Topic: Matt Calls Out IGN Editors in Defense of Zelda and GOTY

[Artimus]

I know the other thread got moved to General, but this is a specific attack regarding the treatment of Zelda:

Quote
As you pointed out, though, what is far worse is the level of displayed arrogance and ignorance by some of the editors. If you watch the video, you will hear some of these people rip into Zelda as though it was a major disappointment and unworthy of even making the nominations list. The kicker is that these very same commentators clearly never played so much as 10 minutes of the game. In our written roundtable, which I encourage you to read on Insider, Peer and I made the case that - accidentally or on purpose - there is an editorial faction at IGN that does not give Nintendo's games a fair shake. I don't think there is any disputing that point after watching and reading our Game of the Year wrap-ups.

http://wii.ign.com/mail/

Second letter. He says more and its worth reading. I know a lot of you hate IGN, but I keep telling you the Nintendo employees are not frauds like the rest of the consoles (and I'm right).

[Smash_Brother]

*Respect for Matt +10.*

Now, if he'll wrestle the other editors for TP's honor, I'll take back my quips about his poor enunciation.

[ShyGuy]

I watched the IGN Weekly Game of the Year Video, and man, Matt actually seems fantastic compared to most of the other editors. IGN needs to fire some people for gross incompetence.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Well this is one reason why I have always respected Matt even if sometimes his opinions may be at odds with mine, he says what he thinks. These comments directed at his fellow co-workers are pretty brutal and an honest assessment, something you don't see every day.

[Mario]

Good job Matt. WEAKNESS MUST BE EXPOSED

It's funny how people at other forums are calling him some kind of raging "ntard" now. He doesn't knock other games, and the other editors do, yet he gets branded with a negative label. I hate the internet.

[Caterkiller]

I never start anything, and I wanted to start this topic...

I am very pleased with what I read, you really dont see this kind of "attack" on fellow workers for the public to see. I never ever had a problem with Matt, I don't agree with him all the time, but I do think his opinions are valid. I'd love for  other mags and sites take notice and start to call out their own co-workers about Nintendo bias.

For some reason I am amazingly pleased at what he said about the other eiditors. Doesn't benefit me one bit, I guess im just so happy someone within the company finaly said it.  

[Artimus]

The reason people have a problem with Matt, btw, is that he is often seen as anti-Nintendo. He's seen as not loyal enough. He obviously is, but I ask you this:

Would you rather he be a blind fanboy and act like the others at IGN?

Surely not. Be thankful we have such a well-known and powerful person on the Nintendo side of things and be thankful he has integrity.

[Kairon]

So have we admitted that Matt is not in the wrong for his comparisons to the XBox and his GC 2 labelizations?

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Nothing's different.  IGN is still the horrible place it is, Matt or no Matt.

If Matt and Peer didn't have so much influence on the actual operation of the outfit, I can see them being outted from the organization by the other employees.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
So have we admitted that Matt is not in the wrong for his comparisons to the XBox and his GC 2 labelizations?

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Ehhe, it still seems like developers are still working with the Wii so I'm not sure if anyone knows the potential. If you look at the specs you can see some merit to GC 2 even though I think we will start to see the Wii outshadow the GC graphically down the line but a noticeable margin.

[Nick DiMola]

I am relieved to read these comments by Matt. It takes a real man to step up and talk sh!t about your fellow employees when they are being jackasses. More recently I have grown to respect Matt and I think that he is doing his job to the best of his ability. I imagine some of his earlier opinions were swayed by coworkers and more recently he can't stomach the ignorance anymore.

Unfortunately, Nintendo, since the N64, has always been in it's own world segregated from the rest of gaming. As a result, the average Joe hates Nintendo for no real reason other than the obvious. It's too bad these fools miss out on some of the best games ever made just because of their ignorance. Twilight Princess was a special game. It literally reignited my interest in actually playing video games and not just talking about them. Good thing I can use my own brain to figure out what I like, and I don't have to rely on game journalists to tell me what is good.

[Darc Requiem]

I never had the dislike of Matt that others seemed to have. I appreciated the fact IGN's Nintendo channels gave us reliable reviews, outlooks, etc. I like the fact that Matt never blindly followed Nintendo. While, I haven't always agreed on his views I appreciated the fact that his opinions were honest. I never saw a fiasco like the WWF RAW for X-box score on the Gamecube channel.  

[Caliban]

Yesterday, when I read Matt answer in that way I was like "whoa, he had the guts to say it", and seriously I can't blame him because some of his co-workers are either blokes or come to work still drunk and say such disparities.

[decoyman]

I noticed this very thing when reading through all the editors' GOTY picks. Zelda made very few lists other than the Nintendo editors, and it wasn't even mentioned in any of their "honorable mentions" section. It made me curious, and I went to the Okami review (scored at a 9.1), since that game seemed to be picked more often. I'm going to quote from the Okami review, by Chris Roper...

Quote
It might not quite be on the level of Zelda, but it's probably the closest thing we've ever seen outside of Nintendo.

Now, this game received a 9.1 score. Going by the numbers, LoZ:TP received a 9.5. Different reviewers, yeah yeah, whatever. What's clear is that the other editors, in order to become knowledgable about what else is out there and make informed decisions, need to drop the Nintendo hate and actually play the games before they judge and disregard them.

It takes guts to do what Matt did and call them out, and I applaud that.

