Games Criticism | Roundtable Discussion (Ep. 134) - Pixel Project Radio: A Video Game Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome back to Pixel Project Radio, the video game discussions
podcast where we do deep dives and analyze all of
our favorite games and some of yours too. This week
a topic episode, a roundtable discussion on criticism as a whole,
gaming criticism, what it means to be a critic, etc.
As always, I have to thank the patrons up top.

(00:34):
It is them that make this show possible. Major thank
you to all of the patrons. If you want to
be like these fine folks, you can check out the
website at www dot patreon dot com slash Pixel Project Radio.
You'll find links to that in the description of the episode.
In the episode description, you'll also find information about my
two guests. First, a returning guest to the show, We've

(00:57):
got Matt Stormageddon from the Fun and Games Podcast. Matt,
It's always a pleasure. How's it going good?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thank you for having me. Always happy to be back.
You never get tired of me trying to bully my
way back onto your show, and I'm grateful for it
because I love being here.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
No bullying. You can come on anytime you'd like.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
We're also joined by a new guest, a first timer
on the show, but a friend of the show all
the same, a local celebrity around these parts. Some might
say we've got Quest sixty four official here. Otherwise known
by his Christian name is Mike. That's also his podcast name, Mike.
How's it going, man, Thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's good. It's always good to be around Matt and
find reasons to put my voice in front of his
face and use his stardom to be on the internet.
And good to be here with you. Rick. I've been
a longtime listener, so you know, why not be a
short time voice as well.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I am thrilled that you're both here Mike this episode,
so it actually sort of came about through your suggestion,
although it's something that I've been wanting to do myself
for a while now. For those that are new to
the show, generally we cover games from start to finish
in a sort of traditional book club style, analyzing the

(02:16):
plot and the narrative, going through themes, mechanics, music, things
like that. But especially now that we're weekly to help
me this is a pragmatic decision. We are going to
be doing more of these sort of roundtable discussion episodes,
and this episode in general is all about criticism, what
it means to be a critic, the video game critic

(02:37):
landscape as a whole, things like that. It's going to
be a little broad, but some of the things that
we're going to touch on today are what a critic is,
what the function of a critic is the role of
a critic, how do critics help the general public? What
do we perceive to be the best practices for criticism,
How one can find and hone in on critics they trust,

(03:01):
things of that nature. I wanted to give a couple
of disclaimers up top before we begin, though. First of all,
as is the case with any episode, our feelings and
thoughts can change and will change and will grow as
time goes on. So even if you're listening to this
a few months, a few weeks outside of release, it's

(03:21):
entirely possible that some of the things that we're talking
about here might have a little more nuanced or change
within them. That's just how life goes. To that end,
if you find anything that we're talking about that you'd
like more clarification on, or disagree with, or just want
to keep the conversation going, I implore you again send
us a message in the discord server. It's free to
join and you can jump in and keep this conversation

(03:44):
going in episodes like this, more especially than episodes on games.
The second thing before we jump into it is this,
As I said, this topic is a little bit broad.
We each have ideas on where we're going to go.
Oh that being said, the pressure of being on Mike
and just how natural conversation works, there certainly will be

(04:08):
things that maybe deserve elaboration that don't get elaborated upon
in this episode. So again, this is not I never
aimed to end a conversation with a punctuation mark semi colon,
if anything, as I've kind of glibly said on the
show before. So with all of that out of the way,

(04:28):
let's talk a little bit about it. So, Mike, you
were the one that sort of helped me put this
episode on the map. I had wanted to do it,
and we were talking about potentially doing an episode together,
and you specifically mentioned wanting to talk about the criticism
landscape in video games. So I wanted to sort of
kick it to you, and since you are the guest

(04:49):
that has never been here before, I wanted to kick
it to you to see what your general thoughts on
this might be what made you want to do an
episode about criticism and in video games specifically.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I guess, like you said, views change, and even like
when I pitched this to six months ago or whatever,
like I occasionally get upset about things or I soften
my stance on things online and the EBB and flow
of humanity, I guess, but when we originally talked about it, like,
the thing that I think about the most is that

(05:24):
the mantra of critics or professional criticism of video games,
their mantra is that it's essential. That critical review of
video games is essential because without that, who would hold
game companies accountable for release mistakes and to monitor the
quality of games. And it's not just games, it's like
art criticism in general. If you don't have professional criticism,

(05:48):
how do the standards of that art medium maintain or improve?
If you just release everything. So then in this the
Lord's Year of two twenty five, Matt and Rick, now
that we have more video game reviewers than ever, you know,
YouTube and all of social media and then websites that

(06:10):
have expanded, so we have more video game reviewers than
we've ever had. Have games gotten exponentially better as the
number of professional game critics has grown exponentially, Like has
the more game criticism made video games better? As critics

(06:30):
say that it does.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
There is a presupposition in there if I've ever heard
one before we dive into that, because that does go
into what I was hoping to talk about today. Matt,
I invited you specifically on. First of all, thank you, Mike.
I'm glad that we got to put this together. And Matt,
I thought would be a perfect third person to invite
on because they not only work very closely with folks

(06:55):
in the critical space, but they talk about games a
lot on on myriad podcasts and do a lot of
writing and et cetera. And I think, you know, having
known Matt for a while now, that their opinion is
very level headed, and you know, Matt's good at what

(07:16):
Matt does, So so I thought this would Matt would
be a perfect third third panelist here to talk about
games criticism, anything that you wanted to tack on to
what Mike said, Matt before we dive right in, because
that's going to be a perfect segue into what is
a critic and what is the role of a critic?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's It's definitely an interesting topic, right,
there's this sense that with the kind of leveling of
the playing field with social media and YouTube specifically, and
how you like it's for the user, it's for the
every man, as it were, the every person to degender it.
They're like, it is a good question, and it is

(07:57):
something I think about a lot too, and like, I
appreciate you saying such nice things about my work, and
like writing game reviews is a thing that I've come
fairly recently too. It's I wrote music reviews back in
the day. I used to review albums. I have a
very old magazine two page spread on Kisses farewell album,

(08:17):
maybe the third for a farewell album, who knows. At
this point, it was a you're a kiss fan, Yeah,
I mean I'm a greatest hits Kiss fan. I like
their albums, okay, but I know the broader hits better.
But that said, there there are several albums that I
truly love by them. But yeah, so anyway, getting back
to the point, So I've been writing on and off
for a long time. I used to have my own

(08:38):
music website where I write reviews and stuff like that,
and It's funny. I've only felt comfortable calling myself a
writer or a critic recently, and Jeff and I use
the words critic and a journalist very loosely when describing
ourselves because we're Indie and you know, I try not
to have too big ahead about it, but I think
that a big reason I was excited to come on

(08:59):
this episode is one. Yes, I have a lot of
friends who are in and around the games journalism space
as it contracts, it expands and contracts, mostly contracting these days.
There are a lot of common misconceptions about reviews that
I've fought head on. I don't really argue in the
comments of places, but every time I see the sentiment that, oh,

(09:20):
they paid for that good review or they paid for
that bad review, my head catches fire, like Johnny Storm,
no relation, and so like, I wanted to talk about
that kind of stuff too, because I think there are
a lot of misconceptions about critique, not just for games,
but I think broadly, and I think with the way
it can elevate a medium, like Mike was talking about,

(09:42):
or whether it does or not, I think it's also
important to understand what it's like from the other side
as a critic and what the expectations are both professionally
and then you know, audience wise, and like what some
of those misconceptions are and why they aren't real or
are a real depending on where we're looking at it from.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
If that makes sense, it does make sense. So all
of this is sort of spiraling into what is a critic?
What is their role? So let's talk a little bit
about that. That's part of the reason why I wanted
to put this episode together. Something that I've noticed is,
and this is twofold one, that there is a tendency
in video game criticism and criticism in general, but in

(10:24):
video game criticism, especially for new critics or amateur critics.
And I'm using that non pejoratively amateur, just meaning you
don't get paid a lot of money to do it,
to be hyper negative. And this is something that I'm
going to put a pin and we'll come back to
it later. But the second reason is sort of going

(10:47):
into what is a critic. I've noticed now, especially with
the prevalence the ubiquity of social media and especially YouTube
and TikTok, that what a critic is has become much
more diffuse and less rigid. We're seeing new forms of
criticism come out. The YouTube video essay is a big one.

(11:09):
The micro version of that within TikTok the stitch is huge.
That's one of the biggest content sharing platforms right now.
And because of this, I think it's worth examining what
the role of a critic is because we're seeing more
and more folks get into sharing their critical thoughts, sharing
their takes, whether it's about a tweet, about a TikTok,

(11:32):
about a game, book, television show, or film. And that
is okay, but I think it has double edged potential.
I think there are implications both for good and for ill.
On just it's sort of being a y'all, come, anybody
can share whatever they want, which is social media as
a whole. But that's another topic. So what is a critic? Mike?

(11:55):
What you had mentioned has some pretty may your assumptions
built into it that critics inherently exist to improve the
art form. So let's start there. Let's start there is
the role of a critic to improve the art form
which they are critiquing.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Are you asking me or telling me that I am?

