Adam Sessler Makes a Big Mess-ler

[Alyce: Old Media Enthusiast]

So, some old X-Play clips have been surfacing on Twitter, exposing how bad the show was when it came to both covering JRPGS and their uber-obnoxious racist humor involving Japanese people.

Adam Sessler, instead of, you know, just acknowledging it was from another era, instead went full "CONSOOMER" on it and has gone in full "shrinking into a corncob" mode.

[BorneAgain]

Sessler has been really unstable on his social media since the second iteration of G4 went down. Part of it might be prodding from trolls, but the man has gone scorched earth on "gamers" and has basically been spitting venom at them for the better part of four months. How much of this is how he's always felt vs bitterness about how his career hasn't worked out is unknown; he's suffering from a case of terminally online regardless.

[Lizuka #BLM]

It really should not have been hard at all to just go, "It was an inappropriate joke in a different time, I shouldn't have done it, I apologize," but apparently doubling down 17 years later is the better play for some idiot reason.

[Spider2024]

His give-a-damn has gone full RROD. He's at 'former pro wrestler' levels of being fed up with the fanbase he worked with.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Mar 5, 2023 10:09:02 GMT -5 BorneAgain said:

Sessler has been really unstable on his social media since the second iteration of G4 went down. Part of it might be prodding from trolls, but the man has gone scorched earth on "gamers" and has basically been spitting venom at them for the better part of four months. How much of this is how he's always felt vs bitterness about how his career hasn't worked out is unknown; he's suffering from a case of terminally online regardless.

He’s actually been like this since at least the first cancellation of G4. He has just merely gotten even more toxically permanently online since.

[Sponsored by Groose Wipes]

Sessler would have been better off by saying nothing at all to be honest. But yeah just saying "It was a different time" would have been enough.

[ace]

I mean yeah…say nothing…but in his defense I don’t know what it’s like to be a content creator and having to deal with weirdos digging through near two decade old content to look for gotcha moments. Get a life is an understandable reaction. Especially when you aren’t apologizing just to save a job or anything. If anything it’s a good reminder why those apologies ever even happen. If G4 was still on the air he would have probably faked one…which is worth a lot less to me than saying what you really think.

[Killah Ray]

Sessler went scorched earth a long time ago. I was actually surprised he had anything to do with the G4 relaunch because of how he was online.

Dude was one of the punching bags of the net when it was still the Wild West so I feel bad for him sometimes. This was an easy way to apologize for being an idiot of the time though.

[Feyrhausen]

Mar 5, 2023 10:22:35 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

It really should not have been hard at all to just go, "It was an inappropriate joke in a different time, I shouldn't have done it, I apologize," but apparently doubling down 17 years later is the better play for some idiot reason.

Pretty much exactly what Patton Oswalt had to say about his r***** jokes. And no one gives him any crap about it anymore, except conservative commentators trying to “gotcha”.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Mar 5, 2023 12:46:58 GMT -5 ace said:

I mean yeah…say nothing…but in his defense I don’t know what it’s like to be a content creator and having to deal with weirdos digging through near two decade old content to look for gotcha moments. Get a life is an understandable reaction. Especially when you aren’t apologizing just to save a job or anything. If anything it’s a good reminder why those apologies ever even happen. If G4 was still on the air he would have probably faked one…which is worth a lot less to me than saying what you really think.

To be fair the only reason anyone went digging is because Yoshi-P, the producer of Final Fantasy XVI recently stated how he dislikes the term “JRPG” because of how game critics in the West, particularly during the mid-to-late 2000s, were using it in basically a derogatory way to look down on such games, and low and behold they found a prime example in an old X-Play review of a JRPG from the era, which wasn’t just being derogatory with how it treated the game for being a JRPG, but honestly being pretty much down right racist in the review, including the introduction to said review having a super yikes white replacement theory comment from Morgan Webb.

[IgnahtaSempria]

Mar 5, 2023 12:46:58 GMT -5 ace said:

I mean yeah…say nothing…but in his defense I don’t know what it’s like to be a content creator and having to deal with weirdos digging through near two decade old content to look for gotcha moments. Get a life is an understandable reaction. Especially when you aren’t apologizing just to save a job or anything. If anything it’s a good reminder why those apologies ever even happen. If G4 was still on the air he would have probably faked one…which is worth a lot less to me than saying what you really think.

Here's the thing: this wasn't meant to be a "gotcha" at Sessler.

For the last week, there's been discussions online about media coverage of JRPGs because Yoshi-P of Square Enix did an interview recently where he expressed that he and many other Japanese developers didn't like the term "JRPG", due to the fact in the late '00s to mid '10s, the American games media sometimes used "JRPG" in a negative manner and put down Japanese games based purely on being "weird" by American sensibilities and being made in Japan. When this got pointed out, many Western games journalists basically circled the wagons and said "nuh uh, didn't happen", and people started citing old reviews and videos to show that yeah, it did happen. This clip just happened to be one of many examples of that.

No one was saying specifically that Sessler had to apologize. Hell, Sessler wasn't even tagged in the tweet. He just saw that a clip of an old review started getting circulated, and decided to go on an unhinged rant.