[bustin98]

It probably helps that of the editors he was talking about are in different locations. It would really suck if everyone of them were trapped in the same office.

I've always associated with Matt and feel most of his opinions are in line with mine. He can say some whacked out things and be a bit too picky with graphics, but overall I'm on his side.

[Terranigma Freak]

Matt is still pretty ignorant himself, but speaking out like that did earn a few extra points  of respect in my book.

[Ian Sane]

Didn't IGN pick the PS3 as console of year?  Clearly both the Wii and the Xbox 360 had better years.  Hell the PS2 had a better year.  So there's something up.

I think Matt only appears to get a lot of flack because he pisses off the "Nintendo does no wrong" types and they're everywhere.  Matt comes across to me as a Nintendo fan that likes Nintendo because of the great things they've done and do now but isn't cool with the stuff they do wrong.  He sh!ts on Nintendo when they got it coming and thus he gets crapped on becaues due to ten years of severe incompetence in everything but game design itself Nintendo's fanbase has a disproportionate amount of fanboys because so many of the less fanatic Nintendo fans got fed up years ago.

Anyway I like how he called the other staffer's sh!t though it seems a little unprofessional.  Still IGN in general doesn't have much credibility due to one thing I read like five years ago.  They did some Playstation retrospective article and one of the editors shared his personal experience of how the Playstation was his FIRST CONSOLE EVER and he bought it for Final Fantasy VII, which he knew nothing about but bought because of the commercials.  How did this guy get a job covering videogames with what was probably barely over a year of experience at the time?  HUH?  

I think ignorance is a huge problem with gaming "journalism".  Too few people in general have a good grasp of game history.  So in the grand scheme of things their opinion isn't worth a damn because they have too little to compare things to.  The first game you ever play is at the time the best game ever made.  Imagine if that sort of crap was common with movies.  Imagine professional movie critics that had never seen Casablance or Citizen Kane.  You don't see it because movies don't have that same amount of mass ignorance.  The console wars mentality of gaming also encourages the problem because people miss out on a whole console worth of stuff.  When a site decides on Game of the Year I think the other editors should put some serious time into the top three titles on each major system.  Though the truth is they should be doing that anyway if they're really interested in games.  If I was the Nintendo guy at a site and had access to the other consoles I'd give the big titles a whirl because I'm naturally interested in acclaimed games.  If the PS3 guys gives a game a 9.5 I'm going to want to see what that game is like for myself.

[NWR_pap64]

Matt was the one that dismissed Wii sports, complaining about how the game lacks contro. IGN also posted an editorial about how Wii sports might lead to cheap, un-inspired sport titles and give the Wii a bad image when Wii sports has proven to be one of the Wii's biggest hits.

But I certainly applaud his effort of dismissing the ignorant comments of the other editors. He pretty much confirmed what we have been bitching about for years now.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Pap you are right about Matt dismissing Wii Sports at first, but he is obviously not afraid to admit he was wrong. He listed Wii sports as one of his favorite Wii games of the year. Also you have to realize, a TON of people (many here) were dismissing Wii sports except for a few of us (Oh like the one who is typing this hehe). Wii sports shocked alot of people, and definately shifted some opinions, which goes to show you shouldn't hate something completely without looking deeper into it or actually playing it (Looks at Mantidor with Wii Zelda).

[Dirk Temporo]

There it is! Absolute proof that IGN is biased against Nintendo, Matt said it himself!

[NWR_pap64]

Quote
Originally posted by: VGrevolution
Pap you are right about Matt dismissing Wii Sports at first, but he is obviously not afraid to admit he was wrong. He listed Wii sports as one of his favorite Wii games of the year. Also you have to realize, a TON of people (many here) were dismissing Wii sports except for a few of us (Oh like the one who is typing this hehe). Wii sports shocked alot of people, and definately shifted some opinions, which goes to show you shouldn't hate something completely without looking deeper into it or actually playing it (Looks at Mantidor with Wii Zelda).

This is true, I know a lot of people were annoyed that they were forced to get the game alongside the Wii (S_B included), but now people swear by it and claim it to be the best Wii game yet (I actually defended the game and the decision, saying that including Wii sports pretty much guarantees a great introduction to the Wii and a sale).

I wonder how Wii play will fare when its released next February...

[SixthAngel]

I am kind of surprised that so many of the editors didn't play the games up for GotY.    You would think that working for a game review site would mean you had some kind of passion to at least play the "best of" games on other systems.  I don't really have a problem with Okami winning under the circumstances but I'm glad he pointed this out, especially with the other editors railing on game they really didn't play.  It does make the ign game of the year award is pretty much worthless when a majority of editors seemed to not even play the biggest contender and proceed to make fun of it.  

[ThePerm]

the power of wii sports is surprising, i come home from school and theres a ton of people playing my wii everyday

[Ian Sane]

"I know a lot of people were annoyed that they were forced to get the game alongside the Wii"

At the time I recall there being more of a complaint of being forced to PAY for it.  Remember that the Japanese Wii didn't come with WiiSports but cost less money when converted to American dollars.  Thus many assumed that this wasn't a "free" game at all but rather a forced bundle that we had to absorb the cost of ourselves.

[BlkPaladin]

And you know what is funny about them not playing it is supposedly they held off until the second week of this month so all the editor will get a chance to.