A letter to Square

[SkyeWindbinder]

Seriously, whether the guy says he's "speaking for others" or not, I htink his info is well researched and he gave his opinion based on quite a few facts. Many of his points might prove a bit hard to disprove. I mean, there's no one way to give an editorial. The fact of the matter is, he had a lot of good points, and a lot of people agreed with what he had to say. I know I did.

[Abriael]

Seriously, whether the guy says he's "speaking for others" or not, I htink his info is well researched and he gave his opinion based on quite a few facts. Many of his points might prove a bit hard to disprove. I mean, there's no one way to give an editorial. The fact of the matter is, he had a lot of good points, and a lot of people agreed with what he had to say. I know I did.

Agreement is no proof of validity. Journalism isn't an election (as much as some definitely interpret it as such, and their articles are more pseudo-political and demagogic for the sake of personal popularity than anything else) A lot of people agreed with the maya doomsday theories, and we're still here.

There's no one way to create editorial content of course. There's the solid way based on facts and balance, and there's the hyperbolic way based on alarmism, fanboyism, negativity bias, fearmongering and false/warped information.

One of the best examples of the second kind is what you can define "pandering to the rage", to which pretty much both videos linked in this thread belong (the first a bit less, the second a lot more). It's a very easy and cheap tactic that consists in encouraging and agreeing with the most enraged/irrational areas of the reader/viewer base in order to catalyze the negativity and gain quick consensus while fanning the flames of ire and controversy, no matter if the positions expressed have any degree of validity or not.

The first is legit journalism, the second is tabloid scribbling. If you want to base your perception of the industry on the second you're free and entitled to do so (it's more controversial, and many absolutely love controversy), but that view will be as warped as its source.

To each their own.

[Denmo]

I really don't think that celebrating what was good with SE, criticizing what was bad, and asking for more good, is "pandering to the rage".

But hey, to each their own.


(And yeah, that's a cop out. )

[SkyeWindbinder]

Agreement is no proof of validity. Journalism isn't an election (as much as some definitely interpret it as such, and their articles are more pseudo-political and demagogic for the sake of personal popularity than anything else) A lot of people agreed with the maya doomsday theories, and we're still here.

There's no one way to create editorial content of course. There's the solid way based on facts and balance, and there's the hyperbolic way based on alarmism, fanboyism, negativity bias, fearmongering and false/warped information.

One of the best examples of the second kind is what you can define "pandering to the rage", to which pretty much both videos linked in this thread belong (the first a bit less, the second a lot more). It's a very easy and cheap tactic that consists in encouraging and agreeing with the most enraged/irrational areas of the reader/viewer base in order to catalyze the negativity and gain quick consensus while fanning the flames of ire and controversy, no matter if the positions expressed have any degree of validity or not.

The first is legit journalism, the second is tabloid scribbling. If you want to base your perception of the industry on the second you're free and entitled to do so (it's more controversial, and many absolutely love controversy), but that view will be as warped as its source.

To each their own.

Well, why don't you try writing or speaking an editorial of your own disproving the guy's claims? I mean, it's one thing to call an editor's words or expressed opinions "cheap tactics", but in reality, that's just an opinion. If something the guy said was blatantly wrong, then try telling everyone what it was, ans give us the sources that disprove the guy? Otherwise, you end up seeming like you're simply raging at someone for no reason other than you don't like what they had to say.

[Cedri]

Okay, so inb4lock and also here's my 2 gil on this.

As far as what I can see Abriael has a problem with being spoken for as a member of a fan base. The problem with that is, you will be spoken for by a publicized source whether you give your consent or not. That's just journalism. Using words to describe a population as a whole is easier when you listen or read what the majority of people are saying inside that community.

Let's think about it in a simplified statistic example.

From one of Abriael's posts he mentioned not all gamers use the internet. In a sense this is true. If 99.(9 repeating)% of gamers use the internet, there may be that .(leading 0)1% that does not. From that isn't it easier to make the generalization without arguing semantics to say that "all gamers use the internet"? So given our situation. Most of the community has negative opinions about the quality of play that the franchise has had recently.

So given that majority we as a community are seen as having that opinion and thus are written about in that context.

The loudest of voices will always be heard the clearest. So if you protest about being written about in a majority, stand out. Get published. Make the people hear the other side of the story. You don't need to justify your opinions to have them, just be ready for the majority disagreement.

[Doki]

Too lazy to make a confession bear but: I actually enjoyed FFXIII.
That video wasn't very good. It's obvious he took some real time to word out his letter, but it was way too overgeneralized. He could have just said "Older games were better. This new stuff is crap! Please make betterer games again."
While many of the older 8-Bit SE games have a special place in my memories, it's sort of silly to put them on the pedestal most put them on.

