Does Jim Sterling need to drop his gimmick?

[The Funslinger]

I can't believe nobody has said this but if you don't like it, don't watch it.

That's the thing about catering to all preferences without being "lowest common denominator" (I'm talking about the Escapist in general here.) There's going to be stuff you don't like. Get over it then, it clearly isn't aimed at you.

 

[Bebus]

I don't usually respond to the forums because, well, my discussions with forum members haven't gone great in the past (which was partially my fault, heh). Stumbled on this one while gauging some feedback for something else, and it's a pretty interesting thread, so I figured I'd chime in.

Firstly, I'll let you know why the show took the direction it took. As you all know by now, the first video was absolutely loathed by everybody. Production values were worse than they currently are (which means they REALLY sucked) and my unscripted rambling wasn't received as well as they had been on Dtoid. So, I took a week off and addressed the criticism. I tightened up the scripting, I cobbled a set together, and tried something else. I got pretty much the same reaction, with some people not even addressing the changes and acting like none were made.

It seemed to me that Escapist commenters were going to make me a villain no matter what, so I thought to myself, "Fine, I shall give them a villain. The antithesis of everything they like. To the laboratory!" I'd already concluded the show was dead on its feet, so I'd just amuse myself while waiting for it to keel over. Thus, I ramped up the arrogance factor, which I found incredibly fun (undeserved ego is one of my favorite comedy tropes). I figured that if the Escapist audience did not want to enjoy my show, the least I could do is provide them with something they enjoyed hating.

How ironic, then, that when I decided to give the Escapist something to really hate, the majority of them began to like it. That I decided to embrace the hatred and ended up becoming embraced myself is, perhaps, the perfect way to conclude that The Jimquisition has and always will be a running failure. It failed to make everybody like it when it tried, and it failed to make everybody hate it when it tried. Of course, it's ended up as a *happy* failure, but still, kinda funny.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the gimmick far too much to want to see it go away just yet, as it seems to still resonate with a lot of people. Somebody said that the dictator vibe doesn't work because I'm "camp as Christmas." That's part of what I love about doing it. The red flag, the trenchcoat, it IS obvious that it isn't who I am and it IS obvious that the gimmick is undermined the moment my girly voice comes out of my mouth. That, to me, is the fun of the show. The messiah gimmick is woefully pathetic and doesn't really work, but I think that's why so many people ended up finding it endearing rather than annoying. I realize it's not for everybody, and that some people will ignore it, but that's the risk of any presentation, right? I'm sorry if some people don't like it, but I'm ultimately more grateful for those that do.

Anyway, I apologize for what was a lengthy, self-indulgent, thoroughly unwarranted analysis of my own stupidity. Carry on!

Thank God, for you.

Only mortals apologise, so let us snivelling butt kissers do it for you.

Keep it up!

 

[Tarkand]

True, his video's aren't for everyone. If you don't like them, there isn't much I can say to change your mind. All I can suggest is to read his written stuff. I feel they're much, much better than his videos. Still has his blunt style, but it's not the same as his arrogant persona.

http://www.gamefront.com/solving-the-sixty-dollar-situation/
http://www.destructoid.com/esports-defenders-the-reason-why-esports-can-t-be-sports-208512.phtml

Had never read his article before. They are great - incisive and brutal... and totally lacking the superflous 'thank god for me' attitude.

Pretty much re-enforce my point - he doesn't need the gimmick. It's probably hurting him more than it helps.

 

[Tarkand]

I don't usually respond to the forums because, well, my discussions with forum members haven't gone great in the past (which was partially my fault, heh). Stumbled on this one while gauging some feedback for something else, and it's a pretty interesting thread, so I figured I'd chime in.

Firstly, I'll let you know why the show took the direction it took. As you all know by now, the first video was absolutely loathed by everybody. Production values were worse than they currently are (which means they REALLY sucked) and my unscripted rambling wasn't received as well as they had been on Dtoid. So, I took a week off and addressed the criticism. I tightened up the scripting, I cobbled a set together, and tried something else. I got pretty much the same reaction, with some people not even addressing the changes and acting like none were made.

