"Zero Punctuation" and "Dev Diary" by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - The only thing worth watching on The Escapist

[Gravityqueen4life]

So the Dragons Dogma review came out

He hated it.

 

[Just_a_Bored_Guy]

So the Dragons Dogma review came out

He hated it.

Who didn't?

 

[SlipNHonkMach2]

I'm looking to the day when Escapist folds and he can reclaim his Zero Punctuation style back. it just isn't the same with the glasses on everything and the lack of the imps.

The last decade+ of game journalism is summarized in one meme
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The 4.0 gpa remark is funny since lot of older notable game devs were either high school or college dropouts who got picked up by companies because they spent their time with their game designing hobby over studying and thus had a skill that was in high demand but in limited supply during the 80's-00's. American Mcgee flat out dropped out of high school, meanwhile John Romero, John Carmack,, Cliff Blizzenski, Richard Garriot and even Gabe Newelll to name a few dropped out of college. I would say its the other way around in this picture, you have kids who think they need a useless degree in "game design" thus are taught an assembly line of 'standards' and political motivated nonsense by professors. And since these colleges have connections to the industry via internship programs, the people on the right start seeping into what was once built from self made hobbiest who learned their tradeskill on their own time.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I'm looking to the day when Escapist folds and he can reclaim his Zero Punctuation style back. it just isn't the same with the glasses on everything and the lack of the imps.

The 4.0 gpa remark is funny since lot of older notable game devs were either high school or college dropouts who got picked up by companies because they spent their time with their game designing hobby over studying and thus had a skill that was in high demand but in limited supply during the 80's-00's. American Mcgee flat out dropped out of high school, meanwhile John Romero, John Carmack,, Cliff Blizzenski, Richard Garriot and even Gabe Newelll to name a few dropped out of college. I would say its the other way around in this picture, you have kids who think they need a useless degree in "game design" thus are taught an assembly line of 'standards' and political motivated nonsense by professors. And since these colleges have connections to the industry via internship programs, the people on the right start seeping into what was once built from self made hobbiest who learned their tradeskill on their own time.

If you're focused on the "4.0 GPA people don't go into video games" idea, you're missing the point—the idea is that smart, talented people were behind great video games. When you replace them with untalented, dumb people, whether diversity hires that they have to invent job titles for, or an army of Indians (with no real talent or skill) who can hack together something that technically works, you've lost a lot of what makes video games good.

 

[Aaron Costello]

So the Dragons Dogma review came out

He hated it.

probably one of his most boring reviews imo.

...also ANIME!!! WAIFU!!! Get it? Marty is a weeb and likes anime!!!! HAHAHA WAIFU WARS!!!!! Seeing Yahtzee talk about this stuff is sad lol

 

[Pissmaster]

For how much he waxes poetically about indie games, he sure is sleeping on Balatro. Is he ignoring it because of its total lack of clown world shit, or its breakout hit status overshadowing all the other clown world shit he loves?

 

[DeadwastePrime]

For how much he waxes poetically about indie games, he sure is sleeping on Balatro. Is he ignoring it because of its total lack of clown world shit, or its breakout hit status overshadowing all the other clown world shit he loves?

he will probably cover it on a yahtzee plays or at the end of the year to talk about the games that didnt get full reviews.

 

[galah]

For how much he waxes poetically about indie games, he sure is sleeping on Balatro. Is he ignoring it because of its total lack of clown world shit, or its breakout hit status overshadowing all the other clown world shit he loves?

He felated it quite extensively a couple of weeks ago

 

[Don't make me]

So the Dragons Dogma review came out

He hated it.

This may be his worst review. You can tell he didn't play the game for more then 4-5 hours, had the load problem happen and then wrote the review in anger. He's wrong about microtransaction to buy fast tavel (you can use it to unlock one extra fast travel location). He is wrong about the health cap (the game explains that like 5% of all damage taken gets taken of your max health, and can be recovered at a inn or by camping. Has nothing to do with loading). And he did not lose his progress, he could have still reloaded his progress, unless he did the load and then ran around doing quests and the autosave kicked in. Which I guess can technically be said to be bad.

