Poll: Jim sterling VS Extra credits
- Thread starter James Ennever
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Both bring up good points to be discussed.
Jim just does it hilariously and Extra Credits does it like a class.
Jim just does it hilariously and Extra Credits does it like a class.
*shrugs*
I loved both back then and I loved both now.
I do believe some of them are wrong at points, but opinions differ.
tbh, I've never really paid too much attention to give enough scrutiny to either side to get annoyed; I always really felt that EC/Jim just do their shows because they love doing so, and if they're trying to promote some kind of hidden agenda, then I obviously never noticed it.
Honestly, I kinda wish that we could have one of those Extra Consideration (was that was it was called again?) articles where the Escapist guys come together and talk about specific things. ... OK, I lie. I really just want to see James and Jim duke it out with one another.
I loved both back then and I loved both now.
I do believe some of them are wrong at points, but opinions differ.
tbh, I've never really paid too much attention to give enough scrutiny to either side to get annoyed; I always really felt that EC/Jim just do their shows because they love doing so, and if they're trying to promote some kind of hidden agenda, then I obviously never noticed it.
Honestly, I kinda wish that we could have one of those Extra Consideration (was that was it was called again?) articles where the Escapist guys come together and talk about specific things. ... OK, I lie. I really just want to see James and Jim duke it out with one another.
me too, It would rock!ThunderCavalier said:*shrugs*
I loved both back then and I loved both now.
I do believe some of them are wrong at points, but opinions differ.
tbh, I've never really paid too much attention to give enough scrutiny to either side to get annoyed; I always really felt that EC/Jim just do their shows because they love doing so, and if they're trying to promote some kind of hidden agenda, then I obviously never noticed it.
Honestly, I kinda wish that we could have one of those Extra Consideration (was that was it was called again?) articles where the Escapist guys come together and talk about specific things. ... OK, I lie. I really just want to see James and Jim duke it out with one another.
What? Fuck that.Jimothy Sterling said:
Jim Sterling is the voice of God, not just a singular generation. He's the voice of all things that have and will be. Thank God, and Jim, for Jim.
Think about this. Are you seriously offended by what these people say? Who really cares if a couple of immature 12 year olds run their mouths and send you a couple of messages requesting you engage in oral sex with them? Chances are these children live a few hundred, if not thousand kilometres away. Mute them, block them and move on, don't sit there dwelling on the fact that a random person you've never met and never will meet - who will never have even the tiniest impact on your outside life - called you a bad word.
Whooooa, I really like EC. Liked them while they were here, like them still at PATV. When did all this open hostility start?
I remember when there were long threads praising EC and their ideas. I understand why people don't want to watch the show, it just doesn't mesh with some people.
But still, I like the Jimquisition too. He's both funny, insightful, and a dickhead. I love it.
They should listen to both, they both touch on important issues for the gaming community and the industry at large.
I remember when there were long threads praising EC and their ideas. I understand why people don't want to watch the show, it just doesn't mesh with some people.
But still, I like the Jimquisition too. He's both funny, insightful, and a dickhead. I love it.
They should listen to both, they both touch on important issues for the gaming community and the industry at large.
The problem with Jim is density. In some ways, Jim Sterling's persona provides an extra layer of thought to understand the real underlaying point that he is driving at, but the side-effect of this is that reduces the complexity and density of his underlaying message. Ultimately, if it's too complicated, the abstraction/parody will dilute or eschew the message. While, on the one hand, this enables Jim to be quite entertaining -especially to an patient, intelligent individual willing to see past what appears to be a hostile and unappealing presentation- it is also counter-effective. The presentation makes it difficult to introduce people to the Jimquisition without a good priming or enough tolerance to endure a few episodes to 'get' what's going on with it. The fact that it's on the Escapist and hasn't been cancelled does hint at an underlaying quality that is there, but as video feature go, it's one of the more prickly ones out there.
What works in Extra Credit's favour is the straightforward, lecture-style nature. They're upfront about the points they're discussing and the ideas they have around the area. Often they cover a huge amount of ground and ask far more questions than they answer. This makes it much more approachable to consume and certainly more sociable a subject as there's a lot more to discuss.
