Lip service to a popular ideal is pretty easy to give, and is basically a reflex.
Researching a historical moment and everything it lead to is not "lip service" at all.
Yes. It is. It’s quite literally talking about it but not doing anything about the practice in modern times. (IE the loot box video)
I'm sure they're voting in accordance with their views? What do you want them to provide you a receipt? What you're suggesting is none of us should talk about anything ever in politics / government policy.
Lip service to a popular ideal is pretty easy to give, and is basically a reflex.
Researching a historical moment and everything it lead to is not "lip service" at all.
Yes. It is. It’s quite literally talking about it but not doing anything about the practice in modern times. (IE the loot box video)
I'm sure they're voting in accordance with their views? What do you want them to provide you a receipt? What you're suggesting is none of us should talk about anything ever in politics / government policy.
No I am suggesting that they maybe use their influence for more modern things that actually matter... like loot boxes.
Like... maybe they could have said things about loot boxes that might mobilize people.
Or maybe talk about current conditions in the game industry
Lip service to a popular ideal is pretty easy to give, and is basically a reflex.
Researching a historical moment and everything it lead to is not "lip service" at all.
Yes. It is. It’s quite literally talking about it but not doing anything about the practice in modern times. (IE the loot box video)
I'm sure they're voting in accordance with their views? What do you want them to provide you a receipt? What you're suggesting is none of us should talk about anything ever in politics / government policy.
No I am suggesting that they maybe use their influence for more modern things that actually matter... like loot boxes.
Like... maybe they could have said things about loot boxes that might mobilize people.
Or maybe talk about current conditions in the game industry
They already have done that latter part. Many, many times. Have you watched their earlier videos? They even managed to get a congressman to host one of their episodes during the earliest fight for net neutrality.
A. Literal. Congressman.
I understand you guys don’t like loot boxes.
That’s fine.
But don’t let your hate over this one issue make you start fabricating nonsense.
Lip service to a popular ideal is pretty easy to give, and is basically a reflex.
Researching a historical moment and everything it lead to is not "lip service" at all.
Unless the lip service accusation was lip service about research, you're not making the point you think you are.
It's not even that damning of a thing, and is basically typical human behavior and rather banal. People just put EC on a pedestal and allowed themselves to be shocked that they're mostly just effective communicators instead of thought leaders.
Enough about the fucking loot boxes. Sorry if I was too subtle before.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited April 2018
Today's EC covers the concept of b-level games and their importance to the medium, drawing a parallel to the b-movie side of Hollywood (the actual b-level, not what people tend to think these days).
tl;dr of the video: Wolfenstein rules because it's actually willing to go there RE: saying Nazis and Nazism fucking sucks. Whereas Call of Duty won't go there an the closest they've gotten is showing an empty concentration camp.
Edit - I'd bring up Far Cry 5 in this conversation. Ubisoft, a Triple-A publisher, was too scared to go there on a political topic. They were more than happy to abuse the marketing given what's been going on across several 'first-world' nations though. Screw them!
Yeah, FC5 was, disappointing, let's leave it at that.
Embracing controversy in adverticing, but not daring to say anything during story or gameplay.
Yeah as soon as the news broke about the meat of the game, which I think was a day or so before launch, I took it right off my wishlist. They had really indicated in their marketing, even the real-world acting they did for trailers, that this was going to say something. I guess I should've known better. It's Ubi.
Wolfenstein rules because it's actually willing to go there RE: saying Nazis and Nazism fucking sucks. Whereas Call of Duty won't go there an the closest they've gotten is showing an empty concentration camp.
Without stumbling into the same territory as "video games cause violence," I do have to wonder if the constant presentation of the Nazis as just another side in games, divorced from their moral and ethical aspects, has had an impact on the numbers of Wehrmacht ... fans ... and alt-righters among the gaming community. Whether it is because these kids have their understanding of history influenced by the narrative presented in these "historical" games, or because they are seeking out entertainment that presents a narrative in line with their existing views.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
- John Stuart Mill
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
*Rises from the swamp*
If you want a game that has something to say you should try Mafia 3
*Sinks back into the swamp*
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Wolfenstein rules because it's actually willing to go there RE: saying Nazis and Nazism fucking sucks. Whereas Call of Duty won't go there an the closest they've gotten is showing an empty concentration camp.
