no win

None of his videos are reviews in my mind, regardless of what he or anyone calls them. They simply lack the depth and analysis that I would want to properly make a decision on a game. The perception of the term varies wildly, but for me personally there's a fundamental difference between the kind of thing you get out of most 'reviews' on steam, monthly sub-box openings, etc, and actual critique. None of that really matters, that's just how I view the term.

My problem with his content for a while now, is specifically when he takes his own lack of understanding, and makes a strong, unwavering statement about it. "Oh FOV doesn't matter because it's a 3rd person game. It's capped at 60, but that's not a problem because I said so with my fancy g-sync monitor, having tested no other displays. You PC players don't know F2P, stop whining. etc..." (Not direct quotes of course, but some of the key ones I can remember)

His understanding of the technical side is extremely lacking, and I've seen him make multiple ignorant statements as a result of that. More recently with Dirty Bomb and Warframe, he fails to do genuine research and analysis, while proudly presenting statements that could only come after such effort, while also failing to account for heavy biases on the financial side of things. He addresses that here by saying essentially "my biased, whale-like approach is more useful". While fine conceptually, he doesn't present those strong statements as if that were the case, only a tiny fraction of his audience is actually in a similar situation for that to be useful, and at the end of the day, there are other people who already analyse the business model of these specific titles far better than he ever could. Not because of competence, but simply because of focus.

He tries to make a point here, but it's nothing more than deflection. He says "I can show you MORE of the game, by using premium currency". While possible, did he ACTUALLY show us more? Did he use that time and special position to really analyse the value of your dollar in that ecosystem? I don't feel that he did.

Look, I don't see the value in giving basic impressions of a whale experience. It comes off as a judgement based on an experience the vast majority of viewers can't or at least shouldn't have. I also don't see the value of impressions and shallow critique on the first hours of the fully F2P experience. The consumer can do that themselves. Complete analysis of structure and why that succeeds or fails based in psychology and such could be useful, but that's not a buying guide, that's a discussion on game design philosophies.

What I want to see, are impressions of the experience with a justified amount of money invested into it. "Oh this game is X years old, and it's content and polish feels like a high AA or AAA experience, so at this time during an average sale I could see it going for $15-20. Alright, we'll put $20 in and give it a shot. <commence impressions of said experience". The question for most consumers is not "Should I put my $300 into this game or not?!", but rather more like what I said above. "Oh, I've got $20, should I buy Dying Light or Warframe? What kind of experience do I get for what experience do I get for what the majority would see as the reasonable price for a game of this caliber? Will I feel rewarded for an extended period of time, or is it going to suck me into a loop of sunk cost?". He can make whatever content he has any desire to make, but for me personally, that approach is likely the only one that would be of any real use to me...

/r/Cynicalbrit Thread Link - soundcloud.com