The original question, though, is who is right more? I'm inclined towards Extra Credits, mostly because they ask a lot of the right questions. They seem very savvy to what the problem areas of the industry are and, while they may not always be spot-on with proposed solutions, the show provokes thought and discussion in the right areas. They're not trying to be definitive, they're exploring, and I'd think they're open to criticism and admitting when they're wrong.
Jimquisition, on the other hand, suffers from a huge amount of noise from people who take the persona too seriously or miss the core message of a show. Ultimately, the Jim persona feels like a cop-out... it allows him to make extreme remarks that, if they resonate, he can take credit for. If they don't, the excuse is that it's 'part of the persona' and the core point behind it is just being overstated for emphasis and parody. People may feel Jim is more right because of confirmation bias on those ambiguous grounds when really there hasn't been any clear statement.
Result? Extra Credits wins out.
What works in Extra Credit's favour is the straightforward, lecture-style nature. They're upfront about the points they're discussing and the ideas they have around the area. Often they cover a huge amount of ground and ask far more questions than they answer. This makes it much more approachable to consume and certainly more sociable a subject as there's a lot more to discuss.
The original question, though, is who is right more? I'm inclined towards Extra Credits, mostly because they ask a lot of the right questions. They seem very savvy to what the problem areas of the industry are and, while they may not always be spot-on with proposed solutions, the show provokes thought and discussion in the right areas. They're not trying to be definitive, they're exploring, and I'd think they're open to criticism and admitting when they're wrong.
Jimquisition, on the other hand, suffers from a huge amount of noise from people who take the persona too seriously or miss the core message of a show. Ultimately, the Jim persona feels like a cop-out... it allows him to make extreme remarks that, if they resonate, he can take credit for. If they don't, the excuse is that it's 'part of the persona' and the core point behind it is just being overstated for emphasis and parody. People may feel Jim is more right because of confirmation bias on those ambiguous grounds when really there hasn't been any clear statement.
Result? Extra Credits wins out.
There's a lot of interesting things with EC that seem to come up. It seems people get the weight of their points or they miss them and just see a pile of fluff. You seem like one of the fluff guys. Even when I started watching, before I heard opinions, I sort of felt like they were risking that kind of reaction. It made me feel proud to be catered to.drednoahl said:
EC serves up one or two insights a show. Sometimes they imply heavy-handed applications of their solutions - and those wouldn't work - but it doesn't detract from the quality of what they're trying to say. One of the earlier episodes talked about the conflict between short-term and long-term goals being the essence of interesting choice in games. They gave an example with moving mushrooms in Mario. That is brilliant. There are 52 reasons why that is brilliant. There are a lot of games that would benefit from understanding that point, like any game that tries to give your decisions weight (narrative or otherwise). But the reasons why it's brilliant are subtle. If you don't think really hard about why their perspective is valuable to a game designer, it won't seem like they're saying anything at all. It's really easy to miss. You have to think a whole lot about it or already spend a lot time thinking about game design.
Anyway, their episodes are of (near) consistent quality. Not all shows (of EC) have the same level of insight, but all strive for something similar. You pick one and I'll tell you why it's brilliant - not really. If you want to find out for yourself you'll have to spend some time applying what they teach. It's not hard, it just takes effort, which justifiably a lot of consumers aren't interested in. They're called Extra Credits for a reason. They're like school after school. Jim is entertainment and commentary. EC is instruction. You've got to do your homework to get results. University classes that make their points apparent aren't worthy of your time because they're trivial. Real learning starts with something that appears meaningless but comes from a trusted source, so you pay attention, and then it becomes beautiful. You have to work for it.
Anyway. That's just a general reply. I just used you as a springboard. Sorry if I implied things that are not true.
That was the only episode I didn't like (and didn't finish). I don't know what they were thinking.Reincarnatedwolfgod said:
If you think you're having fun, then you're having fun. It's kind of a black and white emotionReincarnatedwolfgod said:
Edit:
I like EC, I find a lot of their episodes thought-provoking even if I disagree with them.