Speaker 1 (12:22):
I am asking the room in general? And whoever answers
first can go on with it.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Well, Matt is the critic, but this is something that
I have been told by a friend who I won't
call out for this, but is a music critic like
Matt was at one point or still is a huge
kiss fan Matt Stork by both the music critic and
a couple of different video game critics, that that is

(12:49):
the purpose of professional critique is to is to be
the I don't want to say middleman, but to be
the the everyman for the common people. So like if
I was trying to enjoy art I know nothing about,
like painting, for example, if I was trying to enjoy
that and I went to a you know, an abstract

(13:12):
gallery and didn't know what I was looking at. I
was just there looking. The purpose of a critic or
a liaison at that art gallery would be to guide
me through like history of the medium and then expand
my horizons and help me understand what I'm looking at

(13:33):
or what I'm attempting to enjoy. So video games aren't
that complicated. They're not like, you know, eighteenth century Renaissance
painting or something like that. They're just video games. But
we used to have a ton of magazines and a
lot my parents, I'm sure other parents same thing. Would
go to stores and ask people who worked at the

(13:55):
store at you know, Sears or J. C. Penny or
Target or whatever, you know, is this game any good?
And they would say things like, well, Nintendo Power said
it's pretty good, or you know whatever, EGM said it
was a pretty decent game, and that would fuel the purchase,
you know, of a video game for their children. So
to have those goal between people is important for any

(14:16):
art medium. So you would think that the idea is, yes,
those critics are there to make the medium better by
making more people understand it and keeping people from purchasing
horror video games, which developers shouldn't be, you know, quote
unquote rewarded for producing what.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
An interesting that's so interesting, And you're right, And it's
funny as someone who used to work at a game
stop many many, many many years ago and a whole
a lifetime ago that I hadn't even conceived of that
like being a factor in this. But you're absolutely right,
it's funny. I don't disagree that critic. The role of
a critic is to expand the art form. I mean,
I think something that I've thought about online a lot,

(15:00):
and I don't pick many fights. Is that the video
games is one of the youngest art forms. It's the
most unreal, unregulated critic space. As we just discussed, right,
almost anyone can do it. You can do it for
other stuff too, But I feel like there are more,
you know, the Academy and all of that for movies
and so on and so forth, Like there are more
official I don't want to say, award shows, but like

(15:22):
there are broader structures that help regulate criticism on the
broad for other mediums. Whereas video games sort of had
that when those magazines were around, we definitely have less
of it now, as every company that wants more money
decides to close worthwhile outlets. But I won't go off
on that tangent quite yet. And so I think part
of why I agree with Mike, but I think it's

(15:44):
just not always the case in the environment we're in
is because it's so unregulated. It's because anyone can do it,
and those that do regulate it, I'm thinking of like
Geomedia and Kataku. Geomedia only cares about money. They don't
care about what Kataku writes. To work at Kataku Dough.
But the company doesn't. They want clicks, they want headlines,

(16:05):
they want interaction, right and so, And this is probably
true of other mediums too. I'm just not as steeped
in those. The money, the profit side of it is
what kind of infects what the purpose of a critic
is from their perspective versus maybe the audience and the
art form. And I think that's where like a lot
of this kind of hits an impasse, is like once

(16:26):
the money's involved at the higher level. But I fear
I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
No, I totally understand what you mean. The two of
you hit on something here, the notion that gain power
set it's good, so I recommend buying it. And Kotaku
writers wanting people to click on their article they want
to view it. Of course, in both of these sales
is a factor. But let's for a moment, let's start

(16:53):
from the supposition that sales isn't a factor at this time.
Set that aside for now. I would argue here, I
actually do really disagree with that that critics critics role
is helping shape the medium. I don't think they have
that power. I think, okay, one thing at a time.
First of all. I think game Power said it's good,

(17:15):
so by Kotaki wants clicks. I think the chief role
of a critic, related to both of these is being
an arbiter of taste, something that I saw a quote
from the show called louder Milk. I don't know if
either of you are familiar with that. I've never heard
of this before at all, but apparently it's about critics,
and when asked what the role of a critic is,

(17:36):
one of the characters said, quote, in the pure diarrhea
that is pop culture, you need somebody who's gonna be
able to find and curate the hidden gems. That's my job.
I got to figure out and understand what that artist
is trying to do and then inform others end quote.
I also have an essay that I really like called

(17:58):
The Limits of Critique by Rita Felski. She is a
literary critic, and this essay that she wrote, The Limits
of Critique, is all about literary criticism, but I think
it's it's pertinent and germane here. I'm going to get
into that in a little bit, but I wanted to
start with this idea of being an arbiter of taste.

(18:18):
I don't. The reason that I don't think critics have
the power to help shape the art form that they
are critiquing is because, as as somebody that has been
a creator in a few different mediums classical music, jazz music,
amateur video game criticism, being the critic both the person

(18:42):
being critiqued and a critic, I don't really have any
delusions that critics and I don't mean to call them delusions,
but I don't really have any assumptions that critics have
that kind of power. It's not that I don't think
that's a noble goal to want to better the the
culture and better the art form, but I don't think

(19:02):
the creators are thinking about that whenever they're creating in
the medium that they choose to Composers are more likely
to listen to the opinions of other musicians and composers,
not folks writing for the Star journal. I would assume
it's the same with video game devs. I don't know.
I don't approach this as a way to hope that

(19:24):
I can change the medium via and you know I'm
being a bit glib here, and I apologize, But even
even the bigger podcasts, let's say your watch out for fireballs.
I would be shocked if they if they felt that
they did have that kind of power. I don't mean
to speak for anybody, but I think it comes down
to more being a collector and a guide. Going back

(19:46):
to your museum example, Mike, of what good taste is
and how to think about your taste beyond I like
it or I don't like it, to give you more
arrows in your quiver, to shape your taste, to speak
intelligently about your taste, and if that happens to shape
the local creativity at the local level of what you're seen,

(20:10):
then that's all well and good. But I think it's
rooted in this idea of being a taste maker, of
being a sort of shirpa to refinement. I don't know.
I've kind of labbed for three minutes straight. Did I
say anything of value? I don't know, But I don't know.
What do you think of that? What do you think

(20:31):
of that as the role being less of a shaper
of the medium and more of a shurpa of taste,
an arbiter of taste. What are your takes on that.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I don't think either is wrong. I think what's interesting
is I think what Mike. I don't want to put
words in Mike's mouth, but I think broadly, I would
agree that critics can affect the landscape and do improve
the quality of things in the same way that a
good journalist would digging into the bad the games industry
and the good. But I do think the role of

(21:04):
modern critics and creators is the taste maker because it's
personality driven. Right. I think about the reviewers I love
that I've been reading for a long time. I won't
say how long because then it shows how ancient I am,
and we don't need to get into how old I am.
But I've been reading them for a long time, and
I don't always agree with them. But like when a

(21:25):
new game of a certain genre, for example, comes out,
I know that that reviewer is going to give me
a good take on it, even if I don't agree
with them, because they are very meticulous. They like that genre,
they know what they're looking for, they've been playing those
games a long time, and I know from personal experience
when I am writing a review. So to give some

(21:45):
context for those who may not be familiar with one
of my podcast running Games, Jeff and I always say
on that show that every game is somebody's favorite, right, good, bad,
and different qualities are relevant to loving a video game.
You can love any game if it means something to you,
if you enjoy it, because you can find joy in
anything just about and so from that perspective, incorporating that

(22:06):
into the product, that is the reviews that we do
within funning games or outside of it. I'm mostly reviewing
a game to share why I loved it or why
I didn't love it. Not that you should hate this
because I hated it, but here are the things that
bothered me that didn't work that I thought did work.
It's why I use the structure I used because then

(22:26):
someone can read it and go, Okay, I like Matt's
thoughts on games, and this is a game that Matt
liked or didn't like. Here are the things why. Well
that now I can use that to decide do is
this something I want to? Right in that taste maker
kind of way, right, you're reading my review and going, okay, well,
Matt did or didn't like these things. Those things sound
good or bad. I will use that information like a

(22:48):
curator at a museum or at an art gallery, to
then go make my own choice. About games or whatever.
And I think part of that also is I know
my own bias comes into writing about games, and anyone
who says that a good review should be free of
bias doesn't know what they're talking about. I think that's

(23:10):
part of what like is this taste maker thing that
I agree with Rick is you're a taste maker because
you have a kind of taste in a thing and
you're sharing that. I think that you can write a
review objectively, but that's also then a very boring review
because there's no like again if it's personality driven. If
I'm listening to an episode of Pixel Project Radio about

(23:32):
say Celeste, I want to hear what Rick Firestone or
Josh Kovil or Matt Storm thinks about that game because
I trust their taste. I love how they dissect those games.
And I think at one point critique was definitely responsible
for moving the medium forward and still is. But I

(23:52):
would agree that now it's more focused on taste making
because of how it's evolved, especially as more amateur and
early experienced creators get into that space and try and
find their voice by doing it, because that's how we
all find it.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
There are two things that I want to talk about there,
but I jumped in front of Mike, so I'm gonna
let Mike go first. But two very important things that
you touched on there that I'm going to write down
so we can get to here in a moment.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
So once again, I feel like this is a really
good trio because we're okay with trying to be objective
about being subjective in this medium. I do agree with
the notion that you can find a taste maker, as
you two put it, and that aligns with the way
that you play games, the things you enjoy, and you

(24:42):
can follow them to new things that you may not
have discovered, especially in video games. You know, there's plenty
of video games. You're never going to play them all.
But like Rick said when we opened the episode, we've
been thinking about this particular podcast for six months now
and our views ma have changed. So if I became

(25:02):
friends with Matt when they played Mass Effect one and
then followed your career all the way to a Dramaeda,
am I supposed to assume that your taste in Mass
Effects games or in games in general, did not change
over the course of that twelve years. So even if

(25:23):
I liked the first game as much as you, and
then maybe our opinions slightly different on mass effect two.
And then we get to three and wildly different opinions
about the ending of mass effect three. And then I
decide I don't want to play a drama because of
the ending of three, but you loved it. Am I
now looking for another taste maker? Or am I supposed

(25:44):
to use that as an eye opening experience? Like well,
Matt's tastes have changed, should mine as well? Or should
I be looking elsewhere? I feel like people who are
being paid for a subjective medium ask for a degree
of loyalty. I guess is the best way to put it.

