Poll: Jim sterling VS Extra credits

[CAPTCHA]

so no good points for jim?

Not really, he makes for an unreliable source. He's entertaining though.

 

[CAPTCHA]

Here's an alternate take on it, think of religons and ask yourself who deserves your respect the most out of Jehovah's Witnesses and a Frothingly Angry Street Preacher.

But Jim is not a Frothing Angry Street Preacher, he is more like a Ayatollah using his faith and status as a false prophet to drum up funds for a personal war. Jim is for sale and obliged to plug games at the behest of his producer and the deals they have made (seems to be I-Phone games most of the time). His opinions change on the wind to ensure that he stay's in line with public opinion, and his entire persona is essentially based aroung strong, pre-existing memetic imagary for wide acceptance while promoting a sense of integrity through smugness. Thing is, it seems to work. Looking over this thread is proof enough of it. So to all those who believe Jim to be the voice of the people, go ahead and fly the black flag of gaming. just know that you are only a means to an end.

 

[itsthesheppy]

"Free speech" rights protect you from prosecution based off what you say. they don't protect you from being kicked off a paid service, or ejected from a building by the building's owners, or various other recriminations. It gets very tiring seeing people get this wrong all the time.

If you harass people online, the online service is well within its rights to censor you, because there are Terms and Conditions to use and, if you agree to them, you are subject to them. End of story.

As for which source I trust, I find EC to be a very measured view of the gaming sphere. Jim Sterling is a guy who is frequently wrong and much more of a pundit, and I do not trust pundits. I'm not entirely sure as to why his credentials make his opinion of any more value than anyone else's; that is to say, of nearly no value at all.

 

[lizabeth19]

Today I turned coats and ventured into PA to wach the weekly Extra credits, and there I realised something. That Jim sterling Knows more about the online gaming scene than the three of them combined.

Yes sexism in Xbox live is unacceptable and yes verbal jousting does cross the line, But If we followed the suggestions they say, it would be the death of free speech. Where is the line between sexism, racism and bullying and at what point does it leave the realms of hate speech and into just having a different opinion?

Jim sterling?s theory of immaturity being a good way to deal with unlikable people is what happens online 60% of the time. Here is an example of how jims logic works.

In the end, you both have the ability to silence each other through the use of mute, and fragging them is always the best option. Every time I hear A racist 12 year old from Indonesia, I (1) mute them (2) frag them (3) unmute them to see if they will act civil now(4) if not mute then warn my teammates, no need to ban anyone just ignore them or If they are to young to be playing the game mock them about there age and how they should ?really get of their mom?s computer? ??.simple

Edit 1
I like EC it is just that yesterdays episode contridivted jims earlier video.

EC is not "pretentous" It is sometimes biased but not uninteligable.

Different audiences. Extra Credits is trying to be a thought-provoking discussion of the future of game design and development. Jim Sterling is aiming to produce a humorous op-ed on various discussions happening in the gaming community. Like comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Costia]

I like both. i think they are different.
Jim looks at games from the consumer\gamer side.
EC are talking from the reviewer/critic's side, and sometimes they try to show the industry/developer point of view as well, but it seems to me it's mostly based on guesses.
Jim is trying to be entertaining.
EC try to be educational.

 

[BeerTent]

[...]Yes sexism in Xbox live is unacceptable and yes verbal jousting does cross the line, But If we followed the suggestions they say, it would be the death of free speech. Where is the line between sexism, racism and bullying and at what point does it leave the realms of hate speech and into just having a different opinion?[...]

Alright, I'll admit I'm biased on the EC VS Jim thing. I signed up to talk about EC, as soon as I saw "Get angry" in Jim's advert, as well as some pictures from his show, I instantly thought "Nothing worth watching." My standards are pretty high, as I haven't watched TV in what, 5 years? With some exceptions.

The part I quoted though, is what got me frustrated.

EC in their latest episode(I probably can't link it.) talked about how harassment online is completely and utterly unacceptable, this includes examples like "Get the fuck back in the kitchen, hope you die slutwhore."... Whatever, And, shit, I, me, a fucking tent has gotten insults like that. If I had a kid who wrote shit like that online, I'd lock him in his room while I took every piece of videogaming hardware and either tossed it out or locked it down. The kid would learn what it's like to be Amish before he re-found the videogame.

