Extra Credits discussion thread

[Korbo]

James is a pompous douche who seems to have about the same knowledge of games as most "games analysts" a la Mark Brown who try to talk about mechanics and game development when they haven't even made any games. It really comes off in some of the more controversial episodes. It's a shame, because it's sorta impacted my view on Dan who is actually a pretty nice (and actually talented) guy from what we've seen in like the Side Quest videos and other things where he actually speaks for himself.

It's interesting to look for times James admits his lack of expertise; a lot of the technical videos or videos about dev problems open with things like "when James was working with a team whose game just wasn't coming together," as if he's some magical game shaman even though he's never made any games, or "at a talk James got asked about how to fix (x problem in development) and we thought it was interesting enough to answer again here". It's never anything like "once while making a game, James encountered x" or "in our experience, x is a good way of doing things".


I also found this nugget while looking on their Wikipedia page. Guess it hasn't been updated in a while...

 

[CaitSeith]

By the way, I noticed a few of you mentioned Jim Sterling and his response to Extra Credits' lootbox videos. I had seen those already, but in my search, I also found appabend; admittedly, his channel might need its own thread, but he did a pretty good deconstruction on EC's video comparing Yakuza 0 with Persona 5 (which I found interesting because it wasn't about the lootbox videos, and because I haven't played Persona 5 myself):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIBRYUQ2kUQ

Any thoughts on these videos? Any other responses to Extra Credits that are worth checking out? Maybe this could spark a bit more EC discussion.

That video sounded pretty defensive and bias. Even if we agree that EC was wrong, he made a lot of uncalled personal accusations. If he can't make his arguments without those accusations, maybe his arguments alone aren't strong enough?

 

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Fair points. I guess part of the reason I felt better toward that video is because it's better produced than some of the other response videos I saw, and he even goes into more detail on what goes on in the Persona 5 chapter to help explain his points (because, like I said, I haven't played that game and didn't know those things).

But yeah, on re-watching the video, I can see what you mean.

 

[CaitSeith]

Fair points. I guess part of the reason I felt better toward that video is because it's better produced than some of the other response videos I saw, and he even goes into more detail on what goes on in the Persona 5 chapter to help explain his points (because, like I said, I haven't played that game and didn't know those things).

But yeah, on re-watching the video, I can see what you mean.

I haven't played the game either (I'm busy with Persona 4 right now), and I'm trying to avoid spoilers. And to be fair, that video has some interesting bits of info and opinion about the difference between Japan and American approach to sex as taboo. Even the argument itself isn't so stretched either: "the context here makes it justified".

 

[marioandsonic]

I like their history stuff, but the recent episode of them defending lootboxes pretty much ruins their credibility regarding video games.

Also, bring back Extra Remix damn it!

 

[Imaynotbehere4long]

I know I'm a day late (and a dollar short) with this news (olds?), but Dan (the narrator) announced he's leaving Extra Credits and starting his own channel. Thoughts?

Personally, I'm wondering if they're going to pitch up the new guy's voice as well to try to recapture the sound of the rest of the show or if they'll leave it normal.

 

[CaitSeith]

I know I'm a day late (and a dollar short) with this news (olds?), but Dan (the narrator) announced he's leaving Extra Credits and starting his own channel. Thoughts?

Personally, I'm wondering if they're going to pitch up the new guy's voice as well to try to recapture the sound of the rest of the show or if they'll leave it normal.

I don't know which one will be best. Either way, I will miss Dan.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Something to that effect. It's routinely mocked on /v/ and other imageboards as being an example of poor research.

I thought it was about bandwidth of wireless transmissions or something? Which, you know, if it were true how would it not effect conventional radio channels? I mean, yeah ... Nazis fucked with early Soviet wireless networks by broadcasting on various frequencies intermittently until roughly 1943 when Soviet wireless technologies caught up and their military academies were actually pumping out enough modern-educated officers necessary to actually have proper army group and corps-level leadership abilities.

But quite clearly it was bogus that you can simply run out of wireless frequencies as if a finite resource insofar as it being unrenewable.

... but yeah, that episode was ... it was almost Alex Jones material.

Their extra history stuff is a bit meh.

See, the thing is you don't need a degree to do historical analysis, but if you want to see how a historian might approach historical analysis people should really watch something like TIK's channel on Youtube concerning World War 2.

On TIK's channel he provides an exhaustive list of resources, he critiques the sources directly in the videos, he outlines his ideas in a well structured way that is consistently 'benchmarked' in terms of the criterions of critique from source to source, argument to argument. Extra History is nowhere near as good as someone like TIK's channel. TIK's analysis of things like Operation Market Garden and Fall Blau is lecture level degrees of effective, complete, concise and informative.


And the Extra History guys can't really measure up. Taken on the amount of time they spend on discussing each subject, there's no real excuse why they can't provide a more accurate, more structured historical analysis.

 

[Trunkage]

James is a pompous douche who seems to have about the same knowledge of games as most "games analysts" a la Mark Brown who try to talk about mechanics and game development when they haven't even made any games. It really comes off in some of the more controversial episodes. It's a shame, because it's sorta impacted my view on Dan who is actually a pretty nice (and actually talented) guy from what we've seen in like the Side Quest videos and other things where he actually speaks for himself.