(26:05):
The alternative is is to find a lot of people,
say you know, find a group, find a discord, find
a backlog community, or follow people on open critic. But
is that any different like crowdsourcing twenty opinions? Is that
any different than following one or two more refined tastemaker opinions.

(26:26):
I feel like there's too much leeway with trust. I
guess is the best way to put it. Like Matt said,
there's there's a lot of miasma in the in the
critical space now, a lot of people calling themselves you
know video game journalists and critics, and.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
And we're here to get them exactly.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yes, we are. There's a lot of people with uh
so Rick's We've I know Rick has said this at
least one time on the show. He believes the show
is better than the amount of viewers he has right now.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Well, when you when you say it like that, it
makes me sound like a fucking dick.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
We are, we are dicks, But no, it does you do.
I would come on the show specifically because I want
to talk to you in person, because I appreciate it.
Same with Matt. I'm sure you've wrote at least one
or two things in your career you are incredibly proud of,
and you thought, how is my critique not as good
as you know? Insert this YouTuber who has forty million

(27:27):
followers and writes, you know, fifty word reviews saying that
Quest sixty four sucks and you didn't even play the
game past the first ten minutes. How are you know?
How is one critics voice different than a more squeaky
wheel critic. I guess I'm kind of I'm trailing off

(27:48):
now because I'm getting angry about one thing and I
can't get it out of my mind, but that it'll
be later on in the show. I'm sure. But like
I said, like, there's a certain amount of trust you
have in people. Do you trust that they are growing
with you? Or do you need to break that and
look for more broad opinions? And then where do you

(28:08):
find those opinions? You can't like, you can't trust one
taste maker to lead you to another. I guess is
the way to put it.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
I am really I'm pleased that you went this route
because it goes it's going to unpin something that I
had mentioned that Matt was touching on, and it's this
idea we are in an over abundance. We are paralyzed
by choice. That is, those are the shackles that we
are bound by. Now we have so many competing voices

(28:35):
in this ocean of folks that want to jump in
to be critics. And I was being glib. I don't
know why I'm using that word so much today. I
was being facetious a little bit whenever I said that
we're here to gatekeep. We are, of course not. And
I think it is a net good that more people
than ever are expressing themselves in a critical way. The

(28:58):
best way to enhance a culture in its taste, in
its group intelligence, is for us to work together to
build up our neighbors, who can then build up us.
That is the key to how we are going to
progress as a society. And this goes way beyond just
taste and video games and stuff like that. That's your didactic,

(29:20):
little pithy saying from me in this one. But I
want to touch on this idea of overabundance. It is
more important than ever now to know for critics to
know their audience, sure, but for the audience to know
their critic. You had mentioned Mike, or perhaps it was you, Matt,

(29:42):
or perhaps it was both of you. This idea of
a review from ign or Kataku versus something from Matt.
Those are different things. And this goes back to you
knows as much flak as Donkey gets sometimes, and I
don't agree with it. I've been a fan of big
fan of Donkeys since like twenty twelve. He made a

(30:05):
couple of videos on critics that got really panned by people.
People got mad about it, but he was spot on.
When you have these big farm websites that farm reviews
by writers that are really just trying to pay their
bills and get their work out there that have to
meet these deadlines through Crunch and there's no shortage of them.

(30:28):
You're really spinning the wheel playing. You're really taking a
gamble on whose voice you're getting from a review. And
I'm not just picking on Igian or Kataku. It can
be any big name, big name site. But that's why
I think it's really important to know the names behind
the work. If I go to Matt and Matt starts

(30:49):
talking about a JARPG and Matt says I really like
this or I really didn't, I can pull on the
knowledge of Matt the critic and say, Matt's favorite game
of all time is Chrono Tree. I know this. Because
I know this, I can now interpret what Matt is
saying about this new JRFG in a lens that is appropriate.

(31:10):
Samkub said, for me, one of my favorite games of
all time Final Fantasy nine. When I talk about a JRPG,
there is the precedent of knowing the medium, knowing the genre,
knowing the history, versus when I talked about Specops the Line,
which is a game that I love. I'm very proud
of that episode. I don't know anything about first person shooters.

(31:33):
So if somebody were to listen to that and say
I don't really agree with what he was saying, blah
blah blah, that's fine. They could say, well, he doesn't
really know the history, he doesn't know the medium. And
it can go both ways. You know, if Matt hated
j RPGs, and Matt said I sure do love this
j RPG to me, that says, Okay, this is somebody

(31:56):
that's not into the genre that likes this game. That
means that that's they're a spectacular fucking JRPG, or it
does something that subverts the genre. It is different in
some way. It is important to know the voice of
one's critic for this reason because we can then make
inform the choices on how to interpret their words and
their work. It doesn't mean anything when somebody I don't know,

(32:20):
some mage on Twitter that's not nearly as well read
as they think they are, says that Quest sixty four
is a bullshit game because they're not demonstrating well on one,
they're not making a good argument in any way. I
don't like them. But which is the closest I'll ever
get to shit talking on this podcast. But they're not
demonstrating that their voice is that their voice has weight

(32:45):
behind it, right Versus Mike, you are the Quest sixty
four guy. If you come out and start talking negatively
about Brian's journey for the Game Boy Color, that has
more weight behind it than if I were to talk
negatively about it, Because you are, you are more steeped
in the knowledge of that ip does what I'm saying

(33:07):
make sense? To summarize it, The voice of the critic
is almost as important, maybe more important than what they're
actually saying. Kind of full stop, like I kind of
firmly believe that.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, I mean, I completely agree, and you touched on
something that I think is important. There is a difference
between criticism and judgment. And that's why side Quest the
series that I've done for a long time, not to
keep shilling my nonsense is about loving something, not about
whether it's good or not. And I think there's a difference. Right,
If someone comes out and says, and to keep picking
on Quest sixty four, a game that I do quite love,

(33:44):
If someone comes out and says Quest sixty four sucks,
that's not criticism because they haven't given reasons or examples.
And this is popular something that drove me nuts on
Twitter because I'll never call it. The other thing was
I would post I love this game. Everyone should go
play this game. It's a great game. I love it.
Here's why I love it. And someone would come in
the comments inevitably and go, but that game sucks. It's

(34:05):
not very good. Okay, this isn't helpful. Why would you
post this because they think they're critiquing it. They're not, though.
They are just sharing their opinion, which they're entitled to have.
But it adds no value to conversation, which is what
ultimate Twitter was designed behind. I think that's what drives
me nuts most about critique is that some modern armchair critics,

(34:27):
like armchair lawyers and the like who exists on social
media is they want to judge things but not actually
critique them. If someone tells me that Sonic O six
sucks because it's got horrible lag, the design isn't good,
the levels aren't well made, the music isn't composed well,
everything's crunching. That gives me something to work off of.
That's critique. That's something that we can talk about in discuss.

(34:50):
But if they say it sucks because it's bad, it's
an opinion, which can be valuable to some also, but
it doesn't expand criticism. And I think knowing you your
voice and knowing the voice of others helps with that.
I think also really quickly to touch on what Mike
was talking about one versus the many, I think one
of anything is bad. I think I look if someone

(35:12):
wants to follow my work and thinks I'm the end
all be all when it comes to critique, one, they
are out of their mind, but two I'm humbled. But
it's not good. I think that you need like a
balanced breakfast, or that we've were sold since we were kids,
or you know the food pairman and you're getting eating
your vegetables. I think having a healthy balance of a

(35:34):
variety of different voices in your orbit allows you to
better understand the interpretations of that art. I think having
critics that you don't agree with are important. I don't
really follow Yatzi anymore. Zero Punctuation has had some ups
and downs, but when I did watch it, I liked
it because I think only half the time I agreed
with what YACHTSI was saying about a certain video game,

(35:56):
and yet part of the stick was he was poop
pooing on stuff and people like to hear him being
in British. But I think that critics like that are
valuable because when I don't agree, well, why don't I
agree with you? Well, that seems off base. Well, then
I'll go play the game anyway because I don't agree
with you, And that pushes me also in the direction
of like, well, I know you don't like these kinds

(36:16):
of games, and so if you don't like it, maybe
I will like it because you don't, right, And I
think that that range of information is totally important. I
think that trusting just one voice in the industry, you
can do it, and I have done it in the past,
but I think having a variety of voices in your
orbit allow you to better build this knowledge base of

(36:40):
how to then even critique stuff on your own right,
because we're all critical of a lot of stuff, and
I think the role of a critic is to also
teach you how to be critical. I think some of
my favorite podcasts, like Waypoint Radio which became Remap Radio,
was pulling politics into video games and talking about you know,
diversity and other things and things that are missing in

(37:00):
the game's industry. And I never thought critically like that
about games before Crunch, all of those things until I
started listening to that podcast and I heard voices talking
about why it's bad that this third game in a
series has another generic white man being the main character.
It's just not something I thought about when I was younger,
and so I think having that diversity of voices allows
you to then also learn things you might not know.

