kane_magus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kane_magus) wrote2010-03-23 03:39 pm
kane_magus) wrote2010-03-23 03:39 pm
Entry tags:
Destructoid's FFXIII review
Ha ha ha, oh wow.
I've ranted a bit about it in the past, but this is probably the best (or perhaps "worst" would be a better word) of several similar recent examples* of why Destructoid (a site I used to love, by the way, but now visit maybe once a month or so, if that much) has become only slightly better than completely worthless to me lately. It's really disappointing because it used to be a great site. Still, I admittedly have a kind of vague "just how low will they stoop for page-views next time, I wonder" interest about it as well. It's the whole "train-wreck, can't look away" phenomenon at work.
* - Which I won't link here, because I don't want to give the site any more traffic than that, if I can help it. But if you just can't help yourself, look up the follow ups to the FFXIII review I linked above, their Assassin's Creed II review, or the several articles about Heavy Rain including their review of it, as well as the various rants against indie/art games and the "Counterpoint" articles that invariably show up a few days after the very few good reviews that they give (not counting the 10 out of 10 they gave to Deadly Premonition, because that was merely another "joke" at Heavy Rain's expense). A big impetus for a lot of it is just angry fanboys being angry fanboys, true enough, but even so, I feel there's a lot of legitimate beef to be had with some of the crap the site puts out these days. Not to mention the fact that there are usually a bunch of sycophantic, pro-Destructoid fanboys clogging the comments of these crappy articles lately, too, which is another reason I feel that the site has hit the skids.
In other words, Destructoid went from being a cool site to being just another typical, crappy gaming website, with a similarly typical, crappy gaming "community" to follow it.
I've ranted a bit about it in the past, but this is probably the best (or perhaps "worst" would be a better word) of several similar recent examples* of why Destructoid (a site I used to love, by the way, but now visit maybe once a month or so, if that much) has become only slightly better than completely worthless to me lately. It's really disappointing because it used to be a great site. Still, I admittedly have a kind of vague "just how low will they stoop for page-views next time, I wonder" interest about it as well. It's the whole "train-wreck, can't look away" phenomenon at work.
* - Which I won't link here, because I don't want to give the site any more traffic than that, if I can help it. But if you just can't help yourself, look up the follow ups to the FFXIII review I linked above, their Assassin's Creed II review, or the several articles about Heavy Rain including their review of it, as well as the various rants against indie/art games and the "Counterpoint" articles that invariably show up a few days after the very few good reviews that they give (not counting the 10 out of 10 they gave to Deadly Premonition, because that was merely another "joke" at Heavy Rain's expense). A big impetus for a lot of it is just angry fanboys being angry fanboys, true enough, but even so, I feel there's a lot of legitimate beef to be had with some of the crap the site puts out these days. Not to mention the fact that there are usually a bunch of sycophantic, pro-Destructoid fanboys clogging the comments of these crappy articles lately, too, which is another reason I feel that the site has hit the skids.
In other words, Destructoid went from being a cool site to being just another typical, crappy gaming website, with a similarly typical, crappy gaming "community" to follow it.
Re: Completely agree with you 100%
Yeah, I think that Jim himself has become, in essence, the thing that he supposedly claims to hate, or at least pretends to hate, that is to say: an obnoxious fanboy. In his case, the thing that he has become a fanboy of is himself and his own writing (and, as such, he treats his detractors in the manner that you'd expect an offended fanboy would). I think he may have been given too much power and responsibility. He's the "Reviews Editor" now, whoop-de-doo, and when he gained that title was around the time that he started to suck in earnest. Perhaps it's more than he can adequately handle, and as such has let it go completely to his head. This, of course, has manifested itself in his ever more blatant trolling lately. That wouldn't be so bad, except that instead of the rest of the site putting a leash and muzzle on him, they instead seem to be encouraging him to be even worse. The "community" certainly is, without a doubt, but I don't think his fellow editors and the site owners are doing much of anything to curb his excesses either.
His problem is that he definitely does take himself way too seriously. Yet when called out on it, he always does this magnificently impressive backpedal by claiming that, no, he in fact doesn't take himself seriously at all. If you call him out on his horrible journalism, his counter is to say that, hey, he's not a journalist, but is, indeed, just some dude on a website talking about video games, as though this somehow makes it perfectly okay for him to be a raging douchebag (not that he sees himself as such, of course). I don't really think he believes that, I just think it's something to which he pays lip service in order to stroke the egos of his legion of fanboys in the comments. Pretending that he's just one of the little people, as it were, and it's a big part of the reason he has so many sycophants, and is able to get away with so much rubbish. Or, you know, maybe he really does believe that he is, in reality, as funny as he is in his own mind, and that he's just some poor little flower who's being harshly and unfairly hated upon by a few big, ol' bed-wetting doody heads. Either way, it comes to the same end.
The sad thing is, back when he was getting started on the site and really was just one among many other editors, he honestly wasn't that bad. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what it is exactly that has gone wrong here, and why he has become as terrible as he has. Hell, I don't know, it may have simply been his move from the UK to the US that caused the change. It mostly seems to be a combination of, as I said above, too much responsibility and leeway given to him, and not nearly enough oversight to rein him in (assuming they even want to rein him in, given that he does bring in the page-views, there's no doubt in that), and the fact that there are far too many popcorn-munching lickspittles sitting in the comments, egging him ever onward, giggling at all the "lulz" he is continually generating. Honestly, I have more problems with these people than I do with Jim himself, almost, since without them Jim wouldn't be where and what he is today, for good and for ill. Sterling's assholery can potentially be seen more as reflection on Destructoid itself and its so-called "community", than on Jim in particular, since it could be argued that Jim is merely doing his job and giving the "community" what it wants. I personally think it's a column A/column B thing, though.
(splitting for length)