Especially from Jeff?

I'm sure a lot of people are gonna disagree with me, but I just want to know I'm not alone in feeling this way. I thought there were a lot of great stuff shown in these press conferences, like that Nintendo one just now, but those guys just cannot stop assuming the worst and being deductive about almost everything (with maybe a couple of exceptions in the whole show so far) and usually it's that very familiar effect of one person (usually Jeff) starting to grumble about something and everyone else following suit and agreeing with him or immediately redacting their initial enthusiasm in order to match the dominant tone. It's like they are afraid to just be unashamedly excited about anything and not give a fuck what the popular opinion around the table is. And personally I'm starting to find this quite irritating.

It's perfectly fine to just not like something, but is it necessary to keep taking the piss incessantly anytime something a little bit outside of your comfort zone is shown and you barely know anything about it? Yeh it's funny the first 10 times, but eventually doesn't it get a bit grating?

Ok now you can tell me that I'm wrong or that nobody was forcing me to watch or I should just go to a different website or I should 'calm down', etc etc.

I like the snark and jokes during these press conferences because the conferences usually take themselves too seriously. When you've seen conference after conference promising the world it really helps to have a good dose of reality, and some serious games business knowledge, sprinkled on top the over-the-top nature of E3.

Whilst I know what you're getting at, it's refreshing for me to be on a gaming website that doesn't conform and has their own real opinions.

Would you like to adjust your pants, like I have mine?

No. Not really.

I want them to be excited about games they played.

What I don't want them to be excited about are video clips that are "gameplay footage" captured in-engine, upscaled and rendered on a high end workstation.

Nope. I like listening to them for their feedback where snark is a possible reaction. If I didn't I'd go off and do/listen to something else which is probably the advice you need to take.

Sometimes. But I've made my bed.

Not in complete disagreement with you, I think we all just go into E3 with different expectations. I personally appreciate the skepticism on display, as we have seen before a lot of E3 hype can simply be drummed up smoke and mirrors in the moment. What we end up with down the road and see when we have a finished product can save a lot of heartache if you avoid falling into full fanboy mode. I would like to see more excitement from the GB staff, it's very rare that there is something they kind of gravitate towards beyond a simple "eh, it's alright" to the more common "Game is (shit/boring/etc)". Jeff seemed to demonstrate a bit more enthusiasm for Mario Maker, I can get behind that because I think that could really turn into something cool. A part of what makes Jeffs infrequent positive reactions to games is that he doesn't build an immediate hype wagon that so many other journalists do. Jeff's list of gaming dislikes is probably much bigger than what he genuinely has a positive reaction to. I don't mind that too much because I feel like whether I agree or disagree with him I am at-least getting his honest initial impressions when it comes to video games.

They were snarky towards games/moments that felt snarky, and they were excited at times when they were excited for stuff.

Ya know, like humans.

i love it

It has been a bit too snarky for my taste, but atleast the guys seemed to be genuinely excited for some games. I guess they have seen and heard it all.

No. This is Giant Bomb.

I don't mind the snarkiness for the most part, it bothers me when they keep hitting the same snark over and over and over. Then it isn't comes off as petty and childish. Jeff comes across like this a lot though and I assume he doesn't mean to, its his way of giving Patrick shit for liking Yoshi's Island but doesn't give up on it. Something that Ryan had very good control over, when to dish shit and when to stop because it is just mean now or not funny anymore.

Jeff and others just have strong opinions about certain games. If it's something you can't handle then perhaps Giantbomb is not the place for you?

Hopefully Dan really is the new hire though because he does really love him some Nintendo, so he should be the balance to the SF office and the bombcast that I think will offset some of Jeffs strong views towards certain Nintendo characters

Both Patrick and Alex seemed to enjoy Yarn Yoshi though, so one could argue that the majority of the the staff liked it (or felt indifferent)?

No, because part of it is Jeff doing his personality bit, so don't take it too seriously (him hating Yoshi's Island is a running joke). I also say no because, yeah, I'm tired of a lot shit from this industry, not just from Nintendo. Besides the fact that I'm too busy to play a lot of games like I used to, there hasn't been a whole lot out there anymore for me to get excited about (they are all the same to me). I'm definitely excited about the Witcher 3, and I'll dabble in some smaller games every once awhile, but video games and the industry itself rarely put out anything remotely interesting to invest time and money in. This is all just my opinion, but if it is one that Jeff and I share, then I feel for him because he's the bigger game enthusiast.

Nah, I don't think this is more than just being a veteran critic. I think Jeff in particular has some high standards that he himself would admit are pretty subjective (which makes his writing more interesting in my opinion).

If you don't mind me sniping a quote from you:

If there was a tea leaf to read here, it'd be that I think that Jeff hates marketing and anything related to that field, and that E3 is a giant marketing circlejerk.

The cynicism gets pretty transparent sometimes and you can sometimes feel the eyerolls, but I think they're pretty conscious of the fact -- trying to balance video games as your job's responsibility vs. actually enjoying the games as entertainment is tough shit, and that fight gets harder every day (ask any movie or music critic).