I find Sterling to be incredibly abrasive and offensive. His videos are boring and I dislike watching him a lot.
In a way you are right about me being "fluffy," but we are diametrically opposed on this one. I much prefer to view things in what I consider a balanced or general way. It's my opinion that EC over-analyse which leads to a no compromise conclusion which nearly always sounds right yet doesn't (for want of a better word) "feel" right; hence why I say EC are soulless, there's nothing from the heart. So yeah, saying I'm "fluffy" is apt really.blind_turtle said:
Are you guys serious, extra credits has done more for video games than jim sterling ever could, yes he has some valid points but all he really does point out problems, extra credits strives for the embetterment of the video game industry as artform and an industry. These are people who work in the industry everyday if their lives, sterling is more than a game critic with too much time on his hands. As for the comments saying extra credits is threatening free speech, fuck you, if you actually watched the video you would see the comments made were absolutely disgusting and i feel ashamed to ba a gamer when i read those comments, to say such filthy disresppectful and monterous comments cause of someone's gender is unaccecptable and needs to be stopped, we should celebrate the fact girls actually want to play video games not destroy them for it, i have no problem with the jimquisition but to be honest i'd rather listen to extra credits, zero punctuation, movie bob or even no right answer, over the jimquisition cause if you have to swear and curse to get your point across, you not doing the best that you can.
No no. I meant that you found EC fluffy, not that you are fluffy.drednoahl said:
EC are like teachers. Like they say, those who can't do, teach. If you didn't listen to theory guys because their examples of "real-world" applications are deft, then we wouldn't have very many theory guys. A lot of people who get turned around/off by EC focus on this point, the no-compromise solutions as you put it.
There are 3 kinds of calls-to-action in journalism: postmortems of success, idealized theory w/ over-simplified application, and well thought-out applications of what represents only a small advancement in theory. If you start in the latter two categories (the half-done project plans), and seriously improve, you'll end up actually making something then talking about it later. EC is a category two. If they were any less deft they'd be running companies, not talking to us. I'm grateful to have them as teachers. They think about how to present the essence of a problem in simple terms so we don't have to. That's one less thing I have to do. Once they figure out the difference between a first-guess at a practical solution and a practical solution, they'll stop making Extra Credits. In a sense their deficiencies are necessary. They keep them working for us.
Here's an example. Kinect Disconnect was mentioned by someone else. EC compared the Kinect's issues with the uncanny valley. Using the Kinect is so close to a real-world behaviour that when you try to use it to do symbolic things your mind crosses over itself (like in the uncanny valley). I haven't heard a better analogy made by anyone. It's not brilliant, it's obvious. But I didn't think about it. It summarizes the critical problem every "Kinect-troubled" control scheme has. And I don't even care about the Kinect. The Kinect is an accessibility tool. It doesn't make games deeper. But now every time I think about Kinect controls I think about the uncanny valley, and it's that much easier to organize my own ideas, because EC thought-up something valuable first.
"Games are a way for players to tell themselves about themselves;" "The player has to be recognized as an artist," (paraphrase); the obvious proof that pacing should be drawn on a graph at every stage of development; these ideas are gold. Cliff Blezinski said he hadn't noticed the linearity of Gears 2 (or 3?) until after he'd read the _strategy guide_. If he'd applied the EC pacing episode to his work he would've noticed, like, right away. Final Fantasy XII would've been better. I mean come-on, a 5 minute episode, some imagination and critical thinking, and every game ever would be noticeably better. The amount of high-quality discussion about the critical constructs of engaging games is so thin, passing on good content because of attitude flaws is like saying games are good enough as they are.
Somebody is doing something other than regurgitating design theory. That is !@#$ing excellent.
On the flip side they are kind of soul-less. I wish they weren't afraid to get their hands a little dirty. But you know, what are you gonna do?
God I love EC.
