Streamer Félix Lengyel, known as xQc, did a sponsored stream for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth that angered fans of the franchise formerly known as Yakuza. Aside from xQc often having controversies around him, fans weren’t happy that he got an early look. With some saying that he’s not a fan of the franchise and wouldn’t appreciate it. While others have shared a clip on Twitter of xQc not understanding the turn-based combat during a tutorial.
It irks me to mock someone learning how to play a game especially when they’re only in the tutorial. This reminds me of the common clip taken out of context when a game journalist was struggling with Cuphead’s tutorial. People frequently acted as if they were reviewing the game when they just uploaded some gameplay they thought was funny. Games are hard and sometimes they’re not easy to immediately learn.
This is one of the not-so-fun parts of streaming where people see every mistake you make and criticize it. I streamed full-time on Twitch for a couple of years so I know how that can be first-hand. Even still, people poked fun at xQc for not realizing the combat was turn-based as he waited for an enemy to attack. As much as people love to hate him, I guarantee you a ton of people will make the same mistake. Especially if they’re new to the franchise. Or just new to the more recent Like a Dragon games.
As others have pointed out, xQc played Yakuza 0 and turn-based combat only started with Yakuza: Like a Dragon in 2019. That means of the nine main Yakuza (now Like a Dragon) games, only two are turn-based. And people are really going to give him shit for taking an extra 10 seconds to understand what’s going on? That’s not even considering that the turn-based combat isn’t what you usually see in turn-based games.
The Infinite Wealth clip shows both characters moving in real-time despite still waiting for an action to be made. And on top of this, if you joined xQc’s stream midway, you still might not realize it’s turn-based. This is a credit to the developer, RGG Studio, where the combat can feel seamless despite having turns. In the clip below, you can see how fast easy battles are. And also how quickly you can fight if you speed through turns.
Regardless, this is one of many reasons people aren’t happy with xQc streaming Infinite Wealth early. Some of them are legitimate like wishing other content creators also got a chance to stream it. It would be nice to see a wider variety of people get this opportunity and some of that sponsored money. But in the same vein, it’s a stupid criticism to argue that he shouldn’t have this opportunity if he’s not a fanatic.
There’s value in people showing their perspective regardless of how much experience they may have with a franchise or genre. There are bound to be people interested in playing Infinite Wealth or other Like a Dragon games that have never touched them before. And content like this can show how approachable they are to people in their shoes.
This is why it’s better to have a wide variety of creators and not necessarily one behemoth. So while I prefer more people having this opportunity, I can still appreciate xQc’s early look at Infinite Wealth. As someone who doesn’t follow him or watch his streams, I watched some of his Infinite Wealth gameplay to understand further. Before he could start the game, his chat was pretty much what you’d expect of almost any streamer his size. It’s a constant stream of sewage where people are spewing all sorts of crap.
xQc kept defending the game as you’d also expect from someone getting money to stream it. What’s more interesting is that as the stream went on, his chat got more interested in it and less toxic. One of the funnier parts was watching him struggle to understand Mahjong. Then relying on his chat spamming numbers representing each tile he had. I don’t know if I should be surprised that even in Infinite Wealth xQc made it a gambling stream.
Dumb stuff like playing Mahjong or Sega Bass Fishing during his limited two-hour stream is what cracks me up. As someone who has limited, but some experience playing Like a Dragon games, even I know all the random minigames that make them what they are. In a way, xQc gave a good representation of what players can expect in Infinite Wealth. I didn’t watch his entire segment, but I watched enough to get a good idea.
At worst, he occasionally had a text-to-speech message come through at a bad time. But he was smart enough to disable them for the majority of what I watched. Alongside this, I saw complaints that he probably would skip cutscenes or focus on chat during them. Whereas it was the complete opposite. He focused on cutscenes and swapped from the English dub to the Japanese voice acting.
With the many things you can criticize xQc over, going after his sponsored stream is silly. There are plenty of problems surrounding him like gambling streams for a younger audience, streamer drama, and profiting off of tragedies with reaction videos. Arguing that your favorite streamer didn’t get Infinite Wealth early or that he’s bad in the tutorial is trivial.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.