Why do you say that Extra Credits is preachy?

[Tears of Blood]

I would assume working for a computer animation studio would give you somewhat of an insight on game design, though I think he's pushing his movie background on games far too much. Still, I suppose it's at least something. Yahtzee's gaming industry background consisted of hating Fable. So I guess you don't really need to know anything poignant to opine on gaming and collect a paycheck for it.

Edit: Now that I think about it. The fact that Floyd works for a movie studio really sheds a lot of light on his views. I don't see that gamers or game designers really think in such terms.

James helps write a lot of the content of the show, and he IS involved in the games industry. In fact, he is currently a developer and has worked on several games.

Also, someone in an earlier post explained that he had made the same point you had made during the show, and agreed when someone else pointed that out.

Lastly, I will say the the show could easily come off as preachy to people, but I think these are things that need to be said. Even if they were wrong, even if they were complete idiots, it would still be a positive thing, because it would get people to think about the issue and become more passionate about it one way or another. They are mostly saying things that people already agree with or would agree with, but haven't put real thought into.

Really, I think it's hard to say that they are doing anything bad or even questionable. They're trying to help out the game industry and get it to be more accepted and be on equal terms with other artistic genre. If that isn't a worthy endeavor, I don't know what is.

I will say, however, that I find one person's opinions on games and such to be terrible, and that's MovieBob's. Or, as he is known to the rest of the web, The Game Overthinker. It's not exactly that he's wrong, but I disagree with just about anything the guy says about games. He seems to have some good opinions on movies, certainly, but when it comes to games, I find him just some proud arrogant Nintendo-loving retro gamer.

 

[Lullabye]

Preachy? erm.....maybe a bit? But I like it, and they are reasonable, sensible, and I learn alot form their vids...so yeah. I don't really care about the preachy stuff. I mean, if they ever say anything that actually pisses me off, then the Escapist will be the first to know. So far, it hasn't happened with anything here so far....so yeah, don't hold your breath.

 

[CrashBang]

I would never call Extra Credits preachy or patronising or anything like that. I think their videos are knowledgeable and insightful; I look forward to them every week. Extra Punctuation, on the other hand, is incredibly patronising and causes me to find Yahtzee even more arrogant than I used to. I love ZP but I hate EP

 

[Negatempest]

preach·y (prch)
adj. preach·i·er, preach·i·est
Inclined or given to tedious and excessive moralizing; didactic.

I don't get it. Has Extra Credits information/talking been tedious and/or excessive? I don't really think so. I have yet seen tedious or excessive in escapist magazine.

di·dac·tic (d-dktk) also di·dac·ti·cal (-t-kl)
adj.
1. Intended to instruct.
2. Morally instructive.
3. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively.

Again, not really feeling these in escapist magazine. Close at times, but that's just stretching it.

 

[boholikeu]

Edit: Now that I think about it. The fact that Floyd works for a movie studio really sheds a lot of light on his views. I don't see that gamers or game designers really think in such terms.

Can you give some specific examples? He seems to put a bigger emphasis on the narrative importance of gameplay than even some game designers do.

 

[HotFezz8]

FYI, Daniel Floyd seems to be getting concerned about the possibility of being arrogant and preachy as well:

I wish there had been more examples of how these specific ideas has been used. For example, how does pyramid head represent those things?

my god there is almost a choking arrogance here. am i weird to have quit that video half way through thinking "you can stop talking down to me you ****, im not so stupid i don't understand."

I'm not trying to attack you here, I'm just wondering what parts made you feel talked down to?

I'd actually like to know too. Not because I want to attack you or anything, but so I can be mindful in future episodes. "Condescension" is not the vibe we're going for at Extra Credits.

Hey, sorry for the delay in responding to this particular thread, if the creator (or main speaker at least) is actually willing to respond to your comment, he deserves the respect of a reply.

Firstly, it needs to be said I re-read my comment with a degree of embarrassment, as all things said in haste, it was unnecessarily "troll-ee". However, I do stand by the notion this show is preachy.

Secondly, this is my opinion, and it?s worth pointing out a lot (and I mean over three quarters) of the responses to it have been negative. However, before I crack on with pointing out what I see as flaws, I want to mis-quote James Arthur Baldwin badly and say I generally like Extra Credits, which is why I insist on criticising it perpetually.

In my mind the reason the smug vibe is broadcast for two reasons.

One, because you are discussing your views, not proven facts. The important thing is that there are two distinct ways of discussing these things (telling facts, as opposed to suggesting views).

This can be linked to my own bias (I?m a student working on a dissertation, differentiating between opinions and statements is one of the things I most often get drilled into me) but the fact you never once say something along the lines of "in our view" or "it varies from person to person" or even "as said by".

This isn't such an issue in many videos, the best example I was able to find of this was in the "survival horror" video, and where you (quite bravely) tell people what horror is. That the best example I can find of a perfect place for any of those comments; "fraud said...", "now it varies from person to person but...? this would have come across slightly less ?explain-it-to-Mr.-slow-here? in my view.

The second thing that gets to me is the use (or over use) of metaphors, whilst I struggled to find an example which clearly marks this, (most of the information and discussions in these videos are interesting, obviously) a very good example is the discussion of "the uncanny" in the latest video "symbolism". Stretching from 4 minutes 5 seconds to past 5 minutes 5 seconds its 60 seconds you can cut down on. It?s fun to have you bring it back to games at the end of that tangent, but it did seem to drag on. I found myself saying "yes... yes... I understand... you can move on...?