It seemed to me that Escapist commenters were going to make me a villain no matter what, so I thought to myself, "Fine, I shall give them a villain. The antithesis of everything they like. To the laboratory!" I'd already concluded the show was dead on its feet, so I'd just amuse myself while waiting for it to keel over. Thus, I ramped up the arrogance factor, which I found incredibly fun (undeserved ego is one of my favorite comedy tropes). I figured that if the Escapist audience did not want to enjoy my show, the least I could do is provide them with something they enjoyed hating.

How ironic, then, that when I decided to give the Escapist something to really hate, the majority of them began to like it. That I decided to embrace the hatred and ended up becoming embraced myself is, perhaps, the perfect way to conclude that The Jimquisition has and always will be a running failure. It failed to make everybody like it when it tried, and it failed to make everybody hate it when it tried. Of course, it's ended up as a *happy* failure, but still, kinda funny.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the gimmick far too much to want to see it go away just yet, as it seems to still resonate with a lot of people. Somebody said that the dictator vibe doesn't work because I'm "camp as Christmas." That's part of what I love about doing it. The red flag, the trenchcoat, it IS obvious that it isn't who I am and it IS obvious that the gimmick is undermined the moment my girly voice comes out of my mouth. That, to me, is the fun of the show. The messiah gimmick is woefully pathetic and doesn't really work, but I think that's why so many people ended up finding it endearing rather than annoying. I realize it's not for everybody, and that some people will ignore it, but that's the risk of any presentation, right? I'm sorry if some people don't like it, but I'm ultimately more grateful for those that do.

Anyway, I apologize for what was a lengthy, self-indulgent, thoroughly unwarranted analysis of my own stupidity. Carry on!

Wow, I got a reply from the guy who makes the show I'm complaining about, I feel like I should get some kind of badge for this .

While I was probably lost in the sea of voices back then, I did notice improvement to the show and I'm part of 'The shows get better every week' crowd. If nothing else, the fact that you're willing to listen to critics make you a bigger man than most (and not just in girth, har har, fat joke). /end asskissing.

Your explanation as to why you're sticking with the gimmick is more than satisfactory, and while I'm not a big fan of it, it doesn't stop me from enjoying the show and I'll keep watching.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I like his act. It's a necessary counterweight to the air of passive aggressive, venom dripping, dagger smiles that permeates this forum. Jim's act is pretty much what this forum would be if all the false politeness and moderation was removed.

 

[Elfgore]

He does it to keep thing interesting. If he talked in a boring monotone voice I would be bored. The act keeps me interested. Same with Zero Puncuation. But nobody can make fun of that show or God's holy fire will burn you.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

A little bit of context here - when the Jimquisition started, I really hated it. But as feedback poured in, Sterling went about and made some changes to his shows as well as beefed up his argumentation and now, while still crude and raw, the show is actually quite fun to watch and smart. It basically did a 160 (not quite 180 ) in quality. That's my opinion anyway. The post here will be mainly addressed at Jim Sterling, even tho he probably doesn't read this forum ... you guys feel to comment on it.

The last one I saw was also the first one I saw, specifically his "Call of Duty is a good franchise" video. And even though I agreed with him, I felt like a dick for agreeing, because all he did was make strawman arguments for the opposing camp and did so in the most annoying voices possible.

Two things are pretty obvious with Jim...
1 - He's a troll. He enjoys getting a reaction. The whole concept of the show is usually him taking a popular opinion and destroying it, so obviously the people who share that opinion will get mad and flame him. He's kinda like an inflamatory version of Extra Credits.

Here's the thing: there's 'good' trolling and then there's /b/ trolling. 'Good' trolling is stating a controversial opinion but actually backing it up well, which gives the actual followup comments some value. I consider Yahtzee to be in this category. /b/ trolling is stating a controversial opinion that gets attention because it's controversial. It's a poorly-worded thread asking why people support gay marriage when it might lead to pedophilia being legalized. In short, it's easy, and it's worthless.