It's interesting to look for times James admits his lack of expertise; a lot of the technical videos or videos about dev problems open with things like "when James was working with a team whose game just wasn't coming together," as if he's some magical game shaman even though he's never made any games, or "at a talk James got asked about how to fix (x problem in development) and we thought it was interesting enough to answer again here". It's never anything like "once while making a game, James encountered x" or "in our experience, x is a good way of doing things".


I also found this nugget while looking on their Wikipedia page. Guess it hasn't been updated in a while...

Steve Jobs got away with being that invention Shaman without having much technical skill. Usually Jobs just bullied people to do what he want.

 

[Souplex]

Guys, we shouldn't be posting on this thread. Don't you know that we're running out of internet? We've gotta conserve it, people.

That's something they said, right? I vaguely remember one of their videos talking about something like that back when they were here.

Something to that effect. It's routinely mocked on /v/ and other imageboards as being an example of poor research.

Being mocked on V is no indication of anything except that you're the one chimps currently feel like throwing poo at.

 

[Tanis]

Looks like there's going to be a change of the guard coming.

Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but it is going to be a change.

 

[Marik2]

Guys, we shouldn't be posting on this thread. Don't you know that we're running out of internet? We've gotta conserve it, people.

That's something they said, right? I vaguely remember one of their videos talking about something like that back when they were here.

Didn't you make fun of that guy with long hair who had a gaming addiction? I remember he talked about his pregnant girlfriend or something.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Guys, we shouldn't be posting on this thread. Don't you know that we're running out of internet? We've gotta conserve it, people.

That's something they said, right? I vaguely remember one of their videos talking about something like that back when they were here.

Didn't you make fun of that guy with long hair who had a gaming addiction? I remember he talked about his pregnant girlfriend or something.

... Ummm, possibly? Depending on what you consider 'making fun of.' You mean James Portnow, right? I remember saying that episode was embarrassing and was where I stopped watching the show. I don't remember saying anything about his pregnant girlfriend ever. Why?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I used to quite like them. Mostly when they talked about how aspects of the industry and game production actually work, especially those from the perspective of those working at the bottom. The regular grunts, instead of some publisher, PR or developer figureheads. Also that in-depth look at video game character animation Dan (I think?) did. Really interesting and it's a shame he didn't do more of it. That's the stuff they're strongest at.

When they tackle broader socio-economic issues tho, yeah, they often show themselves to be outside of their element. I don't watch them often anymore, since they started doing more and more of those (and also seemed to have shifted from nominally pro-consumer to pro-publisher).

I still like Extra History though, as a sort of dramatized introduction to get people interested in the full actual history.

Being mocked on V is no indication of anything except that you're the one chimps currently feel like throwing poo at.

Oi, us simians don't like being lumped in with them. Also, we quite literally throw poo. [small]It's cleaner and more dignified.[/small]

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Guys, we shouldn't be posting on this thread. Don't you know that we're running out of internet? We've gotta conserve it, people.

That's something they said, right? I vaguely remember one of their videos talking about something like that back when they were here.

When did they say that? I was looking through their old episodes to try and find where they said that. Which incidentally I almost had to laugh at their older episodes considering their more resent ones. It seems they've forgotten their own back catalogue.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Guys, we shouldn't be posting on this thread. Don't you know that we're running out of internet? We've gotta conserve it, people.

That's something they said, right? I vaguely remember one of their videos talking about something like that back when they were here.

When did they say that? I was looking through their old episodes to try and find where they said that. Which incidentally I almost had to laugh at their older episodes considering their more resent ones. It seems they've forgotten their own back catalogue.

I don't actually know. It's been years since I've watched Extra Credits. I didn't even know before now that they removed all their videos from the Escapist. They were talking about online multiplayer or internet or something.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Guys, we shouldn't be posting on this thread. Don't you know that we're running out of internet? We've gotta conserve it, people.

That's something they said, right? I vaguely remember one of their videos talking about something like that back when they were here.

When did they say that? I was looking through their old episodes to try and find where they said that. Which incidentally I almost had to laugh at their older episodes considering their more resent ones. It seems they've forgotten their own back catalogue.

I don't actually know. It's been years since I've watched Extra Credits. I didn't even know before now that they removed all their videos from the Escapist. They were talking about online multiplayer or internet or something.

Oh well. It's just that, even given some of the response videos I've seen, it still seemed like something too stupid for even them to say.

 

[CaitSeith]

When did they say that? I was looking through their old episodes to try and find where they said that. Which incidentally I almost had to laugh at their older episodes considering their more resent ones. It seems they've forgotten their own back catalogue.

It was in the Spectrum Crunch episode.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

When did they say that? I was looking through their old episodes to try and find where they said that. Which incidentally I almost had to laugh at their older episodes considering their more resent ones. It seems they've forgotten their own back catalogue.

It was in the Spectrum Crunch episode.

Oh that one. Well in that case I don't think they were too far off.