(37:21):
It's very easy to be sheltered if you are sheltered
kind of a thing.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
The diversity of voices is really important. And the diversity
of diet in anything you know, not just actual diet. Yes,
eat your vegetables very important. My favorite are Brussels sprouts.
But having a diverse palette when it comes to your games,
when it comes to literature, when it comes to any
of the fiction you're consuming. Right, a diet, as much

(37:48):
as I adore studio ghibli, a diet based solely on
studio ghibli will be deficient in some areas. You know,
It's just as a diet exclusively eating red meat be
deficient in certain areas that aren't cholesterol and blood pressure probably,
and that's really important, especially you know, this is a

(38:09):
charged sentiment that I'm about to say, and I recognize that,
and I hope that listeners that know me have the
trust in me as a critic to know what I
do and do not mean. And of course I'm happy
to elaborate. But it is good, I believe, full stop
good to be familiar with those who are your opinion opponents,

(38:32):
those who are your I don't want to say opposition,
because that paints the pictures of active conflict and that
is not what discussions are all the time. But being
familiar with those who hold opposing viewpoints to a degree
is almost always beneficial, if for no other reasons, you
want to be familiar with them so you know what

(38:52):
their talking points are and how you can destroy them
with facts and logic, right, if for nothing else, But
I do think that it's beneficial to take that in
And I'm saying this healthily. There are exceptions. We can't
list them all, but if you're thinking, well, what about
this harmful exception, it's probably you know, ignore it. But

(39:14):
I mean, I don't agree with a lot of Donkeys
takes on games. I don't agree with a lot of
Scott the Wazes takes on JRPGs, but I love them
about very much, and I appreciate listening to them. I
don't necessarily know that I'm going to love Quest sixty four,
but I will appreciate hearing Mike's point of view whenever
we talk about that. I don't know that I am

(39:36):
particularly I don't know going to love death stranding, but
I am going to appreciate hearing folks that do talk
about it and folks that don't talk about it. I
think that's really important. I don't want to jump Mike.
I don't want to jump in front of you again.
There is there's a point about sincerity that I still
have a pinon, but I want to give Mike a

(39:58):
chance to respond before we divert the topic once again.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
No good stuff, but we led the show. I don't
want everything be butt and might be the other guy,
but we led the show with Rick saying that you
don't think that a game critic or group of game
critics can change the landscape. I do mostly agree with you.
But now we've spent the last however long, forty five

(40:23):
minutes talking. We're talking about how us as video game
players should view critics who are also video game players.
You're talking about Scott the WAZ and Maddie was, you know,
we're we're musing about Donkey and everybody now, but we
all are fairly seasoned, thirty or forty year old video

(40:47):
game players who don't necessarily need somebody to tell us something.
We want to broaden our horizons and experience new things.
I still think that video game critique criticism does have
an effect on the sixty percent of the population that

(41:07):
doesn't listen to a video game podcast every day of
the week while they work or play a game. You know,
can finish a forty R game like like Dave Jackson
every single week and then do a show about it,
or you know whatever. There's a lot of people who
are deeply influenced positively or negatively by just opening up

(41:30):
Wikipedia before they tell their kid they can, you know,
download a game on Nintendo's e Shop based on the
Wikipedia entry for a classic Super Nintendo game, or you know,
like earth Bound, for example, before they let their kids
play Earthbound. They want to check up on it. They've
never played Earthbound in their life. They want to know

(41:51):
what it's about. You could see some really weird stuff
googling earth Bound or going to the earth Bounds Wikipedia
page that as a parent that I you know, I'm
a parent too with three kids, and this I've experienced this.
Looking at the games that they're interested in, I'm like,
why do you want to play you know, you know,
Roadblocks or Wobbly Life or Human Fall Flat or all

(42:12):
these other things, you know, physics games like this looks
without being reductive, this looks so stupid. But I understand
that they're using their creativity as long as I don't
see something strictly negative about a game, or about the
way that the community online perceives the game, you know whatever.
Let them play what they want to play. But I

(42:32):
am a video game player, and I trust my kids
to be able to pick games that they think they
will enjoy, and I'm just guiding them. But I am
not every parent. There are tons of parents and tons
of friends, and you know, all walks of life, different
statues of people whose trust. Just Wikipedia. So they look

(42:53):
up Quess sixty four on Wikipedia and they see that
the you know, game ranking score of it is fifty
four percent, and then they look at the reviews below it,
and they're like, oh, you know, maybe my kids, maybe
I don't need to spend twenty dollars at the retro
game store for my kids like Quest sixty four, and
that's just surface level. I do want to go on
a big tangent about how you can't, like I can't

(43:14):
submit Quest sixty four scores to Metacritic because you know,
even though I you know, even though Official Nintendo magazine
said it was an eighty four and Player one magazine
said it was an eighty and Console meg gave it
an eighty four, you can't submit those professional critiques to
Metacritic to get that game ranking slash metacritics score up
because that's also not how critique works. It's still like

(43:38):
medi said, there's money behind it, and they don't. They don't.
It would cost money to update the Quest sixty four
entry inside somebody. You have to pay somebody to do that,
and you can't trust the average person to edit it.
Like Wikipedia, it has to be professionally, you know, molded
to have the correct score. So I think there's a

(44:01):
lot of that. I think there's a lot of broad
stroke general game critique and review that has a broader
impact on people who don't experience video games or have
you know, forty j RPG thirty or three hour introspective
podcasts under their belt. They're just people who want to

(44:23):
buy games to their kids, and they want to know
if Zeno Grade Chronicles two or something is something that
their kids would enjoy. I don't think there's always somebody
there for them. I don't think as a parent that
that game criticism criticism is always there for people who
don't know games.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
That's a fair point. You know, we can, as much
as I did say I don't think game critics shape
the choices game dev's make. We can spin this out
and say that game critics provide a voice to the people.
The folks that are parents, maybe that that haven't gamed
in years, just want to see what their kids are playing.

(45:04):
They trust those voices. They then vote with their wallets
and their dollars, and that eventually impacts how that studio
exists financially and then potentially can change the course of
the work that they put out in that way totally. Yeah,
gaming criticism can affect the trajectory of the art form totally.

(45:25):
And I'm sure there's a money aspect to it too.
I'm always hesitant to speak on business matters because I
don't really consider myself to know. I'll put it Curtly,
I'm dumb as hell when it comes to the business
side of things. I really just there are too many
gaps in my knowledge to give an opinion that I
would feel comfortable putting my name on. So a lot

(45:46):
of the times I do sidestep that, and that's on me.
That's one of my biases as a critic that people
should know going in is that I maybe am not
the guy to go to when it comes to business talk.
You know who am I?

Speaker 2 (45:58):
I mean, thankfully games dots industry dot is exists for that. Well,
sort of still exists for that, unfortunately. But yeah, no,
I mean I think, well, and what's funny is, Mike,
you're not wrong. But also, like, I know a podcast
called spawn Point where two gamer parents who are now
raising gamer kids talk about parenting as a gamer and

(46:18):
what's good and what's bad, and they've done articles on roadblocks,
and you know, why does Nintendo constantly not let multiple
people pick Princess Peach? So his two daughters fight over
Princess Peach every time and every game. And I think
the problem, the biggest problem about modern criticism, I think

(46:38):
in all genres, but we're speaking to games is the
nicheness of it is still not super well communicated because
again it's disparate, it's not all under one roof. And
I think Google is sort of our friend, but like
you can Google anything and usually find a result that's helpful,
good or bad. And I think the problem is that

(46:58):
it's not that they're not out there, is that we
may not know how to find them, which is just
as big a problem. And again I only know this,
like this podcast on Points exists because Patrick Klepek hosts
it and he's a parent and a journalist I followed
for a very long time. We're similar in ages. He
was on Waypoint, he's on Remap, Like, I don't know
that I would have known that existed if I didn't

(47:19):
know him that specific reviewer, right, that specific critic. And
so it's not really an answer, it's a yeah, you're right,
but kind of a thing I.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Want I want to ask. I want to unpin this
that I that I had put in earlier. And this
goes back to one of the reasons that I wanted
to make this episode, and I was hoping to talk
to you too about it because I have strong feelings
about this and the two of you have sort of
brushed up against it, and I'm wondering how you feel
about it too. One of the things that I've noticed again,

(47:51):
I think as a whole, it's great that everybody that
there is so many more voices being critical of everything online. Yes,
there are those that abuse it, and now we live
in a world where we have to amend every sentence
with all of the possibilities. You said that you love vanilla,

(48:11):
why do you hate chocolate? And pistachio freak? And then
it goes off. That's Twitter in a nutshell. But one
of the things with critics that I notice a lot,
whether it's somebody that's making a stitch, a video essay,
a reply guy on Twitter, whatever, is that amateur critics
I find tend to and this goes back to what

(48:34):
you were saying earlier, Matt, tend to approach criticism in
a way where they weaponize judgment, where the criticism is
beset on all sides, venomously dripping in judgment in a
way that I don't think is productive. And to put
it in another way, I think that amateur critics or
folks that just want to project an image of themselves

(48:56):
as being learned erudite, better than the art, detachedly better
than the art in such a way that they can
put themselves above it to critique it. They do this
by being overly negative. Nitpicking and biased is Donkey's whole thing.
But it's, you know, as much of a joke as
he made it. It is true. Folks will detach themselves

(49:19):
so they can put themselves above the art and talk
down to it as a means of saying I understand
the art so much that I can say that this game,
this novel, this play failed in some way. And they
do it in a way that's not I find productive.
It's more so to sort of bolster a self image

