"Look, I love laughing at game professionals flailing at games as much as anyone. Remember when that unnamed Polygon writer tried Doom and showed no signs of ev

"Look, I love laughing at game professionals flailing at games as much as anyone. Remember when that unnamed Polygon writer tried Doom and showed no signs of ever having played it (or any video game) ever before? That was a hoot. (My favorite bit is when the player unloads a full shotgun blast into a health pack resting on the ground, in what I can only assume is a post-modern deconstruction of late-stage capitalism.) But some people watched that video and said, "Wow, I should never buy this game," and were right to say it. So the video was useful after all." I feel like he brushes this criticism off without really confronting it. A reviewer who's experienced with gaming and good at it can gauge difficulty, one who's inexperienced and terrible can't reliably. Reviewers shouldn't be perfect mirror images of the people they represent. They need to be above average to have cogent criticism and to communicate that to gamers effectively. Terrible analogy: No one is arguing that war correspondents don't need to know anything about geopolitics because "most people who read about geopolitics don't understand it, and they deserve correspondents who advocate for them."