Without stumbling into the same territory as "video games cause violence," I do have to wonder if the constant presentation of the Nazis as just another side in games, divorced from their moral and ethical aspects, has had an impact on the numbers of Wehrmacht ... fans ... and alt-righters among the gaming community. Whether it is because these kids have their understanding of history influenced by the narrative presented in these "historical" games, or because they are seeking out entertainment that presents a narrative in line with their existing views.
Well part of the problem in that regard is that education in the USA has been relaxing teaching about the Holocaust. And that's probably happening because in America book printing for education mostly happens in Texas - and the education board there is doing everything it can over the last 10+ years to get radically Christian-white supremacist.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I always knew this in a general sense, but Extra History has been helping to give specific examples about how Europe wasn't exactly great at advancing human civilization. Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were all doing quite a bit as far as expanding diplomacy & education goes. Christian Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years. And then in the 1700s you get the hyper corrupt capitalist practices.
I always knew this in a general sense, but Extra History has been helping to give specific examples about how Europe wasn't exactly great at advancing human civilization. Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were all doing quite a bit as far as expanding diplomacy & education goes. Christian Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years. And then in the 1700s you get the hyper corrupt capitalist practices.
They do do their best to be woke about things, and you have to appreciate that. It helps that their audience includes a lot of people who are tired of the Eurocentric version of history.
I always knew this in a general sense, but Extra History has been helping to give specific examples about how Europe wasn't exactly great at advancing human civilization. Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were all doing quite a bit as far as expanding diplomacy & education goes. Christian Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years. And then in the 1700s you get the hyper corrupt capitalist practices.
Well, calling it jack shit is bit harsh.
There were plenty of small strides taken, especially in fields of metallurgy (which was then immediately used to build a better spear to stab your neighbour with.)
But yeah, there was ton of interesting stuff going on all over the world that gets ignored.
I always knew this in a general sense, but Extra History has been helping to give specific examples about how Europe wasn't exactly great at advancing human civilization. Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were all doing quite a bit as far as expanding diplomacy & education goes. Christian Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years. And then in the 1700s you get the hyper corrupt capitalist practices.
Well, calling it jack shit is bit harsh.
There were plenty of small strides taken, especially in fields of metallurgy (which was then immediately used to build a better spear to stab your neighbour with.)
But yeah, there was ton of interesting stuff going on all over the world that gets ignored.
Saying "Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years" is exactly the same kind of silliness as saying "Africa was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years" or similar.
I think a big part of that is a lack of first party sources, for obvious reasons.
I keep thinking that it's less of a lack of sources and more that oral history is looked down on much more than written history.
Even scribed oral history gets more credence than oral history.
I think a big part of that is a lack of first party sources, for obvious reasons.
I keep thinking that it's less of a lack of sources and more that oral history is looked down on much more than written history.
Even scribed oral history gets more credence than oral history.
Also, a lot of sources probably got killed during colonization.
But yes, large part is that europeans just did not give a shit about what all those "not europeans" might have thought, done or heard.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
True, but they tied that into the idea of systems collaspes. Maybe they are waiting for good inspiration. It is something I'd like to see.
More than likely it just hasn't made it to the Patreon topic voting list. It is how they generally choose what topics to do a series (or lone episode) on.
Yeah it also depends on what we want to cover. Like, I don't think the Aztec or Inca have a lot of their oral history intact (I could be wrong). Meanwhile, the Plains Tribes probably do.
I don't doubt that Henroid will continue to bump the thread as new Extra Credits videos are uploaded, but I wanted to see if I could get a bit of discussion on what is hopefully not too tangential to my thread's topic. You see, I made a similar thread on The Escapist, and as I read the discussion that unfolded from that thread, I decided to see if I could find a parody or other rebuttals to the show, and during my search, I came across this video:
Despite being labeled as a parody, it seems less like the guy is making fun of them and more like he's just using their format to talk about a subject he's interested in (he brings up some good points about children's movies). There's also this video:
This one leans more on the "making fun of them" side of parodies. It made me chuckle a few times, but it's rather awkward since it uses audio clips from the show, just cut up and rearranged to say different things (so if you don't like how the voice sounds normally, this is probably worse).
