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The Extra Credits thread!! EC is amazing!


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When marketing is more lucrative than development in directing sales, the craft dies.

If ever there was an argument against the foolish assumption that competition drives creativity, here it is, naked in the wind. Yes Capitalism, welcome to shrinkage.

I'm glad someone with an audience is finally holding a microscope up to EA.

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Weee've been over this before. Competing for profit can force companies to make decisions that benefit the consumers; but, while competition isn't inherently bad, corporate greed destroys what good could have come out of it.

Looking forward to watching when I'm back from class.

EDIT: Aaaand I missed your point entirely. Yeah, on the creative/innovative side of things, profit doesn't really help. It's inherently a risk to innovate: one most companies aren't willing to take.

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You're talking about the profit motive, right? That profit isn't a good driving force for innovation / creativity?

Well, if I was to give credit where it was due, I would at least have to concede that it drives marketing innovation and creativity. Similarly, statistical analysis has to evolve to account for the benefits of creative marketing.

But in relation to the quality of video game production, absolutely. Indefinitely, perhaps not.

Given that the 'profit motive' is rather demonstrably a component of Capitalism (admittedly, somewhat a vague word at best) then, I meant Capitalism, but I am assuredly educated by your use of term 'profit motive'.

I'm really the internet equivalent of a drunken tramp shouting at a wall, but the example of Capitalism as a driving force for creativity is something I've been exposed to on numerous occasions.

Finally, I boldly exclaim whilst paraphrasing Jon Stewart - "I disagree with Capitalism but I'm pretty sure I'm not Stalin."

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I'm going to chime in by repeating what I said to a friend over facebook on the issue and the episode,

What happened to gaming and EA? Excessively huge budgets required to develop in the current generation and short-term profit mongering by management of said gaming companies that don't even have a real history inside the industry(looking at you, Bobby Kotick). This leads to less risk-taking and more catering to the lowest common denominator of the gaming audience, which incidentally includes most of its audience.

It's kind of hypocritical of Sepphire(albeit not intentionally so) to say that the gaming audience doesn't want this sort of experience(or advertising) when all you have to do is turn on your headset while playing whatever FPS is currently in style on XBL to see a lot of the audience for what it is: a bunch of Jason Statham/Vin Diesel-wannabes, 14-year-olds who haven't even started puberty yet, racists, homophobes, etc. There are statistics that show that the average gamer age is 35(or near that age), but what the hell does that tell us about their mental state?

There's no doubt that EA's marketing is hardly setting an image for gamers as responsible, well-adjusted, mature individuals and it would be lazy of me to ignore the fact that there are plenty who do fit this profile, but until the majority of the gaming audience lives up to that image, business is business due to the earlier points.

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Good fucking SHOW, guys. WOW. Well done, well written, well researched, well argued...

...someone at EA better pay some damn attention to this.

Agreed completely. Reading the letter at the end was the perfect way to close it. Hopefully large VG marketing people everywhere take note.

And Malaki, while I agree that there are whiny 12-year olds all over the FPS scene (which is part of why I don't have any big FPS games on my console), EA's recent marketing has specifically been hurtful to the industry, and there's no other good way to say it.

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Agreed completely. Reading the letter at the end was the perfect way to close it. Hopefully large VG marketing people everywhere take note.

And Malaki, while I agree that there are whiny 12-year olds all over the FPS scene (which is part of why I don't have any big FPS games on my console), EA's recent marketing has specifically been hurtful to the industry, and there's no other good way to say it.

I'm not arguing that the ads aren't reprehensible or damaging to the industry, however I AM arguing that the gaming audience in general is just as reprehensible, and that's a hard pill that we all have to swallow.

Look at youtube video comments, gaming news sites comments and forums, as well as other gaming forums. People can cry all they want about how those aren't indicative of the gaming population as a whole, but then what do we use as a barometer to determine that if that statement is true when there is so much evidence against it?

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I'm not arguing that the ads aren't reprehensible or damaging to the industry, however I AM arguing that the gaming audience in general is just as reprehensible, and that's a hard pill that we all have to swallow.

Look at youtube video comments, gaming news sites comments and forums, as well as other gaming forums. People can cry all they want about how those aren't indicative of the gaming population as a whole, but then what do we use as a barometer to determine that if that statement is true when there is so much evidence against it?