Pretty sure this is also the source of all the "pretentious" remarks from EC's vocal detractors. It's very easy to mistake a concerted effort to keep things simple and available to a broad audience as "talking down" or being pretentious, particularly if you are a member of the audience to whom the simplified concepts are already intimately familiar in more complex forms.blind_turtle said:
As noted in the Kinect episode, they're stating what is (in retrospect, for some) an obvious idea about why it doesn't "work" as a control scheme in its current applications. To the people I'm talking about, having something that "obvious" described for them comes across as talking down to them because, hey, come on, that's simple stuff they could have - and possibly even did - thought up on their own, right? What pretentious gits!
No, they're not being pretentious; they're expressing something very simple in a very clear way so that everyone is on the same page for discussing it. This is how communication works at its best: you need to clearly define your terms before you start parsing them. Effective discussion comes out of not making assumptions about what your audience already knows or understands, or thinks they understand. Clarifying things, taking an academic, step-by-step approach to ideas, isn't talking down to you; it's creating minimal space for confusion or misunderstanding.
Unfortunately, some folks just don't get along with that kind of reasoning or practice. There's a reason not everyone joins the debate team, after all, or becomes a teacher, or a tutor, or even succeeds in traditional educational programs for that matter. And no, that's not a poke at intelligence; it's just pointing out we all think and learn differently. Some people benefit greatly from in-depth critical thinking that begins from examination of very simple concepts that are building blocks for more complicated ideas. Some people progress much faster when they're simply given the necessary tools and time to figure it out for themselves. Those two groups are unlikely to find similar value in a theoretical lecture or conversation about a topic, so it's no surprise that there are pretty obvious dividing lines between those who find EC's videos interesting and those who consider them with disdain.
As for the Jimquisition? I didn't watch it for the longest time. Looked at the first episode or two, thought it was pretty crap, didn't check on it again for months. Been watching the last few weeks and it's significantly less boring, and even marginally less obnoxious than I remembered it, which is great. I think it lacks depth as a show, but then, it's not trying to be what EC is; he doesn't take ideas and try to break them down for articulating what makes them work or not work in great detail. He's trying to make more general points backed up with humor and vitriol. I'd say it's more or less successful in that regard, but as Jim pointed out himself, the two shows aren't really comparable.
It's like trying to compare Mythbusters with Deadliest Warrior: sure, they're both TV shows that test out how things work, at least in theory, but the purpose and the payoff is completely different in both shows. One ends with at the very least some pseudo-science and explanation of the concepts they'd tested out, along with a relatively procedural approach to what they were doing with their ideas from start to finish. The other plays a ridiculous "dramatic recreation" segment comparing arbitrary values they've assigned to some weapons as if that is in any way an accurate representation of how some hypothetical combatants would succeed or fail against one another in battle. Point being, you don't watch Deadliest Warrior for the science, and while you might watch Mythbusters for a laugh it's probably not going to be as funny (in a 'what the hell were they thinking' way) as a farcical ninja-vs-spartan fight in broad daylight with no stealth tactics involved.
EC for me no doubt. Jim's show has grown on me, but I find myself taking more away from EC than I do the JQ.
I think what some people may be labeling as "pretentious" is what I would call "educational" or "informative." I think EC shares a lot of similarities to The Big Picture in that they both take a topic (usually somewhat complex) and go to town explaining it to the best of their ability under the assumption that their audience has no idea what they're talking about. Neither one necessarily involves any opinions at all. Obviously bias still leaks in but they're educational shows at their core.
The JQ, on the other hand, is mostly made up of opinion pieces that are based on a hot point of the week, ensuring that a large portion of the audience is familiar with and has an established opinion on the matter.
JQ may be a bit more immediately entertaining, but EC has changed my outlook on certain aspects of gaming in a big way.
I think what some people may be labeling as "pretentious" is what I would call "educational" or "informative." I think EC shares a lot of similarities to The Big Picture in that they both take a topic (usually somewhat complex) and go to town explaining it to the best of their ability under the assumption that their audience has no idea what they're talking about. Neither one necessarily involves any opinions at all. Obviously bias still leaks in but they're educational shows at their core.
