Game Theory: What's Wrong with the AVGN?

MatthewPatrick13

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What's Wrong with the AVGN?

The Angry Video Game Nerd was and still is a pioneer in the field on online game comedy/review. And yet, for as much as we laugh at the AVGN, there's a disturbing trend across his content, a string of symptoms pointing to severe mental and physical illnesses. Nerd, I hope you're watching, because us Theorists are worried about you!

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Fordo

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Oct 17, 2007
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As a gamer who grew up in the late 80's and early 90's world of gaming. I was pleasantly surprised to find the AVGN in 2012. Tons of heart in his videos.... be it some times angry last spasms of hearts that have exploded from trying to beat silver surfer... Anyone who wants to know about the wild frontier of games for that time... no better person to show you the madness than the AVGN.
 

slacker2

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May 22, 2011
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Sounds like a tongue in cheek endorsement of the avgn character ... I mean, what else could it be?
 

LaughingAtlas

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Nov 18, 2009
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I'll admit I couldn't even sit through the whole thing. I feel just as repulsed by this video as the only other one I was almost able to stomach. (the FF-series-hates-religion one or whatever it was) I mean, a serious, psychiatric analysis of an obviously comedic persona? What were they thinking?!

[sub]In the event that just not watching these things all the way through is the reason I'm missing some greater joke, please disregard the preceding.[/sub]
 

RoonMian

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As a German I am not proud to say that the raging Russian kid was actiaööy a raging German kid.
 

Darth_Payn

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AH, the AVGN. I was introduced to him 4 years ago at FanimeCon*, in a marathon of his episodes. One guy next to me told me, "Prepare for the funniest 10 minutes of your life", and lo and behold, they showed the Super Mario Bros. 3 episode, complete with those depictions of the devil and Super Mecha Cyber Christ, or whatever. Good to see that again here! I'm tempted to go the original YouTube page of this video, to see if the AVGN himself commented on it.


*If you think it's odd that a fan-run convention devoted to Anime has a marathon of the Angry Video Game Nerd, it's just for 1 night. They have multiple video rooms for anime throughout the rest of the days. Other nights have the Nostalgia Critic and yes, Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation. Always a crowd pleaser!
 

Steve the Pocket

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Honestly, joking aside, this is exactly why I've found the AVGN uncomfortable to watch. Even someone like the Nostalgia Critic at his worst is just a comedian being a massive ham; James Rolfe does a disturbingly convincing portrayal of someone with serious mental problems.
 

chiefohara

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Sep 4, 2009
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My first time watching Game Theorists.

I have to admit i enjoyed it, i thought it was going to be a swipe at James Rolfes work but it was quite a nice homage to the character.

I watch a lot of videos on the Escapist and i'd like to offer some constructive feedback.

You need a persona or a strong character style to your voice while narrating this. Jim Sterling has arrogance, Yahtze has insane pace and James Rolfe has outrage. As an intellectual game theorist, your narration would need more pace and maybe more haughtiness to colour your voice.

9 minutes is a long time, Youtubers switch back and forth a lot and long video's don't always work, i enjoyed the video but the last point on AVGN's bowel movements pushed the length of the video from being a perfect length to overstaying itself just a tad.

The crumbled paper background to the tweets or certain bullet points (considering the rest of the quality of the video, i'm guessing it was a stylistic choice) made the video look cheap and rushed, it was just something that caught my eye. Id say stick to a nice neat stylistic presentation would suit your take on things.

All that said i enjoyed your video and im looking forward to watching the rest of your work.
 

gardian06

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Hubblignush said:
Ok, this is the first time I watched this stuff, and since you get instabanned for remarking upon poor quality that comes from this website, I'll try to hold my tongue.

But really? Is the case of "exaggerating for comedic effect" unknown? Has no one heard of it? This is like analysing Plinkett reviews and commenting that the character might be a bit unstable. I mean seriously? This is clearly not analysis, since, well, it's bloody nonsence. If I make a video explaining that the ending to Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes out of nowhere, that wouldn't be analysis, that'd be me being a idiot and not seing an obvious joke.

Maybe it's meant to be humor, but the joke, "let's pretend to analyse the obviously humorous exaggerated character from an objective medical point of view", well, it's faals incredibly short. First, it's not very funny since you're joking about a joke character, joking about an actual character not meant to be the way your investigating himf rom is an actual joke, this is, well I don't know.