I agree that the community at large could stand to be more mature -- Extra Credits has argued this in the past also (though not dedicating a whole episode to it). However, at this point we're equating the behavior of amateur fans to professionals. It's one thing to have an immature response from people who are essentially children (I don't see a lot of 27 year old married people bitching online, and would argue it's mostly the younger demographic doing this). It's another to have that type of response from professional business people, which is why I feel that EA is the bigger problem currently.

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youtube isn't really a fair example. go to any video that has a black person in it, that has more than 10k views, and you'll probably see a bunch of racist comments being posted.

kids are immature. kids use youtube. no huge surprise there.

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youtube isn't really a fair example. go to any video that has a black person in it, that has more than 10k views, and you'll probably see a bunch of racist comments being posted.

kids are immature. kids use youtube. no huge surprise there.

Which is why I used many more examples. Regardless of anything, they're part of the audience as well however.

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I'm not arguing that the ads aren't reprehensible or damaging to the industry, however I AM arguing that the gaming audience in general is just as reprehensible, and that's a hard pill that we all have to swallow.

Here's a relevant little ditty for you. Who's to blame, the audience for holding true to that behavior or the adds for reinforcing that behavior? Doesn't matter who started being the idiots, if the media perpetuates it people will continue to act like it. Stop the generalizations and schemas around the gamer audience and the audience will follow suit & behave like normal human beings.

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Here's a relevant little ditty for you. Who's to blame, the audience for holding true to that behavior or the adds for reinforcing that behavior? Doesn't matter who started being the idiots, if the media perpetuates it people will continue to act like it. Stop the generalizations and schemas around the gamer audience and the audience will follow suit & behave like normal human beings.

You have it mixed up. Once a large portion of the gamer mass stops falling into said negative stereotypes and wise up, the media bombardments will cease as the media can only cater to what people want. If they don't want it, it stops.

The idea that it's the media's fault is as irresponsible and lazy as putting the blame for misbehaved, spoiled, _insert problem here_ children on anyone but the parents.

For the record, you don't see most gamers lambasting Dante's Inferno because it essentially rapes classic literature. Hell I'd be surprised if most of them even know who Dante Alighieri is.

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You do know what a self fulfilling prophesy is, right (if I recall, you have a degree in psychology)? If companies advertise that gamers are *fill in the blank* then gamers will generally trend towards that behavior, in response. That's a pretty well known effect, in social psychology.

By the way, I didn't say that gamers are not partly to blame - they had to start the schema for the companies to catch onto it. I'm saying that as long as the companies continue to portray their customers as they do the gamers will tend to act like the stereotype that's given to them. One really needs to cave before the other can follow.

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I would like to say "Congrats!" to Sephire and the team for getting EA to sit down with them. That's pretty awesome that they would take the time to sit down. Are all of you going? When is it? I hope it's not something "Yeah, we'll sit down and take...in about 8 months."

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I would like to say "Congrats!" to Sephire and the team for getting EA to sit down with them. That's pretty awesome that they would take the time to sit down. Are all of you going? When is it? I hope it's not something "Yeah, we'll sit down and take...in about 8 months."

whaaat where did this info come from someone explain please

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... holy shit, dudes. :shock:

Give me a minute to pick my jaw up and re-attach it to my head, 'cause it just fell to the floor. Glad to hear that they're lending an ear to what you said. I guess you got em' when you said their bottom line was being damaged, but I digress... :tomatoface:

I hope this isn't something where they get in your face and threaten to shut down your project or something for speaking out against them (it's a real possibility, folks), but I'll be an optimist, here. Awesome work.

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I hope this isn't something where they get in your face and threaten to shut down your project or something for speaking out against them

EA doing that would be all sorts of illegal. Unless for some reason somebody working on Extra Credits was bound to some sort of non-disclosure agreement regarding EAs marketing, threatening to shut them down would be considered a form of censorship, violating first amendment rights.

I really doubt that's going to happen.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Man, am I really one of the only ones who likes Samus' character development on Other M? :cry:

Yes...:tomatoface:

I'm happy to see that EA actually pays some attention to the VG media. We need more companies to do that in this industry *cough* Activision *cough*.

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