EC's suggestions, which primarily consisted of an auto-mute if your repeatedly ignored by so many people, (We'll say 100) is not an infringement on your free speech. It is a consequence. EC also suggested that having yourself unable to speak in the game until you've played for a while, but I also see why they didn't like that and didn't want that included.

You know what? Escapist actually employs a similar measure here. If a user gets warned, or banned, their post is automatically hidden. You need to click a link to see it. That is exactly what Extra Credits suggested in XBL. Because when you receive nothing but PM's stating "UR SHIT LOL" for the duration of a lucky-streak, that's actually pretty frustrating, and in my opinion, kinda unacceptable like the things we've seen in that show.

Believe it or not when you do shit like that, it actually effects the person on the other side. I consider myself as having a pretty thick skin too.

To stay on topic, I'll watch an episode... The latest one from Jimquisition.

I make this industry a better place, just by breathing.

You keep on tellin' yourself that, Jimmy.
Capicha: good for nothing... Yeah... That's all I can say.

I don't think I'm biased anymore.

 

[JamesStone]

The EC crew is just pretentious. Jim does that "exagerated god-complex" thingy to create a fake persona, to make us laugh a little so we can view the point he is trying to make. Extra Credits are just pretentious.

Too preachy and never even admitting it. At least sometimes Jim does say that he either won't talk much about something because he is biased, or when he does, he says that he respects the people who disagree with him. Extra Credits never does this.

I liked EC once. I hated Jim before. Now he improved his show and trought His example he made me see what EC really were: pretentious douches trying to cover it up with false niceness and condescense. Thank God for Jim (hehehehe).

 

[nathan-dts]

Extra Credits on the other hand? Fuck EC. Thats all I am saying.

At least Jim isn't pretentious as all fuck.

The guys at EC are so far up their own asses it's unbelievable. Their "gaming is the wave of the future!" attitude grates on my nerves.

Did I miss the part where EC decided to start stealing people's lunch money? There are definitely reasons to dislike Extra Credits, but does it warrant such hostility?

I donated to that under the assumption that EC would stay on the escapist.....

Maybe Themis shouldn't be the utter cunts that they are. I don't watch videos on here anymore; the only good series were kicked out by Themis, i.e. Unforgotten Realms and Extra Credits. Apocolypse Lane ended, I have nothing to watch here now.

 

[Hagi]

I'm going to go with Jim here.

Not because Extra Credits is bad or anything, rather their solutions just seem so very naive at times. Not to mention often utterly lacking in implementation.

Idealism is great for thinking about. But when it comes to acting I prefer realism.

 

[cdstephens]

Extra Credits probably comes off as "pretentious" to most people simply because it's presented in an academic manner. They're presenting their thesis and argument as if they were writing for a scholarly journal or something of that nature. This contrasts with Jim Sterling, who's pretentiousness is overblown to the point of hilarity, but at the same time looses some amount of focus in his arguments as a result.

Another note mentioned above that I agree with is that Extra Credits is not a topical show that talks about recent current events in the news; they talk about the future game design in general. Their goal, especially if you watch their initial episodes, seems to be to educating people who want to get into the industry. Jim Sterling on the other hand is more a comedy show that talks about current events in gaming and gives his opinion on it. Although they both talk about games, their aims are different.

I don't think any of these people are as high on their horse as Movie Bob though. He has good opinions, but he acts like he knows everything and has a better opinion than anyone listening, much more to the point than Extra Credits so it becomes grating but less than Jim Sterling so it's not funny at all.

 

[Elamdri]

The EC crew is just pretentious. Jim does that "exagerated god-complex" thingy to create a fake persona, to make us laugh a little so we can view the point he is trying to make. Extra Credits are just pretentious.

Why? And when I say "Why?" I'm asking both "Why did you put the same thing at the beginning and end of that though" and "Why are they pretentious?"

 

[Krion_Vark]

Theres a fucking mute button for a reason. Just because people elect not to use it... ah fuck who cares.