By the way, I'm sure most of you are familiar with Jim Sterling's response to EC's lootbox videos, 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):
With that said, as a user on The Escapist pointed out, appabend does throw in the occasional personal attack, so the video comes across less as a professional response and more as an emotional reaction, but there are still some pretty good points made in the video.
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 before their next video is uploaded.
"because omg non-consensual strip is triggering you"
Yeah.... yeah I want that 11:36 of my life back.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Man, dreamworks face first thing.
“If you want this scene to be different because ‘OMG non-consensual strip’ is triggering you than make your own game”
“Thanks to your questionable bias on rape victims or non-consensual sexual activities in general you treat this scene as horrible, deplorable, and sinful all because Ann didn’t want to do it” “because she was pressured to do it” “You only care because she doesn’t consent to it”
What the fuck, response man? What is it about consent that drives you wild? How are they “moral guardians” for talking about it?
“The protagonist didn’t consent to be treated like a criminal but you’re concerned about Ann being made to non-consensually strip”
That’s not even the same ballpark.
Also EC’s voice is still annoying even though I’m defending them. Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Lindsay Ellis, Dan Olson, Errant Signal Man, and other video essayists don’t have it. His voice sounds like it would be fine without the modulation.
Man, dreamworks face first thing.
“If you want this scene to be different because ‘OMG non-consensual strip’ is triggering you than make your own game”
“Thanks to your questionable bias on rape victims or non-consensual sexual activities in general you treat this scene as horrible, deplorable, and sinful all because Ann didn’t want to do it” “because she was pressured to do it” “You only care because she doesn’t consent to it”
What the fuck, response man? What is it about consent that drives you wild? How are they “moral guardians” for talking about it?
“The protagonist didn’t consent to be treated like a criminal but you’re concerned about Ann being made to non-consensually strip”
That’s not even the same ballpark.
Also EC’s voice is still annoying even though I’m defending them. Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Lindsay Ellis, Dan Olson, Errant Signal Man, and other video essayists don’t have it. His voice sounds like it would be fine without the modulation.
If you want to hear his voice without the modulation, Dan Floyd has an LP for Dark Souls 1-3 under the header "Extra Play." It's a fine voice...nothing spectacular or grating about it.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
What the fuck, response man? What is it about consent that drives you wild? How are they “moral guardians” for talking about it?
When I saw the video, my takeaway was that the message was "Persona 5's subplot makes sense in context and EC didn't go into as much detail as they should have." But yeah, he isn't doing himself or his argument any favors with those lines.
EDIT: Like I wrote in the Escapist thread, 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 because he 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).
Imaynotbehere4long on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I don't doubt that Henroid will continue to bump the thread as new Extra Credits videos are uploaded,
Well now I feel called out as if I did a bad thing so I'll stop.
Some people really have an ax to grind with them after their loot box series. Personally, ehh...whatever. If there's an interesting topic they're covering, I'm fine with the bumps (stupid Youtube algorithms are screwing with my recommended vids)
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
Yeah I'm not sure we want this thread to turn into a regular series of hey new video is up posts. Discussing the series, OK, but if people want to watch new episodes as they come out they can always subscribe to the YouTube channel.
EDIT: Possibly that sounds overly harsh. Other threads for TV shows are mostly discussions of latest episodes, after all, but what we want to avoid is one person continually bumping the thread with every new episode. Also gross videos that aren't Extra Credits that whine about consent, I guess.
Man, dreamworks face first thing.
“If you want this scene to be different because ‘OMG non-consensual strip’ is triggering you than make your own game”
“Thanks to your questionable bias on rape victims or non-consensual sexual activities in general you treat this scene as horrible, deplorable, and sinful all because Ann didn’t want to do it” “because she was pressured to do it” “You only care because she doesn’t consent to it”
What the fuck, response man? What is it about consent that drives you wild? How are they “moral guardians” for talking about it?
“The protagonist didn’t consent to be treated like a criminal but you’re concerned about Ann being made to non-consensually strip”
That’s not even the same ballpark.
Also EC’s voice is still annoying even though I’m defending them. Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Lindsay Ellis, Dan Olson, Errant Signal Man, and other video essayists don’t have it. His voice sounds like it would be fine without the modulation.
