Jan 7, 2015

BulletPoints: Big Shoes to Review

This was going to be the week I posted all of my Legend of Korra stuff. But due to a massive work-load this past weekend, I’m still working on that stuff. Do expect a podcast and a video-based Majestic Twelve for next week that’s all about Legend of Korra along with our normal posts. The change in format for those particular posts are my way of apologizing for delay (and I wanted to do them as videos anyway, so it works out). 

Recently, I’ve been told I’m too critical and that I need to put myself in the shoes of those I criticize and see how hard said individuals might have it before I can put out criticism. This was on a personal note on my personal profile on my personal social-media page. But this is a failed argument in response to criticism I’ve seen in other places on other topics and I’ve even seen one brilliantly written article on Destructoid that talks about the topic. Basically it’s the notion that if you don’t like something, do it yourself. If you don’t like the game or film, make a game or film yourself. Be the change you want to see in said industry.


And while that mentality is not inherently bad, the logic behind it is incredibly flawed. Yes, making your own video game is easier than ever, but there are many hurdles to making a game yourself. And even if you do manage to cobble something together, getting it to sell is a whole different issue entirely. When I criticize something like Legend of Korra, and one would decide to respond by saying I should make my own American-made-anime if I didn’t like the show 100%, that would be a horrible response. I can barely draw myself. I can write, but it wouldn’t get picked up by a network because my name means nothing to them. I can’t voice act, and certainly not multiple characters of different genders and ethnicities to a degree to make each one sound unique and interesting.

People who make this argument are, in fact, missing the entire purpose of criticism in the first place (or at least what I’ve always felt the purpose of criticism was). The point is to help highlight the flaws with a given product or service and suggest ways to improve upon them. Yes, I could make a horrible attempt to make my own game, movie, book, theater, TV show, children’s toy, or underwear brand. But I feel like being able to use examples of these and explain why they don’t work or why they have problems helps future creators and developers LEARN from those problems and grow from that experience. So if I state a problem taking place at my workplace, I’m not stating it in such a way that I’m aiming to up and quit as a result of it. Far from it. I’m stating the complaint as an issue that needs to be worked on to make things smoother.



Fact is, I’ve never held the notion that anything can truly be perfect and everything can, in even the smallest of ways, be improved. I loved my ex-girlfriend when we were dating, but I can humbly admit that the relationship, for all the fun it was, wasn’t perfect. I love my dog, but she isn’t a perfect pet by any means. I loved Legend of Korra (as you will know all about next week) and I could sit here for hours telling you every single flaw it had (and I most certainly will). And while some people think that if you love something you can’t criticize it, I find the opposite to be the truth. I find the more you love something, the more you know what makes said thing great and can point out where problems are for improvement.

As another example, I love the Sonic the Hedgehog series as you all well know. I’m more than willing to try out any game in the series at least once because I think they’re some of the most fun games I’ve played. But none of them are perfect, and even a game like Sonic Generations that did so much right still had many issues worth discussing. And it saddens me when a game like Lost World or even Sonic Boom comes out and all the lessons we should have learned from the better experiences like Generations were thrown out the window for almost no logical reason.


That being said, this doesn’t mean I can’t completely empathize with anyone. In the case of Sonic 2006, I get that the production on the game was rushed by Sega, forcing Sonic Team to make many concessions, ultimately creating the piece of trash that it was. I understand that Legend of Korra’s budget was cut, resulting in many episodes feeling rushed for time and not having much breathing room. I understand that Bayonetta 2 was rejected by nearly every publisher until Platinum met Nintendo and Nintendo agreed to the mad but brilliant idea. And for these issues, yes, I will acknowledge them, but the fact these problems occur don’t change my final opinion on whether something is good or bad. It can contribute, but if a game is bad, I won’t say it’s not bad because it was rushed out the door. I will likely say that’s the reason it’s bad and you shouldn’t get it.

But I won’t empathize with Ubisoft for saying they don’t have a budget to put playable women in their games and then release a game that looked like it was stitched together for the Steam Early Access hell. I won’t empathize with Nickelodeon for saying they’re struggling in this post-Netflix and online streaming world when they cut budgets from critically amazing shows that could help keep their network relevant in the mainstream. I won’t empathize with Sony for getting their information hacked and cyber attacked AGAIN when they could very easily have fixed the problem after the first time this happened during the PS3 era a handful of years ago.



If you dislike my criticism of a game, movie, TV Show, or anything else (private or public) then I welcome you arguing against me. But if you are intending to debate, stick to debating what is being criticized. Don’t present fallacies like how I need to put myself in the shoes of a Publisher, CEO, Manager, Politician, or some other figure before I can say they’re doing a bad job at what they’re doing. I will ignore those fallacies because I’m not going to waste time on pointless debates about nothing relevant to the actual discussion. And I’m aware of the irony in that statement… given that I’ve devoted an entire post to said fallacy… so shut up.


That’s all for this week’s edition of BulletPoints. Again, sorry that this week’s schedule isn’t quite as tight as normal. Still playing through games and getting through films to review. And with work the way it’s been, it hasn’t been all that easy. We should be back on a somewhat more regular schedule tomorrow. If you like what you read here and want to see more content like it, please be sure to like, share, comment, and subscribe. I will be back next week for what I’m going to dub as “The Week of Korra” assuming we can get everything put together right. 

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