I honestly have no clue what this video is supposed to be, or where the entertainment is supposed to be on. I guess the golden rule of "stay out of any content on the escapist not made by Yahtzee" holds very much true.
realistically he is simply doing a critique of a character. in the same vein as a person critiquing the mental stability of Hamlet, or the interpersonal family dynamics of the Adams' Family these (particularly the former) have been tenets of the field of theatrical critique since its beginning, and in all reality in-depth character analysis in even a tenet of critique that Yahtzee uses in a large majority of his videos. analyzing on a psychological level a fictional character (and if you missed those then you haven't actually been paying full attention to his content).

the biggest thing here is that GameTheory attempts to apply real-world science, historical implications, psychological interpretation, and in depth analysis to the fictional situations in video games: "how much force does Warios but produce", "Samus's morph ball", and "Mario is a communist". watching Gametheory is basically a small class in game analysis (like literary analysis, but for games), and portrait on a high intellectual level. granted one of the only real criticisms I have of GameTheory is sometimes he does end of reaching to fill time, and tries to bring memes in to much, but otherwise the majority of his content is at least trying to fulfill the tagline: "the smartest show in gaming"
 

know whan purr tick

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gardian06 said:
Hubblignush said:
Ok, this is the first time I watched this stuff, and since you get instabanned for remarking upon poor quality that comes from this website, I'll try to hold my tongue.

But really? Is the case of "exaggerating for comedic effect" unknown? Has no one heard of it? This is like analysing Plinkett reviews and commenting that the character might be a bit unstable. I mean seriously? This is clearly not analysis, since, well, it's bloody nonsence. If I make a video explaining that the ending to Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes out of nowhere, that wouldn't be analysis, that'd be me being a idiot and not seing an obvious joke.

Maybe it's meant to be humor, but the joke, "let's pretend to analyse the obviously humorous exaggerated character from an objective medical point of view", well, it's faals incredibly short. First, it's not very funny since you're joking about a joke character, joking about an actual character not meant to be the way your investigating himf rom is an actual joke, this is, well I don't know.

I honestly have no clue what this video is supposed to be, or where the entertainment is supposed to be on. I guess the golden rule of "stay out of any content on the escapist not made by Yahtzee" holds very much true.

realistically he is simply doing a critique of a character. in the same vein as a person critiquing the mental stability of Hamlet, or the interpersonal family dynamics of the Adams' Family these (particularly the former) have been tenets of the field of theatrical critique since its beginning, and in all reality in-depth character analysis in even a tenet of critique that Yahtzee uses in a large majority of his videos. analyzing on a psychological level a fictional character (and if you missed those then you haven't actually been paying full attention to his content).

the biggest thing here is that GameTheory attempts to apply real-world science, historical implications, psychological interpretation, and in depth analysis to the fictional situations in video games: "how much force does Warios but produce", "Samus's morph ball", and "Mario is a communist". watching Gametheory is basically a small class in game analysis (like literary analysis, but for games), and portrait on a high intellectual level. granted one of the only real criticisms I have of GameTheory is sometimes he does end of reaching to fill time, and tries to bring memes in to much, but otherwise the majority of his content is at least trying to fulfill the tagline: "the smartest show in gaming"
The Hamlet example seems very apt. Where I'm a little weary of this is holding up the DSMV without scrutiny. The "high-intellectual" level is debatable but I understand the purpose to be in good fun. AVGN did impact youtube and how people cover games.

There are two main interrelated criticisms of DSM-5:

-an unhealthy influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the revision process
-an increasing tendency to "medicalise" patterns of behaviour and mood that are not considered to be particularly extreme
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/08august/pages/controversy-mental-health-diagnosis-and-treatment-dsm5.aspx
Ausberger's is no longer a syndrome [http://www.autism.com/news_dsmV], the condition is placed back into a set of autism spectrum disorders without its own label:
The removal of the formal diagnoses of Asperger's Disorder and PDD-NOS is a major change. People who currently hold these diagnoses will likely receive a different diagnosis when re-evaluated. This has the potential to be confusing for parents of children with these diagnoses as well as children and adults who identify strongly with their diagnosis.
Restless leg syndrome [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1434499/] was added and there are claims pharmaceutical groups influenced the decision to add this diagnosis.

At best DSMV is a helpful work in progress. At worst, it is a misrepresentation of expected normalcy in a diverse World. I'm not going to deny that people have been helped through psychiatry, and desperately needed that help, but the field largely seems like a bunch of pill pushers.
 

daxterx2005

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Never in my wildest dreams did I think there would ever be a video devoted to analyzing AVGN's literal shit...
Cheers, Matt.
 

Jennacide

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Love how he denies every click baiting, that's what this entire video was. Trying to wax poetic about a fictional character that is meant as satire of the real ragemonsters of gaming.