I think he's said he did the voice thing to basically compress the video time for when youtube was stricter about that kind of thing, but now it's what most of the audience expects and he's experimented with just going to his regular voice for the extra credits stuff but the response from the audience is that now that this has been the voice of things for so long they find it somewhat weird to hear his regular voice, so they decided to just go with it.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Man, dreamworks face first thing.
“If you want this scene to be different because ‘OMG non-consensual strip’ is triggering you than make your own game”
“Thanks to your questionable bias on rape victims or non-consensual sexual activities in general you treat this scene as horrible, deplorable, and sinful all because Ann didn’t want to do it” “because she was pressured to do it” “You only care because she doesn’t consent to it”
What the fuck, response man? What is it about consent that drives you wild? How are they “moral guardians” for talking about it?
“The protagonist didn’t consent to be treated like a criminal but you’re concerned about Ann being made to non-consensually strip”
That’s not even the same ballpark.
Also EC’s voice is still annoying even though I’m defending them. Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Lindsay Ellis, Dan Olson, Errant Signal Man, and other video essayists don’t have it. His voice sounds like it would be fine without the modulation.
I think he's said he did the voice thing to basically compress the video time for when youtube was stricter about that kind of thing, but now it's what most of the audience expects and he's experimented with just going to his regular voice for the extra credits stuff but the response from the audience is that now that this has been the voice of things for so long they find it somewhat weird to hear his regular voice, so they decided to just go with it.
He compressed it originally because the project was started as a series of class presentations Dan was doing for his classes at SCAD, and he had to fit under a time-limit. He posted them on YouTube to see if there would be any interest in a series, which caught the eye of James Portnow, and then we got Extra Credits.
Well now I feel called out as if I did a bad thing so I'll stop.
Whoops, I didn't mean for it to come across like that. Sorry (I'm not very good at reading into things, as you might have found out by the recent posts in this thread). Although, given Bogart's post, it looks like you had the right assumption.
Discussing the series, OK...but what we want to avoid is one person continually bumping the thread with every new episode.
I see what you mean, but to be fair, those bumps *have* lead to more discussion so far, and the users doing the bumping have had something to say about EC's new episode each time, so it's not like they're bumping just for the sake of it (at least, that's how it came across to me; if I'm wrong, I'll shut up again).
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Well all you people who hate Dan's voice in Extra Credits are getting what you want.
He just announced on today's episode he's leaving the show. I am sad.
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HerrCronIt that wickedly supports taxationRegistered Userregular
Posts
Yes. It is. It’s quite literally talking about it but not doing anything about the practice in modern times. (IE the loot box video)
No I am suggesting that they maybe use their influence for more modern things that actually matter... like loot boxes.
Like... maybe they could have said things about loot boxes that might mobilize people.
Or maybe talk about current conditions in the game industry
They already have done that latter part. Many, many times. Have you watched their earlier videos? They even managed to get a congressman to host one of their episodes during the earliest fight for net neutrality.
A. Literal. Congressman.
I understand you guys don’t like loot boxes.
That’s fine.
But don’t let your hate over this one issue make you start fabricating nonsense.
Unless the lip service accusation was lip service about research, you're not making the point you think you are.
It's not even that damning of a thing, and is basically typical human behavior and rather banal. People just put EC on a pedestal and allowed themselves to be shocked that they're mostly just effective communicators instead of thought leaders.
tl;dr of the video: Wolfenstein rules because it's actually willing to go there RE: saying Nazis and Nazism fucking sucks. Whereas Call of Duty won't go there an the closest they've gotten is showing an empty concentration camp.
Edit - I'd bring up Far Cry 5 in this conversation. Ubisoft, a Triple-A publisher, was too scared to go there on a political topic. They were more than happy to abuse the marketing given what's been going on across several 'first-world' nations though. Screw them!
Embracing controversy in adverticing, but not daring to say anything during story or gameplay.
Without stumbling into the same territory as "video games cause violence," I do have to wonder if the constant presentation of the Nazis as just another side in games, divorced from their moral and ethical aspects, has had an impact on the numbers of Wehrmacht ... fans ... and alt-righters among the gaming community. Whether it is because these kids have their understanding of history influenced by the narrative presented in these "historical" games, or because they are seeking out entertainment that presents a narrative in line with their existing views.