(49:42):
that they have, and I do think that's one reason
that negative criticism is so rampant, is that it's rooted
in self image. I think another reason, too, though, is
that especially now, and I do wonder if looking back
on the mid twenty twenties, we will see that this
trend is going away. I feel like it is, but

(50:02):
I can't speak authoritatively on this. But being negative distances
us from seeming sincere, and seeming too sincere in our
culture is seen as very naive, naivety, overly saccharine, naivete,

(50:25):
too idealistic, to head in the clouds, not rooted in reality.
It's just seen as being a negative thing. And I
wanted at this point, I want to read two quotes
from the essay The Limits of Critique by Ritafelski. The
first one is towards the beginning of the essays. She's
just speaking about what she's going to tell you. One

(50:46):
of my favorite things that I ever picked up from academia.
Best way to write an essay. Tell them what you're
going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you
told him. It works every time, at least for me.
Here's what Rita says quote in highlighting the same alience
of mood and method in criticism, I seek to kickstart
a conversation about alternatives. What happens if we think of

(51:07):
critique as an affective stance that orients us in certain ways,
and as a particular cluster of conventions, rather than a
synonym for free wheeling dissonance or disembodied skepticism. She goes on,
critique is not just a questioning of routine, but a
putting into places of new routines, a specific habit or

(51:27):
regime of thought that schools us to approach texts in
a certain manner, and I'd like to read one more
if you'll indulge me here, she says this quote. The
notion of mood thus bridges the gap between thought and feeling.
Mood accompanies and modulates thought. It affects how we find
ourselves in relation to a particular object. Whether our overall

(51:49):
mood is ironic or irenic, generous or guarded, strenuous or languorous,
will influence how we position ourselves in relation to the
texts we encounter. In what strikes us as most salient,
critical detachment is not in absence of mood, but one
manifestation of it, casting a certain shadow over its object.

(52:10):
It colors the texts we read, endows them with certain qualities,
places them in a given light. A certain disposition takes
shape guardedness rather than openness, aggression rather than submission, irony
rather than reverence, exposure rather than tact. Like any other
repeated practice, it eases into the state of second nature,

(52:30):
no longer an alien or obtrusive activity, but a recognizable
and reassuring rhythm of thought. Critique inhabits us, and we
become habituated to critique end quote. I know that was long.
I apologize, but that gets at the heart of what
I'm saying here is that we would rather be guarded
than open, aggressive, rather than submissive steeped in irony. This

(52:53):
is something that David Foster, my favorite author, David Foster Wall,
has talked all about back in the nineties, this ironic
attachment that is permeating society and stomping sincerity into the ground.
I think that is a key reason why so many
amateur critics and people that are just being critical online
want to go to this judgmental, this judgment forward style

(53:17):
of critique. Rather than using judgment to an affect or
one appropriate. They lead with that to seem detached, to
distance themselves from sincerity so as to not come off
as Sacharine, naive, foolish. Do you know what I'm saying?
I apologize, I'm going on and on. Loquacious is a

(53:37):
word that I learned because I am it, And I apologize.
But what are your thoughts on this? Do you see
the same trend as I do? And do you get
as worked up about it as me? Because this bothers
me so much.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Yeah, it's so funny that you bring this up specifically because,
for one, I do get as mad as you do.
And I'm also a person who I've cried my whole life.
I cry it things that make me happy. I cry
it things that make me sad. I'm an EmPATH. I
listen to music very emotionally. If it's a sad song,
likely I'll cry. If it's a sad video game, likely

(54:14):
I'll cry. And that's considered soft and less than in
some circles. This all comes I think on a broad
scale that we don't have time to dissect it. Patriarchal society,
masculine masculine means one thing that's blah blah blah blah.
But putting all that to the side for now, I
think that it's in modern social media and modern algorithmic

(54:34):
driven platforms, rage cells and rage bait gets interaction, and
I think a lot of it comes from that. But moreover,
the reason I said this is a perfect topic of
discussion is because this made me so angry once that
I launched a whole other sub series of a podcast
like this is what side quest comes from. I think
I've told this origin story in other places, but if

(54:55):
you'll in Dudge adulge me, Rick, I'm going to tell
it again here. When Paper Mario Origami King was coming out,
this was to twenty twenty twenty one something around there.
It's hard to remember dates times a lake, but whenever
that game was being was announced, there were a few
screenshots that were shared on Twitter of the quote unquote

(55:16):
combat that we didn't really know much about yet. And
all I saw on this one image with I think
it was he was fighting the Stapler boss maybe just
comment after comment of this looks dumb. This is gonna
be bad. What a terrible game. I can't believe they're
making this. And it made me so angry because I
looked at it and went, it's a picture. How can
you judge an entire game by a picture? And I

(55:38):
got so mad. I made side quests and made the
first episode and here we are. But like, it's this
idea that I'm going to get further by just naysaying
and being negative and I missed sincerity and it's coming back.
And I think that you're right, Rick, I think this
is starting to pivot back the other way because I look,
I liked being ironic and misusing it as much as
ever anybody did when they were a teenager. But I

(56:00):
think now there's this like I don't want to be
a character. I mean, we're all a character on some
level when on a podcast or on social media or
whatever else, but like there's a persona, as it were.
But I do want sincerity to be in my work
because it's important to me, and I think it should
be more important to other people because I think we

(56:21):
connect better through sincerity than we do through judgment and
rage and you know, rage baiting and all of that.
I think that it is a habit that's bad. But again,
folks like I don't know, I'll pull mister Beast out
of the air, because who cares if we talk badly
about him? He's got more money than God. At this point,
the idea that doing something shocking or rage baby will

(56:46):
get the clicks is because people like a headline that
they can judge and immediately. This is all a subset
of I tirelessly watch my friends who are professional writers
post an article about a thing and then someone reply going, yeah,
but this thing, and then they have to reply going, well, yes,

(57:06):
that I address that in the article that you clearly
didn't read.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Vanilla is just fine, just because I like chocolate doesn't
mean anything right.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
It's this idea that the mission statement is the whole statement,
and it's not. That's why writing exists, that's why podcasts exist.
And yet I find myself doing it. I know Rick
finds himself doing it too. There's this need to go well,
I feel this way. But also for all the folks
online who probably don't actually exist, it won't react to this.
I'm going to curtail it or caveat it because that's

(57:36):
the culture around critique now, is that you also have
to protect your opinion because of the potential pushback for
whatever reason, because context isn't always available, and it kind
of drives me bonkers. It's why I've always been hesitant
to call myself a journalist or critics or a critic,
because that those words have a weight that I don't

(57:59):
think they need. I think that you're journalist if you
do a journalism, like do a business. You know you
are a critic. If you critique something right, Are you
professional critic? Are you an amateur critic? It's kind of irrelevant.
You're a critic if you're critiquing something right. But I
think we get lost in the sauce of like audience

(58:21):
and popularity, and you know, social media and being an influencer,
which a lot of people consider a dirty word, just
like a YouTuber, But I don't think they are. I
think they've got a connotation just like any other job
or interaction that you know, you think of the worst case, right,
you think of the cliche. But you know, I know

(58:43):
plenty of people who are incredible influencers, who have really
great senses of fashion and style and all of these things.
But I think we live in a world where the
assumption is the bad thing, the negative thing, the how
can I get attention? How can I be the center
of attention? And that leads to taking shortcuts that are

(59:05):
less nuanced, that are less kind or warm or inviting,
And I think holding space for that is really important.
I'm glad you brought this up because clearly I have
a lot of thoughts on it.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, that being noticed, that center of attentionsness is what
makes those forms of critique so sexy. It's what makes
irony and rage baiting so sexy and enticing. It's quick
and it's easy, and it's thoughtless, and it takes no
effort at all. It's a way to participate in a
greater conversation without putting much effort into it. I don't know, Mike,

(59:39):
I'm sure you know this better than anybody here. I mean,
your I don't want to call it a persona. That's
not what I mean. Your online presence is sort of
built around the sincerity. I've seen you in post after
post reject this idea of ironic detachment, of shitting on
things for the sake of shitting on them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Yeah. The flip side of it is I've also been
called things like toxically positive or.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
That's not what that phrase means. That's incorrect.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
It is, it is incorrect, but charged the way that
it was said to me, like they knew what they
were saying, and I knew what they're in informed words
meant that being said. Yeah, a lot of time, I
get a lot of messages that are you know, get real, like,
none of the stuff that you're saying online means anything.
This is you know, this is like Maddie said, this

(01:00:34):
is a character. This is a persona where what are
you gaining by doing what you're doing online? In fact?
But in a way I kind of relish that because yeah,
it's it's hard to pin down the things I do
on social media because I don't have an objective. I
can just say and do the things that I want

(01:00:55):
because I don't have any financial backing or a Patreon
or work for a company, or have any interest in
anything other than the things I want to do. And
in a way that's both like good and bad, because
I think people that can achieve that kind of thing
with a much broader audience than what I have, like
mister Beast, for example, because you can't really pin down

(01:01:18):
one thing that he does well other than makes money
and spends it is that those people are widely followed
just because of that, like that enigmatic stigma. I guess
of what are they doing? You know, what is going
on in the internet space? Why? You know, why are
they doing these things? And then when they say something sincere,

(01:01:40):
you either have to take it as oh, well this
is the actual person, or well this is meaningless to me.
But I think that a lot of game journalism, you
know this, this isn't a new concept we had. I
had sean baby when I was a teenager, and he
would say ridiculous things in egm megas or the game pro.

