Each journo usually only does one or two games per week, and given their reviews, only plays one or two hours worth of the game. In one particularly infamous case (Cuphead, IIRC), the journo didn't even finish the tutorial.
So they're getting the income of a 40-hour week, while playing games for 2-4 or so hours, and writing for 2-4 hours (reviews are rarely more than a page or two). The rest of their time is virtue signalling on Twitter, which they would have done regardless of employment.
To be fair in the Cuphead case. That wasn't a review. It was them making him try the game and then they uploaded his inability to play for the giggles. Unfortunately, people didn't see it that way.
From what they claim, Dean Takahashi isn't a gamer, he is a journalist about gaming as a "business." Now if that's true, it does raise the question of if he should have the slightest bit of understanding of the product these businesses make.
I don't buy their defense of him and anyone in the industry should have the barest ability to engage with games on a foundational level. But it was a bit more complex than most cases of tarded reviewers.
Now, he was already famously for years beforehand writing a review about Mass Effect (which ruins their defense even more since he did review in the past) where he trashed it horribly, before it came out he never spent a single skill point and that's why he struggled. So that's a better example.
They don't play games for 40 hours per week.
Each journo usually only does one or two games per week, and given their reviews, only plays one or two hours worth of the game. In one particularly infamous case (Cuphead, IIRC), the journo didn't even finish the tutorial.
So they're getting the income of a 40-hour week, while playing games for 2-4 or so hours, and writing for 2-4 hours (reviews are rarely more than a page or two). The rest of their time is virtue signalling on Twitter, which they would have done regardless of employment.
That’s a good point I hadn’t thought of that. Damn.
To be fair in the Cuphead case. That wasn't a review. It was them making him try the game and then they uploaded his inability to play for the giggles. Unfortunately, people didn't see it that way.
From what they claim, Dean Takahashi isn't a gamer, he is a journalist about gaming as a "business." Now if that's true, it does raise the question of if he should have the slightest bit of understanding of the product these businesses make.
I don't buy their defense of him and anyone in the industry should have the barest ability to engage with games on a foundational level. But it was a bit more complex than most cases of tarded reviewers.
Now, he was already famously for years beforehand writing a review about Mass Effect (which ruins their defense even more since he did review in the past) where he trashed it horribly, before it came out he never spent a single skill point and that's why he struggled. So that's a better example.