2 - He cares about what people think. He's open to criticism and willing to act on it. This is obvious because most of the improvement the show went through were pretty much straight out of the comment section.

That seems like a mutually-exclusive goal to being a genuine troll, but okay.

So while Jim now makes good points, I can't help but roll my eyes and go 'Ah, ok, show's over, he's done being interesting and going back to his gimmick to make his close' when he goes all orgasmic and says 'And thank god fer me!' By now, I would think that most of the haters have moved on. The Jimquisition no longers generate 300+ comments a week and his down to a much more realistic level and most of those comments are positive. In short, your job of 'shocking people' is now wasted, as most of the people watching you like you already.

...I'm not sure if it's a sign of success when your viewership goes down simply because the people who openly hate your work have left.

The other thing that is odd, is that Jim has at least on 2 occasion (including this week) started off by going (not quite word for word of course) 'I'm not really this douchebag you see. This is a persona I made up. And you are stupid if you do not realize it'. What's the point of this?

If it bothers him that people think he's really an asshole... why not just drop the act? In fact, even if it doesn't... why doesn't he drop it anyway since it doesn't really add anything to the show? What more, the fact that he's openly contradicting his gimmick makes the whole thing hollow.

Yahtzee essentially has the same thing...except he shows, not tells. Extra Punctuation shows a significantly more sociable and easily-satisfied version of him than ZP does, and it comes across naturally without him having to outright say "This is what I'm actually like." If you have to say that and never actually provide evidence for it, then for all intents and purposes, you're lying.

I understand that he kinda needs a gimmick to set himself apart from the crowd, but I still think it's just not a good gimmick. He already has a really inflammatory editorial style which is refreshing in its brutality and crudeness... not quite sure the whole preacher/douchebag thing is something he needs to keep around.

I think it's safe to say that we essentially have people who do most of what he does already, except they do it better.

 

[Cracker3011]

I don't mind it. It's entirely based around not taking himself seriously, and expecting anyone with sense to do the same. Sure he trolls, but hey, if it gives him a paycheck!

 

[i7omahawki]

Satirical of what?

His show is the antithesis of what the Escapist readers say they appreciate and is simultaneously a straight emulation of everyone in the forums when they write a reply.

Hmm, no I wouldn't agree with the second part, especially with the hyperbolic 'everyone' added.

Writing, in itself, impedes your ability to set the tone as well as with straight up speaking. Thus most posts come off as dogmatic (not just here, anywhere) precisely because we can't add a softer tone or make clear our body language and thus stance towards the reader.

What I see on here, more than anything else, is people disagreeing but quickly turning to 'well its subjective so...' or 'that's just your opinion.' Which is a) something NOT found among the contributors here AND b) has far more comedic value in it.

I think the worry about offending someone because you have an opinion and believe in it, subject to criticism from others, is worse than speaking your mind and meaning it. Obviously people differ on matters where they can agree (i.e. the taste of certain foods, or prejudice for certain themes/genres) but mostly people to agree to disagree, right away, when no reason for their differing taste has been given.

So maybe, if I were Jim and were aiming this show at the Escapist crowd, I would take on the persona of someone afraid to voice an opinion, or settle on one, rather than someone so dogmatic, which in truth represents more people outside of the gaming community than in it.

Nice to see Jim joining in the discussion and giving his reasons, I can see why he went with it, I just don't like it, which is totally just -- like...my opinion.

 

[Alade]

I refuse to watch the show until he drops the act, despite the fact that I know it's a fake persona, it's still annoying.

I am aware that he is quite intelligent and I've heard that he brings very good opinions to the table, but that's just not worth listening to the act.

PS: Face on camera, very bad thing in my opinion. I dislike this in every case, it ruins "Nostalgia Critic" for me. For some reason I can tolerate AVGN but that's pretty much it.

 

[MordinSolus]

I like his videos. He sometimes uses crude language that passes the "Moar than necessary line," but at least his point(s) get across.

 

[poppabaggins]

I CAN'T watch him; I just listen. Some of what he says is actually interesting (and more enlightening than anything Extra Credits has ever done), but his abrasiveness even makes it hurt to listen on occasion.