(01:02:00):
One of the two either EGM or game pro. But
he was half game reviewer, half comedian, and he would
say things like, you know, you get games like Bubbs
three D when you you know, let Phil Collins name
your currency in Thailand, which is the dong? Or you
know whatever. You know, Everything of his was a punchline.
Everything was a joke, so you never knew if his

(01:02:24):
feelings about games were sincere or not. But he was
paid tons of money. He went on to have a
pretty successful like video YouTube series, and people respect his
opinions on things, But that came from a weird place
of what is this guy talking about? You know? And
I would say a lot of the biggest most popular

(01:02:46):
video game YouTubers probably grew from that kind of thing.
It wasn't just you know, here's the ABC's of Corona trigger,
because how would you ever differentiate yourself from anybody else
doing that kind of thing. The impact that that has,
I have no idea other than it like it muddies
the water is even more. I have a lot of

(01:03:07):
problem with Ques sixty four because of people like RGT
eighty five, who's not a game critic but thinks he is,
and pro Jared, who now does some pretty good stuff,
but for a long time did not do some very
good stuff. And if you, you know, googled Quest sixty four,
you'll still see his face, I'm sure, and his you know,
fifteen million views on his Quest sixty four dumb video

(01:03:29):
and stuff like that. And that's my biggest problem with
the landscape is I would much rather listen to you too.
I would much rather see your opinions on the front
page of Google when I search Quest sixty four, even
though you haven't stuff on it, but you will that
those are the voices that game critic doesn't doesn't shape

(01:03:53):
the real world, I guess, is the best way to
put it. Like, if you go searching for proper game
critique taste making, it exists, and it's great, it's important,
and I don't think that the people who are looking
for it find it because of the loudest voices being
at the forefront.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Yeah, I think that's well said. I think about that
a lot. The consequences of Spoony Buard or was that
his YouTube name. Spoony the one that did the very
infamous f F eight and f F ten two videos,
which admittedly like in a Vacuum, they're kind of funny,
but it's it's this, it's the society wide irony. I'm

(01:04:35):
not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before.
This this propensity to to to ironic detachment that lets one,
you know, stay away from being sincere. Did I mean it?
I don't know, because I'm just always so ironic and
detached and sexy and it. Yeah, there's there's problems with that.

(01:04:56):
That's interesting. I would have never pegged pro Jared to
be in that camp though, like I, I generally find
his stuff to be in mostly good taste, his public
YouTube stuff to be in mostly good taste.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
He's really but he was a product of that that
decade as well, Like he wasn't you know, separate from
angry video game NuRD or anything. They were all doing
the same thing. And now he does significantly less. He's
I mean, he's he's a Wisconsin I and he's a
he's a cool guy. But that doesn't erase that video,
and nothing ever will for me. But I know, but

(01:05:30):
I know that he's grown, like he has grown himself
out of that, and he has straight up said that
over the our conversations. Is I would like to think
that most of the people that were doing video game
reviews in twenty ten aren't the same person and have
learned from that. And we were talking about our GT
eighty five and he's like, some people haven't and that's

(01:05:52):
you know, it was you know, and that's true. That
was a generational thing, and we all like, it's not
like we didn't laugh about videos like that then, But
to use them, especially as we're going barrowing headfirst into
an AI generated algorithm for every single thing, those loud

(01:06:13):
things come to the forefront all the time, and it's
hard to erase those. I personally know. I've been trying
to do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
It for years.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Yeah, that's just one game.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
You know, that's another conversation that I didn't even think of.
These AI farm bots are being trained on this loud material. Yes,
which is this? You know, your angry video game nerd,
your you know I. I don't have any problems with uh,
what's his name, James. I don't have any problems with
with with James, Like I good for him, but wow,

(01:06:50):
that's really depressing to think of. One of you said
that Google is like your friend earlier, and I was
all I could think of, was is it because like
it used to be a joke that you type in
your search query plus Reddit to get the results, but now,
like I kid you not, I cannot search any other
way because otherwise I don't get reliable information. I still

(01:07:11):
have the screenshots saved from when I Googled, and my
Google picture is in the top corner. When I googled
who invented the backflip, and the AI summation was like,
this was invented in thirteen whatever by John Backflip and
his rival in town, Marcus front Flip, convinced everybody that
he was doing witchcraft, and I was like, why the

(01:07:31):
fuck is this being suggested whatever?

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
I mean whatever, But Google being your friend was before
the AI summary. Now the A summary is less. Just
roll down past it find someone who actually made a
YouTube video about that question you can't figure out in
that game you're playing, like that's how that goes. It's
funny talking about the YouTuber thing too. It's like, so
I've watched an angry video game le Nerd for a
long time, and he's actually started doing some more positive videos,
doing more narrative stuff, like he's evolved, or I think

(01:07:58):
about Scott the who I love, I Adore Scott. I've
been watching kind of for a long time. What I
love about him is that he is a loudmouth, he's
a jerk, he's a jackass. That's the character. But then
in those videos there are these heartfelt moments where he
talks about his past and things he truly loves or dislikes,
and like the heart is the sincerity is still there
amongst a comedy nonsense that I think is what makes

(01:08:19):
it great. But then there are other YouTubers who I
stop watching, like John Tron, like pro Jarard, although pro
Jarard's evolved because in their early days they were like
it was shock, it was shock and awe. It was
like saying fed up things trying to get attention, you know,
whereas like Peanut Butter Gamer basically still does the same
thing he did ten years ago, but now he's married,

(01:08:40):
has a kid and acknowledges how ridiculous his life is,
you know. And I think there has to be some
level of growth in this landscape and sincerity otherwise you
won't break through it. I mean, one of my favorite
creators for the longest time was Gerard Dragon writer Khalil,
better known as the Completionist and then after everything that
came out with his charity fraud and he fought back

(01:09:02):
against it, and like, this is a person that I
met several times told was why I went into this stuff,
and like then all this stuff comes out, and now
I don't watch this stuff anymore. I've kind of avoided it.
I kind of detached myself from it. The thing that
did it for me is when the Sea of Stars,
creators he was friends with, took him out of their
own video game. It was like, well, that's a pretty
clear message to me. But like, you know, he's someone

(01:09:25):
who's still making videos and as far as I know,
isn't talking about this anymore. And why would he write
He wants to move on, keep his audience, keep his career.
But I think there has to be some level of
realism and sincerity. And what drives me crazy about him
as an example not to pick on him because he's
a person like anyone else is. He did these videos,
these updates. Here's where I'm at. I cherished my audience.

(01:09:45):
I want to be real with you. I want to
tell you these things, and then you find out that
there's this other lie and it's like, well, was he
ever sincere then I'm not here to judge that or
have an answer. I'm just saying for me, I questioned it. Whereas,
like I mentioned Peanut Butter gamers Scott the Walls earlier,
they do update videos and they are huge dorks talking

(01:10:06):
about their lives about what they've been doing, thanking you
for watching their stuff, doing incredible charity things where the
money actually goes where it needs to go. Like it's
just I think that there's always going to be the
people who rise to the top with the shakun r
and none of the sincerity, But then we are getting
more stuff that does feel closer to like these people

(01:10:26):
are just being themselves and want to share how they feel.
But like I want to believe at this point just
from the content I consume I did it. I used
that word, the C word content the podcast. I consume.
It's all folks more or less like us, more amateur
voices in the space, people who have been doing it
less time, although I've been doing it for a decade.
Is terrifying to say out loud, Uh, only seven years

(01:10:49):
in games, But like the idea that you know, I
guess not amateur than Indie right, independent, not making a
ton of money running off a Patreon. It's not our
full time job. I like those voices more because there
is an inherent sincerity because we don't. It can't be
money because we're not making that much, right, And I
think I won't say that corporations ruin everything, although corporations

(01:11:11):
ruin everything. But I think that the reason I always
lean towards more independent voices or voices that are powered
under their own steam, their own audience, and not big
bucks or whatever, which some of the YouTube sponsorship places
lead you to, is because you can't bribe someone like
that if they're not making money. Now, I've said a

(01:11:31):
million times, if Xbox tomorrow buys funding games, they can
have it for a million dollars, I'll start another podcast.
It's not about selling out. It's about I would love
the money, and then I'll still go to my little
independent thing. But that's me, right, And I think there's
this is a whole other like consumerism capitalism conversation that
we don't have time to get into. But I think
that so I can stop rambling that. I think that

(01:11:54):
you have to grow with your medium as a as
a as a content creator, as a someone who could
and as someone who consumes critique, you change your heart
or die. David Lynch said it best, right, Like, you
have to grow. You can't stagnate because then you don't learn,
and the people you influence don't learn, and the people
around you don't learn. Right. If your voice for change,

(01:12:17):
you will affect change. Kind of that kind of simple idea.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
Yeah, really, well said, I don't think I have anything
to add that could better elucidate that point what I
would like to do, just sort of in closing, we
got a lot of responses in the community forum for this.
For folks that are new and have made it through
this long of an episode. First of all, this is
your first episode and you've made it this far. Good

(01:12:42):
for you. Hope to see you around. But the community
forum is a discord channel in the Pixel Project radio
server where I let folks know what we're going to
be talking about and they can give their succinct responses. Now,
for this topic, I lifted that succinct idea. I said,

(01:13:02):
come what may say whatever you want, as long as
you'd like talk to us about game criticism. Now, what
happened was we got a lot of responses, and a
lot of them are long, so I will not be
reading every single one, but I wanted to go through
a couple just as we end this episode. Some of
the stuff we've already talked about, some we haven't, but
I'm going to read a couple here, not all of them,

(01:13:22):
just a couple. I will be leaving that forum post up, though,
so folks can come back and interact with it if
they'd like. Chris Physics I meant to read this way earlier,
at the end of one of his posts, wrote this
quote by Oscar Wilde. The critic has to educate the public.
The artist has to educate the critic, which I love.
I love that. Yeah, we talked about that at length.

