spemanig said:
I would say that he knows about gaming no more than most enthisiasts do. That's my point. I do listen to his podcasts, and I'm familiar with guides in general. Once you understand the structure, it's just about filling them in with the details. Again, if you have a favorite game that you've played multiple times, you probably know it well enough to make a guide. And if there are small details you don't know off of memory, you probably know the game well enough to figure out how to find them. That's essentially how guides are made. Anyone can do it. You just need to be good at the game and have the patient to put in the work. That doesn't take an exceptional amount of knowledge about games in general. At least not more than your average game enthusiast. It's not difficult - it's boring and tedious, like transcribing spoken word to at a court or something. Everything is there for you. You just have to be willing to do it. |
I agree that writing guides for games and knowing general gaming knowledge does not go hand-in-hand, but not anyone can write guides. If they could, there would be a lot more guides on a place like GameFAQs and even some of them on there are downright horrible, in terms of helping people get through a game. They are a lot more work than just writing down what you need to do in a game, as some games require you to think of strategies, document enemy attacks and even chronicle a plethora of data to compile into the guide. A game that might only take 20 hours to play through normally would consist of upwards of 40-50 hours to create a guide. It is a lot more than just taking your knowledge about a game, but actually presently that info in a coherent manner to guide someone through a game.