Edit for mildly-related comment:

To be honest that's just the way I see the vast majority of people I get quoting me, it's normally a more thesaurus assisted version of 'oh you poor deluded fool, let me tell you how it is'.

That's exactly how I see it too (not that I'm innocent). Forums let everyone express their opinions as fact, so this type of behavior pops up.

 

[i7omahawki]

Nothing wrong with hyperbole, in fact I'm pretty impressed that someone on this forum knows what it is! To be honest that's just the way I see the vast majority of people I get quoting me, it's normally a more thesaurus assisted version of 'oh you poor deluded fool, let me tell you how it is'.

Yeah I can see that, but I don't think it is solely on this site, or even solely on the internet. But I think if anything Jim encourages this. People often adopt the tactic of enforcing a dogmatic perspective on you, to only resort to 'it was just a joke' or 'I was being satirical when called out on it, and this to be Jim's persona's tactic too. I find it very, very annoying.

 

[coolkirb]

his show is fine, and is on par with every other discussion show on the website, like moivebob and the former extra credits he takes some facts and blends them with a lot of oppinion, its just people on the website dont like his oppinion while they liked Extra Credits so they see him as stupid and extra credits as genius while in reality their both just opinion shows.

 

[9thRequiem]

I refuse to watch the show until he drops the act, despite the fact that I know it's a fake persona, it's still annoying.

I am aware that he is quite intelligent and I've heard that he brings very good opinions to the table, but that's just not worth listening to the act.

PS: Face on camera, very bad thing in my opinion. I dislike this in every case, it ruins "Nostalgia Critic" for me. For some reason I can tolerate AVGN but that's pretty much it.

Got to agree here. I've tried watching his show a few times to see if it's less bad, and don't usually make it though an episode. When the act's dropped though, it's actually pretty good.

That's the big difference for me between him vs Yahtzee and Moviebob. An act only works when it makes your show better. If it makes it worse, to the point where you feel the need to drop it so often, then it's time for a rethink.

 

[Dragunai]

Never watched this Jim guy, probably never will.
Only 3 series ever caught my attention on this site - Yahtzee, There will be brawl (which seemed to suddenly vanish halfway into the series) and Doomsday Arcade which finished its series and left gracefully.

Actually, the finale of There Will Be Brawl actually did air on the Escapist, I have the badge to prove I've watched it...

Then I missed it!
Damn >_<

 

[omegawyrm]

I don't usually respond to the forums because, well, my discussions with forum members haven't gone great in the past (which was partially my fault, heh). Stumbled on this one while gauging some feedback for something else, and it's a pretty interesting thread, so I figured I'd chime in.

Firstly, I'll let you know why the show took the direction it took. As you all know by now, the first video was absolutely loathed by everybody. Production values were worse than they currently are (which means they REALLY sucked) and my unscripted rambling wasn't received as well as they had been on Dtoid. So, I took a week off and addressed the criticism. I tightened up the scripting, I cobbled a set together, and tried something else. I got pretty much the same reaction, with some people not even addressing the changes and acting like none were made.

It seemed to me that Escapist commenters were going to make me a villain no matter what, so I thought to myself, "Fine, I shall give them a villain. The antithesis of everything they like. To the laboratory!" I'd already concluded the show was dead on its feet, so I'd just amuse myself while waiting for it to keel over. Thus, I ramped up the arrogance factor, which I found incredibly fun (undeserved ego is one of my favorite comedy tropes). I figured that if the Escapist audience did not want to enjoy my show, the least I could do is provide them with something they enjoyed hating.