Excuses excuses. A mute button doesn't make the problems go away. It just enables bad behavior.

"Yeah, I know my neighbor regularly beats his wife, but if I close the blinds, then I don't have to see it!"

That's a bad analogy, do you want a better one?

"My Grandad likes shouting racist slurs. So we put him in a room where no one could hear him."

I can't find the video right now but there was an experiment done where a guy one night played a recording of drums really loud then a week later played a recording of a woman getting beat really loud. People came for the drums but not for the woman. So yeah his analogy actually works.


PS: If anyone could find that video I would be grateful because its a really good thing to watch.

WHAT? How does that make the analogy work?

There is no comparison between someone shouting profanities down a mic and someone beating a woman.

That's like saying 'They came for the Jews continue quote' when someone get's arrested for paedophilia.

There has to be a level of comparability for an analogy to work, and there is NO comparison between someone being rude on a mic and someone beating their wife, just like there's no comparison between someone being persecuted for being Jewish and someone being arrested for molesting children. Regardless of whether or not people have the balls to call the police for domestic violence cases.

I jus.... I don't even. How can you look at that analogy and not cry from the sheer amount of 'does not work'.

It makes it work because if someone is just screaming obcenities into the mic EVERYONE tells them to shut up. Soon as they send it at a woman however no one tells them to shut up and pretty much go the way of NOTHING TO DO HERE and just ignores it.

 

[xchurchx]

I prefer extra credits, while they both make good points i think that the guys at extra credits do it better, Jim's "style" to me is boring, he makes good points and all but a lot of his stuff is just meh, He tries to hard to be funny. Also he swears way to much and when ever it does it sounds forced like unless i use the F word every now and again people will get bored, I wouldn't mind if he used it for humour but he doesn't. Anyway those are my opinions...

 

[Thatrocketeer]

I don't remember saying that physical violence or arson was covered by freedom of speech. We're talking about SPEECH. Nobody claimed anyone should be able to burn down or hit anyone or anything because of freedom of speech.

On the other point, and I'll adress your alt's version of it too, what you forget is that anyone that is being harassed probably has a voice themselves. These people are not mutes. If the aggression is verbal, as you call it, assault, why would the victim not be able to counter? What makes you think the victim can't possibly talk back? As I said like three times now, it works both ways. And it's an insult to the victims to assume they're too weak to fight back, it's a generalisation, and it's a baseless assumption that forms the foundation of your argument. And I'm sick of people making that assumption. Just to draw from anecdotal shit now, I've been through the shit, I've been bullied, and getting up, turning around and hitting back takes not even half the balls people claim it does. By telling these victims they're too weak to fight back, to resist, you're actively insulting their abilities and their mental strength.

Once again, this is not about physical violence. I'm not arguing with your "fist ends at his nose" thing. No one here is. I'm not arguing that any group should be allowed to physically harm another on grounds of free speech. Anyone has the tools to fight back against "verbal assault".

And of course, we're not truly free. But we easily could be in regards to speech. The thing is, if you were to propose that we rename it to limited speech, the argument is over, and you can keep your constitution. Just don't pretend we have something we don't have. Don't call it freedom of speech if it isn't. But somehow I have the feeling that living with limited speech is gonna make a lot of people very angry now that they realized how limited they are. So we keep pretending.

Thing is though, although physical violence/arson isn't covered by free speech, the threat of something like that is still real. If we were living in your world where free speech is actually free, where we can say anything we want, then everybody on Earth would be paranoid because of threats being protected by the law. If we would allow people saying "I'm going to kill you" or "I'm going to burn your house down and your family with it" or even "I'm going to nuke your country", then chaos would be inevitable and the world would plunge into war at the drop of a hat. that's because threats are not supposed to be taken lightly, because there is still the probability that the threat can and will occur. If you're saying you'd want these kinds of things just because of a technicality of the word "free" then it's your choice, but I'm at least glad that you're not in charge.

