For the record, to summarise what I'm about to say, my view on EC and Jim is that Jim is great at showing what the gaming community is really like, while EC do a great job of showing how games should be for maximum enjoyment. Also, to throw Yahtzee in, I always agree with his views on the games themselves (the nitpicking and such). However, in terms of what makes a 'good game', and enjoyment, I often disagree with him, simply because we're different people with different tastes in games. I loved Halo Wars, and RTS games in general, for example.
Therefore, and I speak as an aspiring developer myself, I think it should be an industry requirement that all game developers watch, as a matter of course, all three series. Zero Punctuation, Extra Credits, and Jimquisition. Because that way, developers will see what the community is like, what games today are like, what they could (and should) be like, and will have a wide variety of imputs to how to develop their games. In addition, game developers should keep a close eye on the gaming community, in order to see exactly what gamers do and don't want. However, developers shouldn't always pander to the masses, because the gamers aren't the developers and thus they have no clue about how games really are made, unless they're actually interested in behind-the-scenes stuff or are gamers working in the industry. My (controversial) example here is that Mass Effect 3 would have been a damn sight worse if Bioware had simply pandered to the gamers from the off. Yes, I brought THAT up. Sue me.
If game developers did this, we would see an industry lacking in the banes that it seems to continuously employ (including, but not limited to, draconian DRM and copy-pasting games without innovation - I'm looking at you, CoD...), and more new and innovative, and more importantly, fun, games that people will actually want to play. Game development needs to be a two-way process. The gamers shouldn't have full control over the development, but at the same time, the developers should still look to their customers to see just what said customers actually want, and then tailor-make a great product that everyone can enjoy.
And for the record, this is exactly why indie gaming is on the rise. Because indie developers tend to be gamers who have decided to build their own game from scratch while still being firmly rooted in the community itself. Yes, most developers are gamers anyway. Kind of a job requirement, almost, to enjoy playing games in the first place. But they are disconnected from the community as a whole, I've noticed, and that's how we end up with things like 'always-online DRM' and the like. Indie developers have the advantage, because they are still connected to, and part of, the wider community, and so they have a better viewpoint of what gamers do and don't want to see. And yes, I realise I've drifted way off topic, so I'll just leave this opinion here and move on. Feel free to quoe me or PM me if you agree, or disagree, on any of my points...