Anyone else tired of the constant barrage of threads complaining about the constant snarkiness from the staff?

I think most of the time it's pretty funny, but Jeff has just been obnoxious lately. He almost never has anything good to say about anything.

Nah. I think it's funny.

It's part of getting old, and I tend to feel the same way. The Nintendo Digital conference... video... thing just shows how out of touch Nintendo is with the current market. This is fine when they are doing things that set them apart (like leading the way with motion controls), but when you aren't doing anything special to speak of the things they do just come off as something really neat... if it was 5 years ago.

Ya, I mean I guess it's cool to say "hey you can now go to that mountain in the distance" in Zelda, but this isn't novel in the spectrum of video games or design innovation in 2014. This is something they should've done a long time ago.

I don't agree with Jeff's dismissive look of Yoshi (I like Yoshi, even if I don't like the baby Mario garbage that usually tags along with him), but that's ok. Yoshi isn't the crux of Nintendo's problem. The real issue is how behind their outlook on game design is. They are amazing at visuals, which is why it's ok if their hardware is behind everyone else, but when it comes to innovative game play that anyone cares about they have been behind for a long long time. Even motion controls were just a fad and didn't actually add anything to video games. So much so even Microsoft has started having second thoughts about going full board with it.

It's fine to look for ways to get more casual game players interested in your tech, but at the end of the day you need to appeal to the broader audience of game players or create new ones. Nintendo, currently, is doing neither of those things.

So, there really wasn't anything special about their conference this year. The snark was warranted. Nintendo was only slightly better than EA in terms of interest.

Every time this issue is brought up, people assume that one is asking them to feign enthusiasm in something they don't care about, but that's not the case in anyway. I'm not saying they should act excited, but rather I'm saying they shouldn't always jump to the worst case scenario when something a little bit 'out there' is shown, and more importantly they shouldn't always feel the need to agree with each other or arrive at some compromised shared view rather than having dissenting individual opinions.

And the whole 'This is Giantbomb, it's not for you' crap? Please give it a rest. I've been with this website since the very beginning, and followed their work even before that on GS. I know what GB is about, I wouldn't be here everyday and giving them my money if I didn't; and what I'm describing here isn't 'what GB is about'.

Jeff Gerstmann's Snark is keeping me alive in this desolate world.

You should probably find a new video game website that suits your tastes.

Nah, I'm not in any of those companies payroll.

I always get genuinely surprised when he likes a game. But his snark isn't as bad as what comes from...everywhere else on the internet.

At least he's got an opinion to back it up, instead of being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Seems like a lot of people have an axe to grind over certain games regardless of what they show, and they just want to heckle everything for laughs.

No?

i think the cynicism has definitely been upped in recent years. not a big deal to me as i still find it humorous but yeah its a little one-notey.

I mostly find it funny that they keep getting accusation of always being completely jaded and asked why they even go to E3, that it's obvious they hate it and all that and that they keep defending themselves to the contrary and then proceed to shit on half the stuff they've seen so far... i mean they aren't helping curb the perception that they're jaded. I mean for every time they said something positive there was another where it was negative.

Anyway E3 always shows the worst of people covering this industry. They feel forced to say something about everything even if they have nothing to say at all and 99% of the time if they don't have anything to say what will come out will be negative. It makes twitter by and large unusable during the press conference. At the very least Jeff wasn't spamming twitter every other minute with bile like so many do so there's that.

So to the answer the question, no not really because by and large i really don't find the staff that negative in general but during E3 and specifically during the press conference they are totally the worst, just like the rest of this fucking gaming journalism bullshit industry.

I don't take video games nearly seriously enough to get upset about it.

Yeh, maybe if I used Twitter my snark tolerance would be much higher and these guys would seem tame in comparison, but I've managed to ignore the whole Twitter phenomenon almost entirely, and GB is the only game site I regularly visit so I don't know what everyone else is saying.

Eh, it doesn't bother me. I find it hilarious actually. And if Jeff hates something, I'm sure he has his reasons. I will say that it can be tiresome when other people, specifically members of this site who want to be more like Jeff, take his opinions as their own even though they personally have no basis for feeling that way and may have otherwise felt indifferent.

Let's put it this way, how many Giantbombers who are currently all "Fuck Yoshi" would still be feeling that way if Jeff had expressed love instead of hate for Yoshi. Not many, I think

Eh, I feel like I've dealt with more extreme snarkiness elsewhere, with less entertainment value. Yeah, that sort of thing gets tiring (and I'd imagine different people have varying levels of tolerance to it) but I think my own enthusiasm and curiosity is usually enough for me to roll my eyes, get what chuckles I can, and move on when they harp on a bit too much with - say - the whole "Jeff hates Yoshi's Island" thing.

When it comes to the possibility that the overbearingly snarky and humourous atmosphere may discourage constructive and dissenting opinions, I didn't really get that from the Nintendo segment, but I think it's something I typically see in UPF...but then again, UPF has the laid-back sorta environment where that makes sense.

Yeah, I found it extremely tiring during all of the streams.

Jeff seemed to complain about almost everything - fair enough not liking stuff but it gets overwhelmingly negative eventually.

