Poll: Jim sterling VS Extra credits

[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?

 

[AdmiralMemo]

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

Well, I believe most did. However, when the Escapist tried to screw EC out of either half the donations or the money they owed EC from the episodes they produced, they started a fight that had no good end.

 

[funcooker11811]

Oh god, just snip all of that

I do love the default of "people of differing opinions agree with each other, therefore, one must be an alt". Very classy. In any case, you completely failed to address the point of "free speech" having the ability to cause injury, as well as waste resources, depending on what was said, and you ignored it because you cannot form a rebuttal that doesn't either A: make you sound like a nut job, or B: Undermine your binary position of all or nothing. (Please note the point I'm referring to is the "yelling fire in a crowded theater" and "calling in a fake bomb threat", as I do agree that Zachary went off into a expression tangent).

As to victims in the workplace, you completely missed the point I was making, in that those conditions have damaging effects on people, and its completely unfair that other people would have to suffer because somebody feels like taking things too far. But, even if we do go with your view that victims should just attack the attackers, how in the hell does that solve anything? While the whole "bullies just need to be stood up to" thing might work in 80's movies, it doesn't work in real life the vast majority of the time. In fact, more often than not, showing up a bully just encourages them to step up their game, making the situation far worse, as well as turning the victim into the very thing they would be fighting. Our reaction to situations like this shouldn't be "fight fire with fire", it should be "why on earth is this a problem to begin with"!

We don't put harassment laws into place because we pity the victims, we do it because when the average person hears misogynistic, racist, or homophobic statements, their reaction is that they don't like it, they don't want to be associated with it, and they don't want it around them. Again, this ties into the group mentality line of thinking, where we see someone being isolated for no good reason, which allows sympathy and empathy so step in, and tell us "this is wrong, and this should not be the way things are". Its not that we feel that their defenseless, its that we simply reject the idea that such things should take place.

Am I advocating censorship, or even total political correctness? Absolutely not! I've told racist jokes before, and I've laughed at them. But when it comes to the point that it actually negatively impacts someone's life, I very quickly and firmly draw the line, and that's why that things such as freedom of speech AREN'T a black and white issue. The main thing, arguably the ONLY thing, that one should consider when determining whether or not something should be protected is intent. Is this person just making a joke, or is this person actively trying to hurt the other? It's because of things like this that we have those exemptions to the supposedly iron-clad free speech rule, and I would make the argument that such exemptions are not only beneficial, but necessary to a functioning, civil society. There's a difference between freedom of speech, and anarchy.

 

[FalloutJack]

Both, sort of.

You see, I'm a fan of the EC crew, myself, and they're both entertaining and good to listen to. I learn a few things, I take an interest, I feel less cynical. It happens. Jim, I've watched some episodes of that are relevant to my interests. Not everything he says I even care about. You put him on the soapbox about SOPA and the like, and I start to take an interest.

When it counts, where it counts, both of them should be quoted verbatim as business practice by industries instead of whatever the hell they're doing.

 

[deserteagleeye]

I enjoy both series to a certain extent and I watch them frequently. I disagree with both of them on some topics but I'm not going to flat-out say that they are shit. Everyone has their own stance on something and I find both of theirs to have some merit to them. I learn a lot from them and compare their arguments instead of blindly following one. That's why I enjoy receiving different inputs from many people within the game community. When it comes down to how they present their argument, I would side with EC mainly for the visual representation of certain areas,(because I sometimes derp at terms I'm too lazy to look up.)and because Jim's shtick kind of makes me cringe.

 

[Num1d1um]

Oh god, just snip all of that

I can do the snipping too.

I like how you're already calling me a nutjob before I even made the statement you think I'm gonna make. And also, you have to admit that the person I'm arguing with, congratulating another user on their first post because it agrees, raises suspicion. But alts is not the topic.

You asked why on earth bullies are a problem to begin with. Whatever the answer is, I'm sure it's not likely to be "We allowed them to call people names". Guess what's gonna happen when you actually outlaw verbal bullying among children. You think it's gonna stop? Of course not. It'll get worse. Because now you've given the bully another incentive to talk shit. We all know kids do stuff they're not supposed to to be cool, to rebel, or simply because there's that little thing in our minds that makes something we're imminently forbidden to do desirable. Kinda like how you think about the pink elephant when I tell you not to do it. It's the same mechanic that makes abstinence such a stupid thing. Bullying is not something you can solve. Neither is war, by the way, or any kind of conflict. You can dampen it, and, through a legal system, you can punish conflict creators and provide exemplary deterrent to make the rest of the population less likely to create conflict, but it's still gonna happen. Making it illegal will not fix bullying.