[ISO Mid Thigh Pull]

"We all know who will replace us -- India, the billion strong, faux-vegetarian, tech support call taking behemoth of a nation -- or the Chinese. But certainly not Japan, because while they may be technologically advanced *and* financially powerful, they are already in decline."

[Cyno]

A lot of JRPG's in the mid-late 00's had the "moe" aesthetic because that was what was popular in Japan (and among a number of western otaku) at the time. And that aesthetic can be pretty creepy especially to Western sensibilities, though it definitely got some pushback in Japan, too (see: Hayao Miyazaki's comments about otaku infesting the anime industry where the mistranslated "anime was a mistake it's nothing but trash" meme comes from). Just to give context to why the western games media turned against a lot of JRPG's at the time. Problem is they painted an entire genre of games with that brush instead of focusing on the specific offenders, like anything Idea Factory crapped out.

And none of that justifies any of the frankly racist "humor" like in the example of that Baten Kaitos Origins "review." Though X-Play reviews got dunked on a lot at the time for being, well, awful. And the criticisms about their racism against Asians (both East and South in this review!) isn't anything new either. So the "it was a different time!" explanation doesn't even hold up as they were getting plenty of pushback about it back then too lol.

That said Adam Sessler is 100% right about how toxic gamer culture is. He just lacks any and all self-realization that he contributed (and still contributes) to said toxicity.

[BorneAgain]

Part of the context from the time period shortly after this is that many Japanese companies were struggling with the move to HD titles, made ill advised attempts to Westernize, and were generally seen as losing relevance in light of the rising Western AAA game scene. Even American indie developers (who were becoming quasi rock star figures in their own right) were criticizing the poor quality of contemporary Japanese titles. This would start to change circa 2012-2016 before being obliterated in 2017 entirely, and much of the scene has been dominated by the same Japanese companies once seen as irrelevant.

[Mr PONYMANIA Mr Jenzie]

the simpsons were "more racist" than this lameness!

[pinja]

Mar 5, 2023 14:18:03 GMT -5 Cyno said:

A lot of JRPG's in the mid-late 00's had the "moe" aesthetic because that was what was popular in Japan (and among a number of western otaku) at the time. And that aesthetic can be pretty creepy especially to Western sensibilities, though it definitely got some pushback in Japan, too (see: Hayao Miyazaki's comments about otaku infesting the anime industry where the mistranslated "anime was a mistake it's nothing but trash" meme comes from). Just to give context to why the western games media turned against a lot of JRPG's at the time. Problem is they painted an entire genre of games with that brush instead of focusing on the specific offenders, like anything Idea Factory crapped out.

And none of that justifies any of the frankly racist "humor" like in the example of that Baten Kaitos Origins "review." Though X-Play reviews got dunked on a lot at the time for being, well, awful. And the criticisms about their racism against Asians (both East and South in this review!) isn't anything new either. So the "it was a different time!" explanation doesn't even hold up as they were getting plenty of pushback about it back then too lol.

That said Adam Sessler is 100% right about how toxic gamer culture is. He just lacks any and all self-realization that he contributed (and still contributes) to said toxicity.

That's some good context, because JRPG was a term already when I started reading gaming magazines which was about the early to mid '90s. It was used only to distinguish the style of RPGs from computer RPGs, hence why it was used mostly synonymous with console RPG. If it was used in a derogatory fashion, I don't remember ever having read it.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Mar 5, 2023 14:33:37 GMT -5 BorneAgain said:

Part of the context from the time period shortly after this is that many Japanese companies were struggling with the move to HD titles, made ill advised attempts to Westernize, and were generally seen as losing relevance in light of the rising Western AAA game scene. Even American indie developers (who were becoming quasi rock star figures in their own right) were criticizing the poor quality of contemporary Japanese titles. This would start to change circa 2012-2016 before being obliterated in 2017 entirely, and much of the scene has been dominated by the same Japanese companies once seen as irrelevant.

Not an RPG but a good example of this progression is the Resident Evil series. The chase of Westernization led to titles like RE6 and Operation Raccoon City, two of the least liked titles in the series. Games like the Revelations subseries started to rehabilitate the franchise until they struck true gold again with RE7 and 8.

[Scoops]

Mar 5, 2023 14:18:03 GMT -5 Cyno said:

A lot of JRPG's in the mid-late 00's had the "moe" aesthetic because that was what was popular in Japan (and among a number of western otaku) at the time. And that aesthetic can be pretty creepy especially to Western sensibilities, though it definitely got some pushback in Japan, too (see: Hayao Miyazaki's comments about otaku infesting the anime industry where the mistranslated "anime was a mistake it's nothing but trash" meme comes from). Just to give context to why the western games media turned against a lot of JRPG's at the time. Problem is they painted an entire genre of games with that brush instead of focusing on the specific offenders, like anything Idea Factory crapped out.