- John Stuart Mill
If you want a game that has something to say you should try Mafia 3
*Sinks back into the swamp*
I always knew this in a general sense, but Extra History has been helping to give specific examples about how Europe wasn't exactly great at advancing human civilization. Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were all doing quite a bit as far as expanding diplomacy & education goes. Christian Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years. And then in the 1700s you get the hyper corrupt capitalist practices.
They do do their best to be woke about things, and you have to appreciate that. It helps that their audience includes a lot of people who are tired of the Eurocentric version of history.
Well, calling it jack shit is bit harsh.
There were plenty of small strides taken, especially in fields of metallurgy (which was then immediately used to build a better spear to stab your neighbour with.)
But yeah, there was ton of interesting stuff going on all over the world that gets ignored.
Saying "Europe was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years" is exactly the same kind of silliness as saying "Africa was doing jack shit for some hundreds of years" or similar.
I keep thinking that it's less of a lack of sources and more that oral history is looked down on much more than written history.
Even scribed oral history gets more credence than oral history.
But yes, large part is that europeans just did not give a shit about what all those "not europeans" might have thought, done or heard.
Despite being labeled as a parody, it seems less like the guy is making fun of them and more like he's just using their format to talk about a subject he's interested in (he brings up some good points about children's movies). There's also this video:
This one leans more on the "making fun of them" side of parodies. It made me chuckle a few times, but it's rather awkward since it uses audio clips from the show, just cut up and rearranged to say different things (so if you don't like how the voice sounds normally, this is probably worse).
By the way, I'm sure most of you are familiar with Jim Sterling's response to EC's lootbox videos, 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):
With that said, as a user on The Escapist pointed out, appabend does throw in the occasional personal attack, so the video comes across less as a professional response and more as an emotional reaction, but there are still some pretty good points made in the video.
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 before their next video is uploaded.
Yeah.... yeah I want that 11:36 of my life back.
“If you want this scene to be different because ‘OMG non-consensual strip’ is triggering you than make your own game”
“Thanks to your questionable bias on rape victims or non-consensual sexual activities in general you treat this scene as horrible, deplorable, and sinful all because Ann didn’t want to do it” “because she was pressured to do it” “You only care because she doesn’t consent to it”
What the fuck, response man? What is it about consent that drives you wild? How are they “moral guardians” for talking about it?
“The protagonist didn’t consent to be treated like a criminal but you’re concerned about Ann being made to non-consensually strip”
That’s not even the same ballpark.
Also EC’s voice is still annoying even though I’m defending them. Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Lindsay Ellis, Dan Olson, Errant Signal Man, and other video essayists don’t have it. His voice sounds like it would be fine without the modulation.
If you want to hear his voice without the modulation, Dan Floyd has an LP for Dark Souls 1-3 under the header "Extra Play." It's a fine voice...nothing spectacular or grating about it.
EDIT: Like I wrote in the Escapist thread, 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 because he 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).
Some people really have an ax to grind with them after their loot box series. Personally, ehh...whatever. If there's an interesting topic they're covering, I'm fine with the bumps (stupid Youtube algorithms are screwing with my recommended vids)
EDIT: Possibly that sounds overly harsh. Other threads for TV shows are mostly discussions of latest episodes, after all, but what we want to avoid is one person continually bumping the thread with every new episode. Also gross videos that aren't Extra Credits that whine about consent, I guess.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I think he's said he did the voice thing to basically compress the video time for when youtube was stricter about that kind of thing, but now it's what most of the audience expects and he's experimented with just going to his regular voice for the extra credits stuff but the response from the audience is that now that this has been the voice of things for so long they find it somewhat weird to hear his regular voice, so they decided to just go with it.
He compressed it originally because the project was started as a series of class presentations Dan was doing for his classes at SCAD, and he had to fit under a time-limit. He posted them on YouTube to see if there would be any interest in a series, which caught the eye of James Portnow, and then we got Extra Credits.
Here's the first one he did waaaaay back in 2008
- John Stuart Mill
I see what you mean, but to be fair, those bumps *have* lead to more discussion so far, and the users doing the bumping have had something to say about EC's new episode each time, so it's not like they're bumping just for the sake of it (at least, that's how it came across to me; if I'm wrong, I'll shut up again).
He just announced on today's episode he's leaving the show. I am sad.
Nooooooooooooooooo!