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All right guys, today we're going to be talking about a little bit of a controversy that blew up in a way that I expected, but I don't know that I expected it to take on the legs that it did. We're talking about a pretty popular video game director and designer. This video game director and designer is someone who basically worked exclusively with Sony back in the day and look, he's helped create some of the most beloved IPs in the world. Now, before I tell you who this person is, I don't want anyone to go to his socials and attack him or YouTube channels wherever he might be to go after him. He's entitled to his opinions. And we all know that, I made a couple videos now where current video game designers and programmers and artists are just amazed by what's happening in tears of the kingdom. So much so they camped even Nintendo even dared to pull this off or even attempt it in the last six years. So we all know that there's been a ton of praise from many developers over this, but through the praise comes criticism and we're gonna be talking about David Jaffe. Just to note a couple of games you might have heard of, he is the creator of Twisted Metal and also the creator of God of War. Now he's got nothing to do with the God of War series today but the original God of War series you guys were playing back on PlayStation 2, he was the man behind that. It is his creation, he is credited with it. And last year or I guess a couple years ago at this point he made a bit of a kerfuffle in the Nintendo community because he criticized Metroid Dread. Now what's interesting about his criticism of Metroid Dread at the time is he talked about it from a design perspective and he was talking about how there's like these hidden things that you need to shoot and destroy to move on and there are some subtle hints in the game that tell you that but in fact the game teaches you that in the tutorial but he just really, really slammed Metroid Dread and put his foot down and stood by it and you know what, it's his opinion, he's allowed to feel that way, most of the internet didn't agree with him but what are you gonna do? That was back then and now we know thanks to an apology video he's put out, we'll talk about that in a moment, he barely played Metroid Dread and I think if you barely played the game it's hard for your criticisms to hold a lot of weight. Of course we're biased over here, we are a Nintendo YouTube channel so we're more apt to defend Nintendo game design but it seemed that a lot of the internet disagreed with him back then as well and I don't know what it is about major Nintendo game releases but for some reason he can't help himself but say some stuff that's gonna upset people and this actually started on the launch day of Tears of the Kingdom, he put out this tweet where he says I don't give an F about amazing production value and visuals, a great game is a great game just starting and so far so good but given how much everyone goes ape shit over visuals it's staggering how this game can look like this and not at least get a little tinged by reviews. Now I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that Tears of the Kingdom is the greatest looking games in size red and there are aspects and moments in the game when it doesn't look the greatest, there are especially with the water when you're at certain distances and certain angles there are some pretty bad textures and as you get closer those textures change and correct themselves and the water starts to actually look pretty good. So I think it's a fair criticism to say that there are at times some kind of ugly visuals in Tears of the Kingdom but to argue that those ugly visuals means the game should have been dinged review score wise. Remember at the moment it is the highest reviewed game of all time on open critic. I find that to be quite fascinating to think a game should be dinged after you just said a great game is a great game and I don't give an F about amazing production value and visuals and to say that but then follow up with like but you know the rest of the industry loves this so ergo this game should have been dinged and shouldn't be rated the greatest of all time. I think that that is a little strange to combine those two statements together and it certainly upsets some people but honestly I wasn't gonna make a video on this. I mean May 12th was eight days ago, right? Like wait, this isn't something I thought was even worth talking about but then he made a response and his response, it's just not in good, it's just not great. Here he goes, he says, don't worry fellas, I had AI fix it, now we're talking. Someone should send this to the folks at Nintendo and show them how to do art next time and of course it includes an image made by an AI bot that shows a more realistic art style for Zelda. Now the interesting thing is his disconnect on his troll, this is a troll by the way, he responded to others in the thread basically admitting that he's trolling, his apology video admitted he was trolling, he was trolling, he was trying to get people upset but here's one I don't understand about this. This is a guy obviously who all of his own creations went for a certain hyper realistic art style, right? That was what his creations did. Then he criticizes the visuals of tears of the kingdom, then he fires back at people upset about his criticism saying, hey I had AI fix it, someone should tell Nintendo how to do art design, coming from someone whose designs have always been in that same style. So it kinda looks like he's someone who's not accepting of other art styles. Now I followed David Jaffe for some time and I knew he was trolling but what I didn't expect was this apology video he put up. He did an 18 minute apology video. He just put this up yesterday and what I don't understand in his 18 minutes is he takes back nothing he says. He says his critiques are his critiques. Even though I'm joking around, also I mean what I say, it's sort of a weird thing where it's a joke but also I mean it. Those don't really work together in my opinion. Like if you think the art direction of tears of the kingdom should be completely different, it should be more realistic. That's not really a joke but okay. So what he does come to a realization though is that he's from an older generation. He was in high school back in the 70s and that maybe he didn't take into consideration that today's younger players, anyone under the age of 35 he stated, which I guess I'm not in that age group because I'm turning 37 so I guess I'm part of the older crowd. I don't know if I like being classified like that. I'd rather be classified as a younger crowd member. Whatever. He points out that he thinks that they are basically more sensitive and it's not their fault in that they are growing up in a worse world dealing with things that they never dealt with growing up whether it's gun violence or the pandemic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So like there's just more anxiety and he wasn't being very considerate that his jokes and trolls could legitimately harm someone's mental health and that he needs to be more considerate of that moving forward. And while I recognize his, I guess his own, I don't know, he calls it an apology but I guess recognize his own mistake in thinking that everyone on the internet knows him and knows he's joking and again, I knew he was trolling and just trying to rile people up. What I don't think he's fully grasping at this