Two things, firstly the only thing DF is the definition of is DF. They're not the only ones who do excellent work and there are smaller youtubers who do excellent work that aren't recognized for their work. Aris from Hardware Busters is one that comes to mind.
Secondly, my intention is not to hand wave their work away but to highlight how their level of access has grown with their audience. DF didn't start creating quality content in the last 2 years but have been doing so over a decade now. People enjoy their content and their audience has grown tremendously. As a result, their access to more exclusive content has grown.
As an aside, ELAnalistaDeBits is at 500k+ subs. They'll be the next ones to make the leap if their subs continue to grow.
I mean DF does what the literal definition of Tech Journalism is.
As a job function, technology journalists write for consumers who are interested in things like smartphone, tablets, laptops and other digital products. The other part of technology journalism is enterprise technology, which talks about how businesses leverage new technologies for business gains. Technology journalists usually interview experts on various fields like mobility, analytics, cloud computing, open source, etc. and share insights with their audience.
This is a stark contrast to VGTech/Enlistabits etc. Not saying they don't do the work in terms of comparison videos, but there is no author or face of the work. They take data and spit it out for consumers to digest. That's fine and all, but that's not tech journalism at least in the literal sense. This is data enrichment if anything.
I don't think EnlistaBits can replace DF; who is the current face of their company? What have they said that is insightful in the past? They need to come forward and prove they understand their own data and present their findings.
I get that people get angry at DF if they present something that is in direct conflict with a conclusion that a reader has reached. But all these companies in general have a direct role to play to be overtly critical about anything and everything, which is weaponized sure, but it helps push progress forward. Some time ago people said they couldn't see a difference between 4K and 1080p. Now the difference is clear to viewers. People said they couldn't see the difference between 30 and 60 fps. Now the difference is clear. The boundaries are constantly being pushed to more frame rate, to higher resolutions, to better graphics. 8K is coming one of these days, and the next consoles will ahve enough power for native, but they'll be asked to push 8K. There's no real limit to the progression of technology and someone will undoubtedly tell me that they can't see the difference between 8K and 4K and 60 and 120fps. Today people will tell you they can't see a difference between ray traced and not. But in good time, as progress is made, will, albeit slowly. And console warriors will literally squabble over anything be damned.
The purpose of these reviews give developers a pulse of consumer demands from their purchases. If DF somehow was magically able to obtain even more metrics about the games themselves, and presented findings that a particular console was being underused/poorly optimized. There would be hell. And developers would have to step up and take advantage of the hardware because their customers demand it. That constant prodding and pushing is what helps bring progress forward for the consumers even if they can't technically see the difference.
I think what you're seeing here, is a lot of people in agreement that this is a necessary thing. That may come across as a bad thing for some folks but ultimately DF does this well. It has been more loose around the numbers lately because it's becoming increasingly harder to lock down differences. All good things. But that doesn't mean things can't get better. Progress may no longer jump by 30-50% as it did in the past. And if a 400% zoom is required to showcase issues with VRS, then so be it. It just keeps developers honest on how far these review companies are willing to go to showcase what is happening here. We are pushing for a lossless target, but understand must operate in the realm of loss for the sake of performance. And that is something all consumers should be pushing for. And if someone doesn't shed light on these things, and to present the findings respectfully, then developers will not have feedback from us on what else could be improved.
The largest difference between video games and regular board games really comes down to.. well graphics. Sadly but truthfully. Graphics and audio, in general: interactivity, is the definition of what separates physical games and video games. And that's why we see so much marketing around graphics and presenting games as being a better game because it's got better graphics. That's the selling point behind the entire video game industry - otherwise they should just focus on bringing board games to PC since it's simpler to program.
Here's the thing, audio is by far the least covered aspect in video games, though from a feature perspective is one of the most important. We stopped caring about audio because we could had no way to capture and present it's data usefully to push the boundaries of audio further. The audio tech industry was booming at one point in time, with Gravis, Aureal, SoundBlaster, etc. We had ray traced reflected audio a long time ago, big audio cards for it. And then suddenly the whole industry collapsed. Look at this beauty
A3D uses a subset of the actual in-game 3D world data to accurately model the location of both direct (A3Dspace) and reflected (A3Dverb) sound streams (
A3D 2.0 can perform up to 60 first-order reflections).
EAX 1.0, the competing technology at the time promoted by Creative Labs, simulated the environment with an adjustable reverb—it didn't calculate any actual reflections off the 3D surfaces.
So I disagree with your position. If there was as much console warring over audio as there are graphics, perhaps that industry would be alive and well today, and we'd be enjoying some pretty amazing audio. But now we don't, and audio in games sucks, because people felt audio in the games today was 'good enough'. Music, honestly, is only okay today. I actually think a long time ago music and audio way far ahead much better than we have today. When we stopped reporting on audio, so too did game companies stop caring about it. And now we're left with 'good enough'. Without knowing what is great, you'll never ask yourself what you're missing out on.
I think DF does it with the most amount of respect limiting the console fodder. You may view it as evil, but should you, view it as a necessary evil then.
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