And none of that justifies any of the frankly racist "humor" like in the example of that Baten Kaitos Origins "review." Though X-Play reviews got dunked on a lot at the time for being, well, awful. And the criticisms about their racism against Asians (both East and South in this review!) isn't anything new either. So the "it was a different time!" explanation doesn't even hold up as they were getting plenty of pushback about it back then too lol.

That said Adam Sessler is 100% right about how toxic gamer culture is. He just lacks any and all self-realization that he contributed (and still contributes) to said toxicity.

This is where I'm at. There's no excuse for racism, and there was a lot of shitty comments about Japanese games at the time like Phil Fish's Japanese games "just suck" comment. But this is also ignoring that this was around the start of "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" and gamergate (that X-Play video was a lot earlier though)There was huge pushback to how women were portrayed in games all around.

There was also a lot of sexist shit coming out of Japan at the time, and the people drumming the "cultural differences" defense were often western fans with zero input in the discussion from actual women from Japan.

So yeah, there was definitely a lot of "Japan is weird" crap but to act like western otakus weren't also freaks isn't giving the full story. I literally saw neogaf, one of the biggest heavily moderated game forums at the time freaking out over discussion of a game called "criminal girls" being forbidden on the site. You can Google it if you want but the basic description of it is a loli bdsm game.

[Cyno]

Mar 5, 2023 16:06:34 GMT -5 Scoops said:

Mar 5, 2023 14:18:03 GMT -5 Cyno said:

A lot of JRPG's in the mid-late 00's had the "moe" aesthetic because that was what was popular in Japan (and among a number of western otaku) at the time. And that aesthetic can be pretty creepy especially to Western sensibilities, though it definitely got some pushback in Japan, too (see: Hayao Miyazaki's comments about otaku infesting the anime industry where the mistranslated "anime was a mistake it's nothing but trash" meme comes from). Just to give context to why the western games media turned against a lot of JRPG's at the time. Problem is they painted an entire genre of games with that brush instead of focusing on the specific offenders, like anything Idea Factory crapped out.

And none of that justifies any of the frankly racist "humor" like in the example of that Baten Kaitos Origins "review." Though X-Play reviews got dunked on a lot at the time for being, well, awful. And the criticisms about their racism against Asians (both East and South in this review!) isn't anything new either. So the "it was a different time!" explanation doesn't even hold up as they were getting plenty of pushback about it back then too lol.

That said Adam Sessler is 100% right about how toxic gamer culture is. He just lacks any and all self-realization that he contributed (and still contributes) to said toxicity.

This is where I'm at. There's no excuse for racism, and there was a lot of shitty comments about Japanese games at the time like Phil Fish's Japanese games "just suck" comment. But this is also ignoring that this was around the start of "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" and gamergate (that X-Play video was a lot earlier though)There was huge pushback to how women were portrayed in games all around.

There was also a lot of sexist shit coming out of Japan at the time, and the people drumming the "cultural differences" defense were often western fans with zero input in the discussion from actual women from Japan.

So yeah, there was definitely a lot of "Japan is weird" crap but to act like western otakus weren't also freaks isn't giving the full story. I literally saw neogaf, one of the biggest heavily moderated game forums at the time freaking out over discussion of a game called "criminal girls" being forbidden on the site. You can Google it if you want but the basic description of it is a loli bdsm game.

I remember when Operation Rainfall was a thing that started out innocently enough in that it was a grassroots campaign to get a couple of high profile Wii RPG's released in the US because Nintendo otherwise showed no interest. And then after it was successful, it gradually transformed into a Gamergate-adjacent misogyny echo chamber. Real sad what happened there.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Mar 5, 2023 17:31:10 GMT -5 Cyno said:

Mar 5, 2023 16:06:34 GMT -5 Scoops said:

This is where I'm at. There's no excuse for racism, and there was a lot of shitty comments about Japanese games at the time like Phil Fish's Japanese games "just suck" comment. But this is also ignoring that this was around the start of "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" and gamergate (that X-Play video was a lot earlier though)There was huge pushback to how women were portrayed in games all around.

There was also a lot of sexist shit coming out of Japan at the time, and the people drumming the "cultural differences" defense were often western fans with zero input in the discussion from actual women from Japan.

So yeah, there was definitely a lot of "Japan is weird" crap but to act like western otakus weren't also freaks isn't giving the full story. I literally saw neogaf, one of the biggest heavily moderated game forums at the time freaking out over discussion of a game called "criminal girls" being forbidden on the site. You can Google it if you want but the basic description of it is a loli bdsm game.

I remember when Operation Rainfall was a thing that started out innocently enough in that it was a grassroots campaign to get a couple of high profile Wii RPG's released in the US because Nintendo otherwise showed no interest. And then after it was successful, it gradually transformed into a Gamergate-adjacent misogyny echo chamber. Real sad what happened there.

I remember it took me a looooong time (pretty much until 2 came out) to get past reflexively loathing Xenoblade just due to how obnoxious its fanbase was during all that. I did try out the first game in between those and couldn't get into it at all and I assume residual feelings over that are a big part of why. ... Granted I say that but I've played all the way through 2 and 3 and I still have trouble getting into Xenoblade 1.