[Keith_Dragoon]

Too lazy to make a confession bear but: I actually enjoyed FFXIII.
That video wasn't very good. It's obvious he took some real time to word out his letter, but it was way too overgeneralized. He could have just said "Older games were better. This new stuff is crap! Please make betterer games again."
While many of the older 8-Bit SE games have a special place in my memories, it's sort of silly to put them on the pedestal most put them on.

I liked 13 and 13-2 myself but while the video doesn't 100% speak for me it's not entirely off. I agreed with a lot of it except that one part. I understand a large part of the player base really hate the direction SE is going with FFs and I cannot say FF is doing fantastic but I can say it's not the best or the worst.

I am saddened at the lack of SE games and the milking of Hitman and Tomb raider, I mean come on there is only so many times I can stare at Laura Croft do her fancy climbing and that ship sailed years ago. I was pleased with some of their older released in the past 10 years like Lost Odyssey, Kingdom Hearts and so on but they were few an far between. I mean looking at the games they put out in the last 7 years 90% of them are spin-offs or iOS re-releases of older games with a few good games.

[Katella_Avenlea]

The link is a bit passive aggressive I think.. Narrator seems a little hung up on not having an appreciation for FFXIII. They mention that SE shouldn't be scared to try new things, however when you think about that FFXIII was "different" and that is what people were up in arms about, it kind of negates their point I think.

I agree that they should be free to try new things however I think as players we have a part in this too as far as our own enjoyment level. Those nostalgic rose tinted glasses are hard to get past sometimes, but we need to be objective enough to know that if we ask for something "new and different" then we shouldn't be surprised by what we get, and we shouldn't expect to automatically love everything "new and different" that they come out with.

The idea that if we don't "love" everything they put out somehow means that SE is failing is requiring a bit much in my opinion. The reason why Final Fantasy has touched so many is because not every title is the same.

[Mjollnir]

My opinion matches that of the OP video. I didn't find it pretentious and condescending at all (though half of the rest of this thread surely is), and I don't see why "Square" would either.

I'm fully confident ARR will reaffirm S-E's place in the MMO market. I'm hoping that XV returns with excellent game-systems, characters and storyline (which I sadly missed in XIII).

[Abriael]

The gall of these so-called journalists, trying to present what they believe to be what people want to hear!

And here I thought that Journalists should present things as close as possible to what they are, and not what some people "want to hear"

But what do I know...

The only issue now is that apparently multiple people can't share the same opinion. lol
Which apparently results in them trying to speak for everyone and not just themselves I guess.

There's a difference between saying that "multiple people" share the same opinion (for the law of large numbers, multiple people will share almost any opinion) and trying to represent a majority or a "the fans".

Well, why don't you try writing or speaking an editorial of your own disproving the guy's claims? I mean, it's one thing to call an editor's words or expressed opinions "cheap tactics", but in reality, that's just an opinion. If something the guy said was blatantly wrong, then try telling everyone what it was, ans give us the sources that disprove the guy? Otherwise, you end up seeming like you're simply raging at someone for no reason other than you don't like what they had to say.

May want to reread my posts. I'll repeat the main point for your convenience. His whole video is based on a comparison between two extremely different situations and painting them as the same to try and show it as a doomsday scenario.

The situation with the game industry crash had basically everyone (including a large number of companies that had nothing to do with games subcontracting to amateur coders with no support, professional skillsets or tools) churning out extremely crappy/non functional games and saturating the market with a large percentage of games that either had zero longevity (you had to perform basically one action, over, and over, and over) or simply didn't work as intended. And I mean to the point that basically they were nothing else than a not-really-interactive screensaver.

He compares it with today's situation in which there's a sizable percentage of mediocre (at least mediocre for today's standards, that see a 7 as a bad score) games (like there has *always been* mind you), but how many absolutely crappy games with no redeeming features or completely non-functional ones do you see around? Hell, even FFXIV that had one of the worst launches of the latest generation had quite a few redeeming features.

He goes on comparing games that simply *did not work* with games that had an ending he did not like. I'm sure I'm not the only one that sees an enormous logical fallacy there.

Hell, for some reason he goes ahead and puts Battlefield 3 between the failures in order to compound his idea that EA is the root of all evil ('cause they can't make good games, right?). Which is quite funny since BF3 has been received extremely well both by critics and the general public. I'm not completely sure of what he was smoking there, but it definitely looks like the good stuff. That's evidence of an obvious bias right there.

When one bases his whole reasoning on comparing apples to escalators, that reasoning tends to crash and burn.

If I had to write editorials to disprove every random dude that puts something on the internet, I wouldn't have time for the relevant topics, which aren't "OMG The sky is falling!"