point, he says even if he makes it obvious it's a joke, some jokes, whether people want it to be or not are just not meant to happen when they happen. Tears of the Kingdom came out on May 12th. Fans around the world were enjoying the game and if you want to be critical of the game, that's fine. In fact, your original tweet, they got a lot of attention, doesn't even have that many negative comments on it but you decided to follow up that original tweet by basically saying that all games should be designed in a certain way, art direction wise and that was obviously gonna ruffle feathers. There were people legitimately upset. They weren't taking this as a joke and because you have a video game development history of hyper realistic visuals. You didn't take that context into consideration. You didn't take the context of, hey, you have a history of sort of going after games that might not fit a certain visual style and while you have maybe always touted gameplay over visuals, gameplay over visuals, I'll take an indie game over a triple A game any day if it's gameplay is amazing even if the visuals are not, what you're suggesting is, is that because the visuals aren't what you prefer they must not be great and it's funny because we obviously live in a world with the most popular games are the least visually pleasing games out there you could argue. Things like Roblox, really big with the youth. The visuals ain't that great. Minecraft, really big with the youth. The visuals aren't that great. Heck, we're still playing Grand Theft Auto 5 that was released on the Xbox 360 and by today's standards, the visuals in that game really aren't that great. Sure, people have modded the hell out of it on PC but just like the base game visuals are really not that great and I think that what David Jaffe failed to do in all of his years is he transitioned from game development into whatever career he's doing now plus this whole YouTube stuff is I think he's failed to recognize that it's not really just a youth thing. A lot of people upset over his tweets are also older in their 40s and 50s and they're upset because there seems to be a lack of respect for what you're talking about. When he's made his comments on Metroid Dread and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on them he was also showing a lack of respect not just for the players but for the franchise. You can be critical of Metroid Dread and think it's got bad level design. You could be critical of Tears of the Kingdom and think the visuals aren't that great but it's about balancing those opinions. Are there something that you do think is great about Tears of the Kingdom? Maybe talk about that to balance it out versus just saying negative, negative. Like you just said the game is so far so good. What does that even mean? So far so good and then a negative dropped. So far so good doesn't tell people anything. It doesn't color anything and then firing back by trolling that not only does the game look ugly this is what it should look like. Trolling or otherwise it's just not taking into consideration a lot. Zelda franchise obviously means a lot to a lot of people. We're a very passionate fan base but it's not just people who are younger. It's also people that are older and grew up on it. People exactly like David Jaffe that are passionate about it. And if you're trying to take everyone's feelings into consideration then maybe just don't troll on the internet. I think what David Jaffe is having a hard time accepting right now is if you are going to troll on the internet you need to accept what that means. And if he's gonna be this jokey personality trolling all the time kind of guy then you're going to get those negative reactions. You can't put out that tweet with the image of the different visuals for Tears of the Kingdom and then tell people you're trolling and then say oh I didn't consider that there are people super passionate who are younger who have a connection to this game who use it to escape from life. I didn't consider them and to them I am sorry that I trolled and didn't make it obvious I was joking. Do you know what the point of a troll is David Jaffe? Do you know because I grew up just like you with the internet becoming popular and trolling is very intentional, okay? A troll is internet slang. This is literally just type it into Google. Let me Google that for you. A person who intentionally tries to instigate conflict hostility or arguments in an online social community. It's literally right there when you Google it. So by you telling others you're trolling admitting in your apology video, you're trolling what you're admitting to is you're trying to incite conflict, hostility and arguments. And now you feel bad that you did that because people didn't take it as a joke but yet when you're doing a trolling joke that's exactly what it insights. It's almost like you feel bad people got legitimately mad but also you knew because you called it a troll that you were going to do that very thing or you just don't know what trolling actually means and you think trolling means no one should take me seriously but that's not the case. You are a respected video game designer. You're a respected person in this industry and it's like you're not showing respect to yourself to understand your position could matter to many people. And then obviously when you have those deep connections with God of War, Twisted Metal, IPs with a long history on PlayStation, you also inadvertently, not your fault but inadvertently stoke the flames of fan wars of PlayStation versus Nintendo fans. Something that really doesn't need to be reignited at this time. Tears of the Kingdom is doing incredible. So is PlayStation 5. I think both crowds should be pretty happy with the state of things. PlayStation fans have Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy 16 coming up. A state of play coming up this week. We're gonna be live streaming about and Nintendo fans just got Tears of the Kingdom with Pikmin 4 and obviously we started to have a little buzz and excitement around Metroid Prime 4 and whatever is coming next from Nintendo hardware wise. So everyone's sort of eating good right now and you kind of just stoked those fan war flames. The horizon versus all the flames, the realistic visuals versus gameplay debate all over again intentional or otherwise. So to me, the lesson to take out of this is first off guys, let's try not to get so upset over things that are said on the internet. I think this is just a generally good policy. I know I struggle with that at times. And another thing is just accept what you're doing, David. That's my advice to you. If you wanna troll and be jokey on the internet then accept the consequences of what the trolls and jokey stuff does. You're gonna legitimately upset people. You're gonna cause conflict, hostility and arguments. That's what happens. If you don't want that to happen, then stop doing that, okay? You can't say I'm trolling people and then have this, I don't know, come to mama moment where you're like, oh, I didn't realize this was really gonna upset a lot of people. I used to consider people that got upset by this to just be idiots. No. People aren't idiots just because they got upset at you. You did something to instigate that reaction. And sometimes you gotta accept that responsibility. Not so sure that David Jaffe hasn't done that. Anyways guys, let me know what you think about this down in the comments below. I am Nathaniel Rufflejantz and I'll catch you in the next video.