I felt like they were trying to force criticism on stuff too - at one point were saying "the artstyle is trying too hard" then someone else says "or maybe it's not trying at all", nice commentary guys.

Thanks for bringing that up, that's another thing I've noticed a lot and I agree completely. In fact that's one of the main reasons why the snark of the staff irritates me: the fact that I know a large part of the community will just parrot that exact same sentiment and adopt those opinions as their own.

There's a niche of douches on giant bomb that weren't here before.

Video games are kinda stupid. If you want to sit around, playing them, wanting to believe otherwise that's fine, but wanting to put anyone with a different opinion in a hole isn't going to happen.

Instead, embrace the fact that, videogames are often pretty dumb.

No these E3 Talk overs have been hilarious and when the stuff is good they acknowledge it just like when something is meh or not real they acknowledge that, You just don't agree with them which is fine.

Plus we have all the

When Jeff was being snarky about Yoshi, he was self-aware enough for it to be funny. He could just be like "fuck this" over and over and stare with a pouty face, but it's something much more playful than that.

I don't always relate with their thoughts and opinions, but I don't think I'll find another game journalism site that'll call out something like those Robot Chicken segments as unfunny bullshit. Little things like that are why I respect Jeff & Giant Bomb in the long run.

its fine really. Snark away at anything but then I go and play whatever I like to play. What someone I don't actually know in real life thinks about what I might or might not enjoy is irrelevant to me. What someone I actually know in real life thinks about what I might or might not like is also irrelevant. Enjoy what you enjoy. Snark gonna snark.

Jeff being jaded/too cynical is the new "I hate Patrick the SJW".

I dunno. I mean what do you want? "Afraid to be genuinely excited"? Did you hear Alex literally squealing with joy at that Yarn Yoshi game? That wasn't ironic, go back & watch the Kirby's Epic Yarn Quick Look. So no, I really don't agree that they are afraid to be excited, and don't think one person chirps up negatively and then everyone suddenly changes their opinion to step in line, I just don't see where that's coming from.

Jeff doesn't like Yoshi's Island, and he's played that up because Patrick really loves it & he's giving his colleague shit for it. That's all.

There's also the fact that it is really easy to be snarky about these highly staged press conferences because they are pretty cringeworthy a lot of the time. But I don't think the snark here is all that different from past years, except they've never actually sat down like this & commentated over the live streams at E3 before.

Every once in awhile, they're talking shit when a game comes on I want to see. But guess what, they knew that would happen. THat's why they have two streams linked so you don't have to listen to their shit if you don't want to. Honestly, I get a lot more irritated by the people in the press conferences screaming and shouting over a trailer than the GB guys. Even if both are wrong, at least the guys at GB are something like realistic.

This isn't unique to GB you know. Games media in general is snarky as fuck. Go on Twitter during a conference. Just constant snark. I'm sort of with the OP that it gets real old, real fast sometimes. Sometimes it's funny, but others it gets to be too much.

In fairness to Jeff, Yoshi really is a piece of shit.

I'm really, really, really, really confused by these posts. Did you complain that you woke up this morning and saw that the sky was blue? They were pretty clear when they started the site that they did so so they could cover and talk about what they wanted and didn't have to feign interest in things they had no interest in. Giant Bomb's been around for years now and you should be pretty aware of their personalities by now. It was a 100 percent certainty that there would be a lot of snarkiness in their conference videos. Every other site even someone related to games has a stream. Why would you pick Giant Bomb's when you knew you'd be offended?

Yes, those press conferences were kinda robotic. But that's just the way it is I suppose, hard to be genuine when you have to rehearse the shit out them. Also some of those dudes looked really awkward on stage.

Maybe try actually reading said posts. Then you might not be really really really really confused about them.

I really enjoy Jeff Gerstmann's perspective on things, due to his insane and interesting history in this medium, and those moments when you actually see what he loves about video games. Those moments where "video games are alright, man". I don't feel like it's been that way for a long time, and yesterday was getting progressively more painful to listen to as the conferences went on. When someone onstage was playful about video games, all that came off of the crew was sarcastic indignance. It's just so upper-middle class and smug that I find it completely obnoxious. Complaining that a lot of games shown won't be out this year, even though that's kind of how it always is, especially the first year after new consoles are out. Complaining that the gameplay is being shown in the best possible light because of course it is. Complaining that EA shows sports at their conference, when they show sports every single year. Complaining that "this would have been awesome if it came out 10 years ago, but it's coming out now so it's terrible."

Patrick seems to think the gamer stereotype is a fat, loud, misogynist white guy and that's not my impression. The gamer stereotype in 2014 is someone with crossed arms and a sneer going myeh myeh myeh complaining that a product exists that does not appeal to them. The stereotypical gamer quote is no longer "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED" it's "how dare they!"

Love video games when they're good, laugh at them when they're bad. If everything about video games makes you curl your lip with disdain, then I don't understand how you hope to entertain video game enthusiasts.

Video games; stop gettin' mad at 'em.

SNARK

This thread just brought out the Giantbomb hive mind in full force.