The JQ, on the other hand, is mostly made up of opinion pieces that are based on a hot point of the week, ensuring that a large portion of the audience is familiar with and has an established opinion on the matter.
JQ may be a bit more immediately entertaining, but EC has changed my outlook on certain aspects of gaming in a big way.
What u just described is not pretentious. It's not even condescending really.wintercoat said:
I consider myself to be very intelligent, experienced in matters of gaming, and well versed in the English language, but I've never thought to be upset at EC for explaining everything thoroughly enough for a child...in fact, it's part of the reason why I love them. They're something that can appeal to not just gamers, but devs and those who are completely out of the loop.
Oh, and gaming is totally the wave of the future....not that that's your quote.
No, it means that they are giving the point of the view of an actual developer. A journalist would imply that the person isn't an expert on the subject, just reporting the facts.Zachary Amaranth said:
I wonder if this is true. I get the feeling the ones who use "pretentious" a lot are those that disagree with EC's conclusions. I consider myself to know a lot about design theory and I've never found EC offensive. They express ideas well that I want to see expressed. People aren't offended by people on their side with an attitude problem. They're offended by people who marginalize their opinions by disagreeing, _then_ over-simplifying, because then it reads like: "I'm expressing an idea, simply, because the reason you don't understand is because my idea is too complex, not because you have a valid counter-argument." Then the discussion moves in the wrong direction, instead of where it should be, on the core points EC is trying to make.Shjade said:
I think the greatest value of EC is the creation of these focal points for discussion, even if you're just using them for bouncing ideas off yourself. But unfortunately they over-sell the ease-of-application of their ideas - probably worried by people who won't appreciate their value - then people get confused over what the meat of their message is, and conflict over the things that don't really matter. A lot of designers and devs create games, then try to pull a theory out of their experiences that the rest of us can follow, or maybe more generally, that they can follow themselves for more ambitious projects. Normally they produce something that goes like this, "when you encounter a situation that looks like the one I was in, do something like what I did ... ." It's very anecdotal. The critical ideas get glossed over, and we get into a position where no one knows what makes an in-game decision interesting. So you get teams of people operating from hunches, making it difficult to organize under a novel vision, and everyone is saying "risk vs reward" because it's the only thing everyone can agree on isn't bullshit. Proof-of-concept: we've had that term (risk/reward) for a long time, and it's yet to be replaced by something that has wider application (risk vs reward is very narrow), because anything that's suggested is biased or anecdotal. Extra Credits tries to relieve that problem, and they're the only ones who can, because they're developer "like," yet they're interested in behaving like journalists.
Ah, Jim grows on you. Once I realized his content was underneath this contradictory satire angle I didn't find him irritating anymore. He took a little practice. Now I respect him.
Everyone learns differently, but that's no excuse for ignoring good content. If you want to be the best at something you have to get practice, and you have study your peers, and you have to understand theory. Each person will have strengths, but dismissing the value of any one of those things only indicates that getting better at what you do is not a critical priority for you. Strip away ECs faults and you have something that doesn't have an alternative. If you're a game designer for games that have action/platform elements then you have no excuse for not studying Mario. EC isn't Mario, but it's something that's relevant to the development of all games. If you let its faults stand in the way of you absorbing its strengths, you're doing yourself and the fans of your games a disservice.
I think maybe what ECs biggest weakness is - that I just realized now - is that it's a game dev theory show retro-fitted to be a consumer education about-game-dev-theory show, so that it can find an audience, and so that it can hand-wave its misunderstandings about game dev when it might have them, and instead say, "hey, we're a show for consumers, not developers." If they focused on their strengths, they'd have to defend themselves a lot more, but the resulting discussion would be a lot more on topic.
You read arbitrary forum threads, right EC?
I'm prefacing this by saying that I've only read the front page of comments. but i have noticed something. Why is it anti free speech to mute people that deserve it (i.e. racist, sexist remarks and the like) and stupid to think about the free speech issue to this ME3 thing ( The ending was shit! change it now! grawwww!). dont mean to change the topic or make people mad, just wondering?