(01:13:46):
I think Adam from the Revival and Extinction podcast, pairing
this down a little bit, said, I remember when I
was a child reading the narratives that critics would be
able to pull from their gaming journey, telling their own
unique experiences to the reader with the use of very vocabulary,
color screenshots, and just an overall authentic experience. In today's world,
it's more of a double edged sword. Yes, everyone can

(01:14:07):
put forward their own experience, be it a positive or
negative one, but this has led to the professional space
being oversaturated with articles that either the author hasn't been
able to give their own point of view due to
external factors such as crunch time from editors or outlets
come from a real gatekeeper position in the industry. I

(01:14:27):
think we've talked about that enough. I don't know that
I personally have anything to say in addition to what
I've said, do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
Either review I mean, I just quickly will say nobody
pays for reviews. It's a fiction. I'm going to keep
saying it on every podcast. They don't pay for good reviews,
they don't pay for bad reviews. Does that mean money
change doesn't change hands in places of business to influence things. No,
of course it does not, naive, but I know a
lot of reviewers who are just getting by and if

(01:14:55):
someone paid them a thousand dollars for a review, they
wouldn't be just getting by it. It doesn't happen. And it's
such a common thing amongst broad intelligent communities, not just
intelligent unintelligent communities. But it's just people assume this and
it just drives me crazy. So that's the only thing
I would add to that is the end the fiction

(01:15:15):
that people get paid to influence their reviews that just
it's not a thing that happens for sure, not now, and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):
I, as the common man, agree with the educated Matt.
But because there's always a lot like we talked about,
I still feel like certain developers in big studios do
give preferential treatment to early access and things. They would
give those to a review all that that they think

(01:15:43):
would say something positive, as opposed to an independent Matt
that is a wild man and could say anything about
Final Fantasy Rebirth. Are you know? So there is influence
that is beyond the scope of lining, you know, one
thousand dollars to Matt Storm and their critical mind. I

(01:16:07):
don't think that affects things as much as some people
who think that, you know, the game awards are rigged
and blah blah blah and all that nonsense that we
really shouldn't have any time for anyway. But there is
influence that is non monetary. But it does not when

(01:16:27):
my biggest problem is simply people who don't play games
finding games. I don't think that it doesn't even touch
anything that would then return monetarily to a video game company.
That just that just does not happen like a thousand
dollars doesn't turn into a million dollars in sales.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
No, no, yeah, it would be pollyanna ish to think
that money is never a factor. But you know this
kind of thing, it's it's good to be skeptical. But
it is not a conspiracy. This is just like a
super quick side tangent. This is the same when people say, like, well,
who funded that study? That does not always correlate. Causation

(01:17:09):
is not correlation. Correlation is not causation. Excuse me, just
because like the toothpaste and like Crest funded the study
and it came out saying that, you know, the toothpaste,
Crest is good. It doesn't necessarily mean anything that I
don't know. That's that's a whole other thing. Researchers have

(01:17:30):
talked about this on Twitter and Blue Sky Better, so
I won't get into it. There is actually one final
piece of community correspondence that I'd like to read that
we didn't talk about that I kind of feel strongly about,
kind of This is from Mikey, Tabletop Discord regular formerly
of zho to Two Heroes. Mikey says reviewers are way

(01:17:52):
too lenient with giving out ten out of tens a
ten out of ten is a perfect game, no complaints,
There's nothing wrong with it. It is perfect in all aspects.
I think that is such a rare occurrence, not just
in video games, but in any art form. I think
people take ten out of ten to mean it's a
really good fucking game. No, it's a perfect game with
no flaws, and I don't think they are nearly as

(01:18:12):
frequent as reviewers should have you believe there were several
like this and one hundred reactions. John followed up John
from the Video Game Lounge. He says, I have mostly
stayed away from critics and reviews in recent years. Big
gaming podcasts like kind of Funny and Beyond seemingly think
games can only be a seven or a ten on
a scale of one through ten, just like Kataku and IGN,

(01:18:33):
and these sites and podcasts also try to convince you
that a seven out of ten game is dog shit,
But why use a one out of ten? If other
numbers exist on the scale, they have meaning and purpose
as well. What I have done in recent years is
watch and listen to game reviews on YouTube. And he
goes on to kind of talk about what we did
with knowing the critic critics voice. I disagree with this wholeheartedly.

(01:18:58):
I do not think that a ten means objectively perfect,
because there is no such thing. I am kind of
moving towards being pretty against the ranked numbers ranking system
for you know, symphonies or plays or television shows or games.
I just the more I think about it, the more
it kind of rubs me in a way I don't like.

(01:19:21):
I don't like ranking art, you know. And it's so
funny because I held for years, like when people would
talk about who's your favorite classical saxophonist, You guys have
a favorite that you want to share, by the way, no, wow,
I'm surprised. But when people would talk about that, my
marian response was always the same. At a certain level,
it becomes moot. It's a meaningless conversation to have because
there is no better at a certain point now, of course,

(01:19:41):
like if you took my fourth grade student compared to
Timothy McAllister at the University of Michigan. Yeah, I mean,
there's a better in this conversation. But once true art
is being created, that doesn't mean anything. So too here like,
and this is something if you go back and listen
to the early episodes of my show you're gonna hear
us like say I give this a one out of
ten or a five out of ten, and it's like

(01:20:03):
at the time I was like, yeah, you got to
use the whole scale, but now it's like I want
to throw the scale away. I don't, I've outgrown its usefulness.
I don't. I don't. I know it's a shorthand, Like
seven out of ten means something to people. Seven out
of ten means a certain kind of game that it's good,
but it's got flaws, it's not amazing, but it's fun. Like,
I know that's a short hand in the culture. I

(01:20:25):
get it, but I think it's I think it's become
dangerous to talk about them in such numbered terms, in
such ranked terms. I think we should all be cautious
using this. So all this to say, no, I think
ten out of ten is achievable, just like in employee evaluations.
Have you ever been at a company that said we

(01:20:46):
don't give anybody fives because there's always room to improve. Yeah,
it's dog shit, so too here, ten out of ten's
can't exist. I mean, I mean, even if you're being subjective,
but that's a whole other thing. Yeah, I don't know,
I don't feel like I said anything cogent there, but
that's kind of my thoughts on it. Do away with
the system. I think ten out of ten's can exist

(01:21:07):
and do exist, and that's fine. Jeez, I'm gonna edit
this back and be so so mad that I just
kind of vomited this whole thing out. But what say
the two of you?

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
What's say the two We can always come back, we
can come back for round two.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
I just have to do the whole thing over again.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
Yeah, yeah, oh shit, sorry guys, I wasn't recording.

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
I think that was perfectly coach. And I think also, like,
first of all, I love you, Mikey tabletop. You're a delight.
I love talking to you. But I don't agree. I
don't agree either. I gave a ten out of ten
to sit instance sleep or two, not because it's a
perfect game, but it's perfect to me. It's all subjective, right,
And I totally hear you Rick about the number thing,

(01:21:51):
which I've started using in my written reviews, and I
also am someone who does it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
That wasn't it. That wasn't a jabb no no, no, no, no, no,
no not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
It totally was actually all right, Mike, listen to no.
But like, I think that there's a I think the
problem is is that your right, Rick, in the sense
that it's weaponized. The out of ten scale is weaponized.
And anyone who goes to a website and re and
jumps to the bottom of a review and sees the
score and goes I know what I need to know

(01:22:22):
is defeating the purpose of that number. I think that
number is well used when I've written a thousand words
about why Eternal Strands is an eight out of ten,
and I've explained thoroughly why or why Citizen Sleeper two
is a ten out of ten? Right, I think you know?
I guess it on a podcast recently where they did
a scale of you out of ten use like out

(01:22:43):
of ten mats, because an out of ten scale should
be about you. It should be about what you think
of a game, not this ten is better than that ten.
And like I, but I do agree also on the
other side, that the scale is weaponized for seven out
of ten. Star Wars Outlaws was one of my favorite
games in the Star Wars universe. It is a seven
out of ten ass game. There are problems with it,

(01:23:05):
but I had a blast playing through that game, and
I think seven out of ten describes it perfectly if
it's used correctly. But the problem is we can't standardize
any of that, and I think that's why it's dangerous.
And I totally agree with you wanting to get away
from it, Rick, I kind of kicked myself for diving
into it, but I'm seeing where it goes. And I mean,
there are Patreon articles right for forty people to read,

(01:23:27):
like I can change it as I go and as
I see fit, because I have no boss except myself,
and I'm a dick sometimes.