He was so ready to hate on the game and the first stumbling block broke him. Guess he needs to go back to "sad indie games" where he's not challenged to much.

 

[Poop A Loop]

Just like safe horny, Fedora Man is "safe angry". Dragon's Dogma 2 has been out long enough that he had time to figure out whether or not he could hate it (or be sufficiently contrarian and get asspats for that) and so he crapped out a review that reflects what is okay to be angry about according to r/games this month.

 

[Peep Plops]

Nice to see Yahtzee trying to outdo his faggot friend Sterling in shitting out the dumbest review possible for DD2.

 

[The tired cat]

Nice to see Yahtzee trying to outdo his faggot friend Sterling in shitting out the dumbest review possible for DD2.

So, do we give em blue ribbions for this?

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

FF7RE-birth video came out

He tried real hard to like the game but couldn't. suffers from too much Ubisoft slob activities and side content. hated he had to switch materia everytime the party split up.

still less harsh then his DD2 video. forcing the idea he used DD2 to vent his frustrations and piss on a game without the fear of angering too many people.

 

[The tired cat]

FF7RE-birth video came out

He tried real hard to like the game but couldn't. suffers from too much Ubisoft slob activities and side content. hated he had to switch materia everytime the party split up.

still less harsh then his DD2 video. forcing the idea he used DD2 to vent his frustrations and piss on a game without the fear of angering too many people.

Man, I wanna see him raiging if he played FF8, because thats where the materia switchinh came from, wheb the party would split

 

[Aaron Costello]

FF7RE-birth video came out

He tried real hard to like the game but couldn't. suffers from too much Ubisoft slob activities and side content. hated he had to switch materia everytime the party split up.

still less harsh then his DD2 video. forcing the idea he used DD2 to vent his frustrations and piss on a game without the fear of angering too many people.

I know he writes his reviews like a month after games come out, but this just feels like this review came out way too late. Also hated he had to switch materia everytime the party split up.
Just buy more materia then, dingus? Also they dont split up that often lol... like iirc under 5 times.

Man, I wanna see him raiging if he played FF8, because thats where the materia switchinh came from, wheb the party would split

it's a jrpg that isnt persona 4 or persona 5, so of course he'd hate it!.. but to be fair, FF8 is no ones favourite lol.

 

[The tired cat]

it's a jrpg that isnt persona 4 or persona 5, so of course he'd hate it!

Him being a fan of P4 is what makes me giggle, that game really does need a strat guide sometimes to properly make persona combos, just to get the most powerfull ones. I dont buy for a second, that he didnt rage with that shit.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I don't get it—the old Zero Punctuation clearly had a lot of phoned-in reviews that were getting worse and worse, but in a way that was alright because he had done it extremely consistently for like 15 years, which is impressive.

So he ends it and breaks free of the Escapist, maybe pursue some other talents, do something interesting, better, and something where he can play something for enjoyment and not just because the Escapist dictates he must. Then he turns around and does the exact same thing, only with a bunch of terrible visual changes to avoid lawsuits.

I assume that this is because the paypigs demanded more Zero Punctuation even though he didn't have the rights anymore. If it was the ZP format they wanted I think everyone would be happier if he went back to the Escapist and licensed the format; he would still come out ahead, instead he had to be a retard and burn bridges.

 

[The Noise]

I don't get it—the old Zero Punctuation clearly had a lot of phoned-in reviews that were getting worse and worse, but in a way that was alright because he had done it extremely consistently for like 15 years, which is impressive.

So he ends it and breaks free of the Escapist, maybe pursue some other talents, do something interesting, better, and something where he can play something for enjoyment and not just because the Escapist dictates he must. Then he turns around and does the exact same thing, only with a bunch of terrible visual changes to avoid lawsuits.

I think he really did enjoy Zero Punctuation at its core, because he's a writer and huge games enthusiast, so being able to do both of those things for a living was his dream job, even if it meant he had to review a lot of shlock. For Fully Ramlomatic he seems to be enjoying himself a lot more and reviewing more obscure stuff that he probably wanted to do for ZP, but couldn't.