You're saying that standing up to bullies is fighting fire with fire, but you don't provide any other method of fighting fire. Tell me, what is the water of that analogy? I assume fire is verbal assault. So water would be.... physical violence? Doubt it, judging from your post. Authority intervention? Doesn't work, everyone knows this. Preventative methods? Apparently, but I explained in the paragraph above why outlawing bullying won't stop it. And you can blatantly see this. If verbal assault is already a crime, which it is, why are we even having this conversation? Because verbal assault still happens. Shows how effective that law is. And yes, widening freedom of speech is not gonna help the victim. So what. The assailant deserves his right as much as the victim does, as it is with any other human right. I won't start talking about article 3, but it's pretty much the same issue.

And lastly, when you step into the territory of defining the gray borders of a gray version of freedom of speech, who is gonna define them, and how? We know that different things are offensive or hurtful to different people. As you said, I could make a joke about gays and some might consider it verbal assault on their person while others will laugh. They could say I was actively trying to hurt them, I could say that I wasn't, how do you determine who's right? Are you gonna make verbal conflict laws case-laws? You say you draw the line where it negatively impacts others, well, that's not one line, and it's not very straight either. So are you gonna have some wonky imaginary boundary that doesn't apply to a lot of people and will undoubtedly create conflict in the very situation supposed to solve an issue, or are you gonna accept that some people may be offended, but have a proper, absolute freedom for citizens?

A person's right to be offended is also part of free speech. Some people may feel assaulted by words, too fucking bad for em. Conflict is part of life. Considering concurrent civilized societies, verbal conflict is probably the most petty of them. People all around the world are fucking dying every single day, and here in first-world countries we have people trying to suppress the foundation of modern civilized nations because someone said something mean to them.

One last thing, this has nothing to do with anarchy. Quite the opposite. It has to do with consistency and avoiding hypocrisy on the side of the state. And yeah, censorship is exactly what you're advocating. Forbidding someone from saying stuff because others might feel threatened or offended. This is exactly what censorship is. Always under the pretense of protection or security. Whether or not a piece of talk negatively impacts someone's life somewhere is entirely dependant on the supposed "victim"'s subjective perception of the speech or talk delivered. The speaker's intent becomes irrelevant at this point, because the listener may very likely misinterpret it, or simply make a wrong assumption, because his perception of the said statement is subjective. You don't base laws on subjective experiences of individuals. So treating every spoken or written piece of speech as an inherently neutral document and leaving the subjective effect up to the listener/reader is a way more reasonable and a way more effective way of looking at speech under the law than to have individuals dictate vague guidelines based on their personal feelings.

 

[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.

What the fuck are you saying? No, what the actual fuck are-you-saying?

We're talking about people being dicks down a mic. THAT ISN'T COMPARABLE TO SOMEONE BEATING THEIR WIFE! The analogy is bad.

We arent comparing the action with it we are COMPARING THE REACTION. So the analogy works.

 

[coldfrog]

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.

Yes! This is my thought exactly!

When I watch Jim, I feel his show does little more than to deliver a one-line statement in an envelope of jokes. When you've stripped away the packaging, all that's left is that one line, with no elaboration or examination of the message itself. Whether I agree with it or not, I get little feeling as to WHY I should agree or disagree. Even when I disagree with Extra Credits, I can at least feel like they've put forth a cogent argument as to why they think that way, as opposed to grabbing at any hot-button issue and pounding it home with exclamations and vulgarity.

And for the record, I'm not against vulgarity and exclaiming things, but my problem is, I don't find Jim entertaining, and so I don't care for him, even if he says something I agree with. On the other hand, I don't have to look to Extra Credits for entertainment or even for agreeing with, as I find I usually learn something from their discussions.

Also, I feel comparing the two is unfair, as they have very different aims in their videos.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I don't find Extra Credits pretentious at all. People say that because they are preachy as all hell, and it does get grating. But preachy does not necessarily mean pretentious.

I never 'got' Jim Sterling. Most of his early videos on the Escapist were just trolling with no actual content worth mentioning. I was actually kind of shocked to see something like that on this website. His voice is extremely hard to listen to, almost as if he's trying to be annoying. The way he draws out his vowels all week long makes me wonder if it's affected in a misguided attempt to sound journalistic and authoritative. The alternative is he actually talks that way when he's, say, ordering a sandwich, and that must be damned inconvenient. Just imagine him saying "I would like some maayoonaaaaaaise" while everyone just stares. Beside that, his attempts at humor are just offensively bad. Sometimes I agree with him and sometimes I don't, but his opinions always seem half-baked. He doesn't seem to know any more about most topics than the average forum goer. He sometimes even reverses himself because he didn't bother to research a topic before weighing in on it.

So he's annoying, unfunny in a painful way, and doesn't bring much to the discussion. Sorry to be harsh but that's how I see it.