Also, although people can still fight back in terms of words, there are still a lot of factors to consider when fighting back. Physical size of a person for example, are you saying that if a person much larger than you and could easily hurt you, insulted you, you would fight back? That you would easily conquer your fight or flight instinct and fight a person who has an advantage over you physically? That you wouldn't be intimidated by the repercussions you might incur to yourself the moment he does fight back? Yes, I do agree that no one should be physically harmed, but would you think that violence wouldn't be inevitable especially since your enemy knows he has the physical advantage and you decide to fight back?

 

[sketchesofpayne]

In the end, you both have the ability to silence each other through the use of mute, and fragging them is always the best option. Every time I hear A racist 12 year old from Indonesia, I (1) mute them (2) frag them (3) unmute them to see if they will act civil now

When has fragging someone in a game ever made them MORE civil?! 0.o

 

[lord.jeff]

I like both, Extra Credits does come off as pretentious and I may disagree with them but they represent an ideal that is rarely done by game journalist, so I think there good to have around. As For Jim I agree with him more often then I do most plus his over the top self praise seems to make fun of other game journalists that seem to really think they're better then everyone else.

As for the auto mute feature make it an optional service for the listener, if you don't care to hear people who've proven to be douches on a regular basis then you agree to use it if not don't.

 

[Elamdri]

I think the reason why Jim Sterling is so popular is that he says things that people already want to hear. It's mass market entertainment. While there is nothing particularly WRONG with that, I don't know that it necessarily lends anything to looking at how to improve the industry. The problem with something being popular is that it doesn't equate to being good.

Extra Credits on the other hand takes an academic approach to looking at issues in gaming. Their analysis takes into account everyone: Gamers, Developers, and Publishers. Now, they usually work with high level concepts rather than more concrete elements, but that's ok, as it turns out, someone has to do the high-level conceptual work before you can create concrete applications.

Also, Jim Sterling wears a lapel coat with a short-sleeve shirt and that I just cannot encourage.

 

[WitherVoice]

*snip*... it would be the death of free speech.

Melodramatic much? Anyway, first off, you do not have free speech on Xbox. You are allowed to say and do whatever Microsoft permit, and that's ALL. That's not me saying Microsoft are or could infringe on your free speech, because that's not how it works. Free speech protects you from the government interfering with your right to say what you want. It does not oblige anyone else to PUBLISH what you want to say, that's a separate issue.

Apart from that, I see why it's easy to dislike EC's suggested measures for this. In my not at all humble opinion, the reasons in general falls somewhere in this little sand trap: it's an issue that a fairly large part of the community feels probably SHOULD be addressed somehow, but nobody actually wants to admit how big the problem is, since the problem is CLOSE to all of us in the gaming community, so we do not wish it to be big. Second, whenever rules and punishments are implemented, people worry because if a punishment exists, it could apply to them. Somehow. Even if it shouldn't. Even if it would be unwarranted and unfair.

Personally, I do not for the life of me understand why people can't just be civil. It boggles the mind.

 

[blind_turtle]

9/10ths of the time I watch an Extra Credits I learn something critical about game development that I didn't know before.

I like their simplicity. They make mistakes - it's hard not too - but they aren't poorly informed or misguided. They're insightful. If you find them way off the mark then you're probably missing something. They tend to say things that are more difficult to understand than other publications that dissect games (instead of their experiences and consumer culture). So they hammer home the simplicity. It's not meant to be demeaning. EC re-explains things to me that I've been passionate about for a long time in such simple terms that now, when I watch, I expect to learn something regardless of the topic. Complex things can never be explained too simply.

I love both Jim and Extra Credits. If you don't love EC and you want to understand the creation of games better - not just their consumption - then you're missing out. There is no competitor to EC. I read everything there is to read from devs about development. I think Will Wright is a genius. I love everything said by Jonathon Blow. Notch and Miyamoto are simple and elegent to such a degree that most people mis-attribute their success. On and on. Extra Credits is the only Extra Credits. If you think you've found an alternative then you don't understand why EC is so good. If their attitude gets in the way of you learning something, then you don't care about the content (and that's fair) or your priorities are mixed up. Jim and EC aren't the same thing.

 

[McMarbles]

I've been watching EC since the beginning, and somehow I've never felt condescended to. Maybe I just have a superior intellect, hmmmm?