I assume that this is because the paypigs demanded more Zero Punctuation even though he didn't have the rights anymore. If it was the ZP format they wanted I think everyone would be happier if he went back to the Escapist and licensed the format; he would still come out ahead, instead he had to be a retard and burn bridges.

The reason everyone on Escapist's video team left is because they fired the chief video editor Nick. Their collective resignations were done in solidarity because before Nick, the only thing anyone came to Escapist for was ZP. He changed that by introducing some actually interesting stuff like Design Delve, Cold Take, Adventure Is Nigh, etc. Gamurs were the one who decided to burn bridges, not the other way around.

Licensing ZP again from Escapist would be monumentally stupid because it'd be an admission of defeat. He'd be bending over backwards to Gamurs and would be in the exact same situation that led to the team's resignation in the first place. The whole point of Second Wind is to be an independently owned thing so that a random LLC can't just buy the publication and start doing dumb shit that threatens all their livelihoods.

 

[The tired cat]

I think he really did enjoy Zero Punctuation at its core, because he's a writer and huge games enthusiast, so being able to do both of those things for a living was his dream job, even if it meant he had to review a lot of shlock. For Fully Ramlomatic he seems to be enjoying himself a lot more and reviewing more obscure stuff that he probably wanted to do for ZP, but couldn't.

I dont think he enjoys it, so much is the only shit he can do. Lets be honest, this guy is a one trick pony, who sucks at everything else he dipped his fingers into (his games are "okay" at best, his gaming bar flopped hard, his Game Damage show didnt get passed the pilot and was so bad no TV chanell wanted to pick it up, his books are also mostly "meh"), so this shit is only thing he has left.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

The reason everyone on Escapist's video team left is because they fired the chief video editor Nick. Their collective resignations were done in solidarity because before Nick, the only thing anyone came to Escapist for was ZP. He changed that by introducing some actually interesting stuff like Design Delve, Cold Take, Adventure Is Nigh, etc. Gamurs were the one who decided to burn bridges, not the other way around.

It's clear that there was a lot of dissatisfaction at the Escapist with the annoying monetization attempts and all that, but resigning over the firing of Nick Calandra seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction, without any negotiations, deals, or conviction. He can posture about what a noble goal that is but in real life you're a spiteful little worm and a liability to anyone who hires you in the future.

Licensing ZP again from Escapist would be monumentally stupid because it'd be an admission of defeat. He'd be bending over backwards to Gamurs and would be in the exact same situation that led to the team's resignation in the first place.

Firstly, it's not an admission of defeat to enter negotiations, which he almost certainly didn't. He had The Escapist by the balls and could dictate new terms—he does things his way under ZP now, working with Nick, or they can forget about everything.

Even if negotiations failed and ZP remained in Escapist's clutches, he could still claim a moral victory by "acting in good faith" before starting Second Wind.

I dont think he enjoys it, so much is the only shit he can do. Lets be honest, this guy is a one trick pony, who sucks at everything else he dipped his fingers into (his games are "okay" at best, his gaming bar flopped hard, his Game Damage show didnt get passed the pilot and was so bad no TV chanell wanted to pick it up, his books are also mostly "meh"), so this shit is only thing he has left.

Exactly. We saw this with both Doug Walker and James Rolfe. Both of them had highly successful shows in the late 2000s and very early 2010s but wanted to do more with media. James stated outright his real interest was in movies. Doug Walker wanted a media empire and attempted to kill off the Nostalgia Critic at one time to move forward, though those all failed, notably with Pop Quiz Hotshot.

Instead, Doug Walker is nearing 700 episodes of NC, James' hairline is vanishing as he churns out an episode every other month. I don't think either of them in 2010 expected to be doing the same thing in 2024 as their dreams and hairline evaporated.

Yahtzee's still continuing to do Zero Punctuation Fully Ramblomatic because it's the only thing that still works, even if the passion is long gone.