've argued in the past in relation to similarly misunderstood games, too — titles such as Ar Tonelico that people are all too willing to dismiss for nothing more than their art style.

Looking for the positive is a much more pleasant way to approach life. I can't imagine how utterly miserable the lives of these people who seem to spend all their time being angry must be. In some cases, they may well have valid reasons for their ire, and that's fine; others are angry for the sake of bandwagon-jumping. Both groups would benefit from a step back and some time alone with the things or people they genuinely do love. Works for me. Chill the fuck out and enjoy yourself for a change.

1379: Press Pause

The assertion that "video is the future" of online media is probably more hyperbole than anything else — much like the argument that "free-to-play is the future" of gaming — but it still concerns and frustrates me somewhat.

This isn't to put down any of the hard work that genuinely talented video producers, editors and performers do, of course. It just makes me worried — particularly given my occupation — and also frustrates me as someone who still likes to, you know, read things.

You see, I don't like video as a generic means of consuming information. It's intrusive, it's noisy, it's disruptive and it demands your full attention for a fixed period of time. This is fine if what you are specifically doing is sitting down to watch a video, but when you want to get a piece of information quickly, video quite simply can't compare to a simple piece of text and possibly a Find function.

Video is not particularly portable, either. While mobile phone data networks — and the devices with which to access them — have improved considerably over the last few years, there's still a significant chance that if you're out and about on the go, you may not be able to watch a video link, and even if you do, there's the risk of running afoul of your mobile provider's data limits and/or fair use policies. A simple text link, meanwhile, is something that is quick to download and, perhaps more importantly, easy and discreet to browse in public or while doing other things.

It also makes me a little sad to see people well-known for their entertaining writing skills stepping back from penmanship in favour of video content. Let's take Jim Sterling, for example. This isn't specifically to "pick on" Sterling; he's just a good example of what I'm talking about.

Sterling's work around the Web has historically been somewhat provocative, but to an entertaining degree rather than any attempt to deliberately cause offence. He's mellowed somewhat from his quasi-"shock jock" nature of a few years back and become someone who can bellow well-informed vitriol without alienating people — or at least, without alienating people who don't deserve to be alienated. His reviews and opinion pieces over on sites like Destructoid were always a good read — he wrote in a distinctive voice, but from a well-informed perspective, and even if you didn't agree with his points, he usually made a convincing argument.

Now, Sterling is primarily doing video content, in which he does much the same thing. No bad thing, you might think, and indeed I've specifically sat down and watched a good few Jimquisition episodes when I wanted to have a giggle at the game industry's expense. But I'm significantly less likely to watch a Jimquisition video than I am to read an article simply because of the time involved — and now he's taken to variations on Let's Play videos I now have even less interest in his content whatsoever. It's a bit sad, though I also recognise that I am but one person and he is simply doing what there is apparently demand for.

I've made my thoughts on Let's Plays reasonably clear in previous posts, but I'll reiterate and perhaps reinforce them, since I've had a while to think about them as the format has grown in popularity: I'm not a fan. At all. Particularly Let's Plays of story-based games, which, to me, completely defeat the object of a story-based game. People already get pissy at the slightest hint of a spoiler about games, movies and other media, and yet there are people out there doing nothing but spoiling games… in more ways than one. This is baffling to me; I understand the basic concept of a Let's Play as an opportunity to see how a game plays and get some commentary about it, but to watch a story-based game with someone babbling over the top of it rather than playing it is just, frankly, the absolute last thing I want to do with my time. Again, though, I recognise that the format has popularity and there's apparently demand for it.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't want traditional media to go away. I don't want to see the death of long-form articles about games — or even short, snappy news pieces, though I wouldn't mind seeing the back of two-sentence placeholder pieces. I want to see talented writers continue to have the opportunity to express themselves in a medium that they're comfortable with; I don't want to be forced to watch a video just to find out what a voice I trust thinks about a particular game or issue in the industry, particularly when I'm out and perhaps want to share it with friends.

By all means, then, video content producers and consumers, keep doing what you're doing; just don't forget that the way you do things is not the only way to do things.