How ironic, then, that when I decided to give the Escapist something to really hate, the majority of them began to like it. That I decided to embrace the hatred and ended up becoming embraced myself is, perhaps, the perfect way to conclude that The Jimquisition has and always will be a running failure. It failed to make everybody like it when it tried, and it failed to make everybody hate it when it tried. Of course, it's ended up as a *happy* failure, but still, kinda funny.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the gimmick far too much to want to see it go away just yet, as it seems to still resonate with a lot of people. Somebody said that the dictator vibe doesn't work because I'm "camp as Christmas." That's part of what I love about doing it. The red flag, the trenchcoat, it IS obvious that it isn't who I am and it IS obvious that the gimmick is undermined the moment my girly voice comes out of my mouth. That, to me, is the fun of the show. The messiah gimmick is woefully pathetic and doesn't really work, but I think that's why so many people ended up finding it endearing rather than annoying. I realize it's not for everybody, and that some people will ignore it, but that's the risk of any presentation, right? I'm sorry if some people don't like it, but I'm ultimately more grateful for those that do.

Anyway, I apologize for what was a lengthy, self-indulgent, thoroughly unwarranted analysis of my own stupidity. Carry on!

Hey, It's really great that you would post such an interesting response in a thread like this, especially one that gives us a lot of insight into the behind-the-scenes thought behind the show.

Just as a way of giving feedback, I'll describe a little bit about my experience with your show. When I saw your first episode I was pretty on the fence in how I felt about it. It was funny, but I didn't really like that the message was an overall negative judgement of games that try to be cinematic. I understand that the point was to say that game developers should have the guts to not feel their works need to be like movies because games have enough integrity on their own (and I agree with that), but framing a positive judgement in terms of a negative judgement of something else is a cultural trend that I'm not terribly fond of. When your second episode premiered, I again had mixed feelings. Your point on the overreaction to the Dickwolves joke was spot on, and the naked dudes montage was a great punchline, but I still felt like the show had an overall negative bent so I decided to not keep up with it. Honestly, I was worried that you were just going to be another Yahtzee, and I really don't like his negativity, especially the way he seems to consistently disparage so many different and varied game genres and random subcultures (I know people say it's an act, but I've never seen him do anything that showed him as something other than a prick, but this isn't about him).

The next time I watched your show was after Moviebob plugged the Linearity vs. Replayability episode. This episode was brilliant, you spoke to an important issue in the gaming commonity in a fairly novel way. This one clearly showed me that you weren't afraid to express a positive opinion about something, and you could still make it fairly humorous. Same goes for the "Different Kind of Difficulty" episode. I skipped the Square-Enix episode because I feel like I'm the only person on the internet that likes their games anymore, and I was worried you were going to lose me right after you got me back, but just now I went back and watched it and really agreed with your suggestions. The problems you mentioned were things that I think they have real problems with.

When I read your comment and decided to write a response, I went back and watched a lot of the episodes to refresh my memory on how I feel about them. A couple of the episodes I missed were also very good. The "How Can Sony Make It Up to You", "Metacritic", and "Nintendo of America" were all very good. The Sony one mentioned several things from Sony's past that were good and could use revivals, the Metacritic one precisely criticized the fact that people place too much weight on metacritic rather than the idea of the site itself, and the NoA one emphasized that the Wii-owning gamer who likes JRPGs is a solvent demographic that it would do Nintendo well to pay attention to. I'm using these examples to demonstrate that the show succeeds as entertainment and criticism when you express a broad variety of "types" of positions across different episodes, and you've done this reasonably well.

That being said the persona is sort of a detriment to the show in my opinion. Examples of why I think that, Your best punchline was the emphasis on "Was it Good?" in the Linearity episode. Emphasis and simplicity made it a very memorable line. The "hurr durr" jokes in the NoA episode and the Linearity episode were only sort of funny. I chuckled a little, so I'd say it's a 6/10 sort of joke. Now, the problem is the "Thank God for me" and "I've solved everything" bits at the end. These are just not funny. It was kind of annoying the first time I heard it, but now that I've gotten used to it, it's settled into the inoffensive area.

I guess the last thing I want to address is the "Childishness" episode. While I do think it was clever of you to explain some of the reasoning behind your character in the context of games criticism, I'm not sure if it holds water since the bulk of your episodes DO consist of an often well reasoned and explained view on some gaming culture or game development issue.

So yeah, that's my feedback. Thanks for posting and listening, if you are listening that is, and good luck with the show.