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
But.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
My rankings are between me and God exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
But like to actually put a point on this, I
think that the problem with greater critique and with the
number scale is that there's no uniformity. And so unless
you know me and know my work, and it goes
back to knowing the critic, then my ten out of
ten or my seven out of ten or my eleven
out of ten for QUES sixty four on the N

(01:24:03):
sixty four home console is more understandable if you know
where I'm coming from. But just broadly looking at the number,
you'll look at it and go, well, I don't agree.
I thought Eternal Strands was terrible. It should have been
a six out of ten. Why did you give it
an eight out of ten? I think that's where we
get to the murkiness of all this, is that there's
no uniformity amongst it. We're all just making up as
we go along, and then there's five out of five

(01:24:24):
and like three point five. It's just like it. You know,
It's just again, there's no consistency throughout the critical landscape,
which muddies a lot of those hard numbers that we
want to use as quick hits.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
That's the other side of that insidious coin, is that
the comparison aspect, well you gave this a seven and
you think it's better than this six, Well that, I
mean that comes down to knowing your reviewer. But that
is that is so that is just deleterious to the
entire idea of art. I don't know, I don't know, Sorry, Mike.

(01:24:59):
This whole has just been stepping in front of Quest
sixty four saying I'm Quest sixty three. I go first,
and then you can go. That's how numberspect.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
Sorry, it is no, I'm absolutely loving this, So do
not apologize at all. Yes, I as well, also think
that the biggest problem is numbers because it's the easiest
thing to record and report and to read, and it's
the lowest common denominator. Literally, like the quickest thing you

(01:25:29):
can do is type in you know, a vowed plus
breadit and find the score. And that's a problem just
as and like Rick said, just as big of a
problem is like lists, because those are bumped up to
the top of most algorithms as well. You ask what's
the greatest video game of all time, every list is

(01:25:50):
going to tell you ocker In of Time. But I
would love to listen to Matt talk about why Dragon
Age Origins is just as good of a game as
ocker Yant of Time. And if you sat and listen
to it without playing either game, I think that most
average people would be hard pressed to choose which game

(01:26:10):
they think is better based on his argument outside of
one score to ten and one scored at nine point nine,
show me the numbers kind of thing. And if we
took the numbers out of everything and people were forced
to read long, well written critiques, we'd probably all be
better off. But that's not reality.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
Well said, yeah, we would be better off, it's uh,
it won't happen. I don't think that'll ever happen. No,
it's just coming It's just coming down to it. The comparison,
like how do you judge a string courtet being better
than another? Like? On what merit? On a compositional what
who does a fugue better? Maybe? Okay, that's a that's
an objective thing. But when it when it becomes what

(01:26:54):
is the greatest X of all time? And it's it's
a very subjective thing. And again, I think it goes
back to if if I ask Matt with the greatest
game of all time? Is what I'm really asking the
nested question here is I'm asking Matt to tell me
about themselves. Yeah, that's what that comes down too. But

(01:27:16):
the public at large, I think doesn't think of it
that way. They see it as a surface level, declarative comparison.
And that's where things get a little, a little dissonant
and toxic and not good. Can you believe it that
it only took us an hour and thirty seven minutes
to completely crack what makes a good critic? And this

(01:27:39):
is all and all nobody needs to listening to anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:27:43):
Yeah, figured it out.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Yeah, we beat it. No, this this was good and
as always, you know, my head was swimming today with
where we could take this. I have notes that we
didn't get to. I want to shout out again the
limits of Critique by Rita Felski, very A four as
an ebook if that's how you like to read your stuff.
Probably could find it as a free PDF if you

(01:28:05):
wanted to, although I don't advocate for doing your reading
on screens that don't use e ink. Don't do that.
We didn't get into your post Mike where you brought
in a lot of replies on this question. I admit
I did not write any of them down. A lot
of them just said ye or yes. But I think

(01:28:30):
you know the questions you asked and the follow up
questions that you got the handful of them. I think
we touched on everything here. Although as I said at
the top, this is not a punctuated conversation. We invite
you to keep this going, whether it is in the
discord or on Blue Sky wherever. Please do you can
tag us, you can join the discord and at us

(01:28:52):
whatever you would like to do. And if you were
interested in finding those ads, this is a segue. You
can check the episode description because it's now that time
where we talk a little bit about who's here. Matt,
you've been on the show before. Fun and Games is
a terrific podcast that does a mixture of topic conversations
between Matt and Jeff, as well as the aforementioned side

(01:29:15):
quest series, which sees guests from all walks coming in
to talk about a game that they love and why.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
I did an episode on Ziga's Zega Saga Ziegasaga Ziga
Zaga Hoy Hoy Hoy Zeno Saga episode one, which I
wrote out I think it's fine, It's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
Most recently, you got a try from my Life in Gaming,
one of my very favorite YouTube channels. They are one
of the best in the game. I don't know how
they don't have more subscribers. To talk all about a
curby game, I don't remember quite which one, but if
you would like to talk a little bit about Fun
and Games and the stuff that you're up to, by
all means let us know what's new, what you've been

(01:29:56):
working on, and where we can find you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
Sure. Yeah, I'm mostly only active on blue Sky these days.
I'm djstorm again dot com there, which is also my
urol to find all the things that I do, and Yeah,
Try came on to talk about Curby and the Forgotten
Land and then mostly went on a tire rate about
three D platformers and why they make him cry, and
I loved it. It was great, It was delightful. Try
is awesome, and I agree about my life in gaming absolutely,

(01:30:21):
But Yeah, Funny Games is a broad topic based podcast
that me and Jeff Moonen host and it started as
an excuse to just talk about broad topics within the
gaming space, but we've gone on to interview incredible composers,
voice actors, game developers, both indie and more talk about
specific indie games. We love genre retrospectives, console retrospectives. I

(01:30:43):
have some ideas percolating in the future to bring Rick
on for that we've chatted about offline, and I'm excited
to hopefully make those come true this year. But yeah,
it's been great. We most recently had Alex Stumpeley on
from I believe that's how I pronounced his last name.
He's the rules lawyer effectively from twenty Sided Tavern, which
is a D and D improv show that's off Broadway

(01:31:05):
in New York, and he came to talk about choices
in video games, and we discussed like why choices matter,
what makes a good choice and a bad choice in
a game. It was really great conversation. We've done console
retrospectives like about the Xbox three sixty with the previous
previous punching bag mentioned and friend of the show Dave Jackson.

(01:31:25):
We've done some really cool stuff over there and I
hope folks will go check it out. I also do
a more focused show called Reignite, started as a massfect podcast,
went on to then do Andromeda. Once we were done
with that, we're like, I guess, I guess we'll romance
more people in dragon Age and so that's where we
are now. We're doing dragon Age two and we will
of course talk about the recently released dragon Age of

(01:31:45):
the Baillguard in probably two years because we take our time. Yeah,
and like I said, if you want to check out
all the stuff I do, just go to dj storm
again dot com. That's the best place to find it.
And Rick, thank you for having me on the show again.
This is always a blast. Love chatting with you and
was fun to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
Of course, the pleasure is mine. I mean, you have
an open door policy. You can come in anytime you
want onto this show, truly, truly, really, Now, Mike, you
are new to the show and you don't have a podcast,
wait for it because you have sense. Yes, However, every time,
every time, I've got one joke and I plan to

(01:32:21):
get my money's worth, But you do interestingly run what
kind of started as a shit posting account and continues
to be a sort of a shit posting account. Half
a shit posting account, half a spread the good word
of Quest in an extra half because who cares? Numbers
don't matter anymore in this twenty twenty five America, a

(01:32:45):
third half of just being authentically sincere about video games
and talking about them in a way that side steps
this duplicitous irony that we see so much. Do you
want to I don't forgive me. I know how to
approach this. What would you like to say about what
you do on the Internet.

Speaker 3 (01:33:05):
I don't know. I'm Mike. I run Quest sixty four Official,
and I guess I'm like a vigilante algorithm manipulator is
the best way to put it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:33:15):
Yeah, I just invade Internet spaces and then I try
to funnel all of that engagement to people like Matt
and Rick and more so trying to smooth the edges
of the Internet so when my kids are old enough
to hate Twitter, that it wouldn't be such a terrible
place as it is now while I'm on it. I
guess video games deserve better, and I'm trying to be better.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
I guess, yeah, I think that's a noble pursuit. They
do deserve better. I you know, even whether you want
to follow for the Brian means for the good word
of Little Caesars, which I mean, I'll say it is
my favorite pizza chain. Oh yeah, I'll say it. I'll
say it proudly. Don't look that sodium say or the

(01:34:04):
genuine talk about games. I think PUS sixty four is
a good mutual to have. And you can find links
to Ryan and all of his and sixty four glory
in the episode description, as well as links to Fun
and Games, Reignite and Matt's stuff, as well as stuff
to Pixel Project Radios online presence the discord, which again

(01:34:25):
please feel free to join and continue this conversation. We
did not get to everything that we wanted to talk to.
We did not get to elaborate on everything we wanted
to elaborate upon, and we invite you to do so,
hold us accountable. Continue it. You can also find the Instagram,
Blue Sky, YouTube and TikTok. Those are new. I do
TikTok now, God help me. Thirst traps minimal, though not

(01:34:49):
off the table. You can find all of that inside.
You can do ratings and reviews if you would like to,
on any platform that you choose. I don't read them
on the show anymore, but I do read them. I
do check for them all the time, and that's very
much appreciated. Manipulate the algorithm. It's always a good time.
So once again, Matt and Mike Matt from Fun and

(01:35:10):
Games and Reignite Mike from Quast sixty four official. Thank
you both so much for joining me. This was enlightening,
This was entertaining, and this was enjoyable. Several other adjectives
that may or may not begin with E.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
This was great, Thank you, thank you, this was a blast.

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
With that, as they said, I am Rick, I am
your host of FIXE of Project Radio. We're signing off
for now, see you next time.

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Games Criticism | Roundtable Discussion (Ep. 134)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Games Criticism | Roundtable Discussion (Ep. 134)