Extra Credits

Extra Credits is a video lesson series presented by game designer James Portnow, animator/narrator Daniel Floyd, and artists Allison Theus, Elisa "LeeLee" Scaldaferri, Scott DeWitt, and Dan Jones. The series of videos discuss issues pertinent to video games and game studies, particularly discussing issues concerning video game development, addressing the legitimacy of video games as art, and creating intellectual discourse on important issues in gaming culture.^[1]

The series was developed directly from a series of lecture videos by Floyd and Portnow, informally known as "Video Games And...", which ran sporadically from February 17, 2008 to April 16, 2010.

The series originally aired on The Escapist from July 28, 2010 to August 10, 2011, before being split off over a financial dispute. Between September 7, 2011 and December 31, 2013, the show has aired on PATV, a distribution channel hosted by Penny Arcade, whose downsizing of partner services after the latter date was cited for the show's subsequent "move" to YouTube, where the show is currently aired.^[2] In addition, the episodes have been syndicated on many websites, including ScrewAttack and the creators' own EC Network.

History

Beginnings

Theus, Floyd, and Portnow in the show's first iterative art style

The series has its roots in 2008 when Floyd created two video presentations for his respective art history and media theory classes at Savannah College of Art and Design. Floyd states that the style of his presentations was "loosely modeled" after Zero Punctuation.^[3] Floyd then contacted James Portnow, who was referenced in the early videos, and they agreed to work together on more videos with Portnow attaching episodes to his articles on Edge. These were not part of an officially-named series, though this early collection eventually went by "Video Games and...". A blog maintained by Floyd for the videos used the secondary title "Talking About These", and certain videos also went by "Game Design Corner". One episode also features journalist Leigh Alexander from Gamasutra in a discussion about video games and their female audience.^[4]

In July 2010, an announcement was made that the series would be a featured series for The Escapist,^[5] where weekly episodes of the series began, as well as the introduction of the new title, Extra Credits. Since Floyd had started working at Pixar Canada at the time, Portnow also enlisted colleague Allison Theus to handle the art. The first episode, "Bad Writing", debuted on July 28 and would since be on The Escapist for the next year.

In May 2011, The Escapist and the show's creators hosted the Extra Credits Innovation Awards at LOGIN 2011, which was meant to praise developers who were willing to take risks and push the boundaries of video games as a medium.^[6] Awards were intentionally nonstandard compared to other awards frequently presented, focusing on ingenuity rather than success, including the categories: Innovation in Game Design, Innovation in Narrative Delivery, Most Unbelievable Awesome Fun, Genre Buster Award, Positive Impact Innovator, and LOGIN Special Award for Innovation in Multiplayer.^[7]

Dispute and revival

On June 28, 2011, Portnow announced through the show's Twitter account that Theus had a radial tear in her shoulder (likely a separated shoulder) that could potentially end her career. A two-month crowdfund project on RocketHub was created with a goal of $15,000, which eventually raised around $104,000. The crew, overwhelmed at the response, decided to start an independent game publisher with the excess profits.^[8]

Around the end of July, The Escapist privately contacted Portnow with a disputing claim for the funds.^[9] Alexander Macris, content director for The Escapist and current general manager for Alloy Digital, led the claim and stated the money should have been used to create more episodes of Extra Credits and to compensate parent company Themis Media for donation incentives, such as premium memberships and T-shirts.^[10] As a result, Extra Credits broke ties with The Escapist,^[11] and after a brief four-week stint posting directly to YouTube,^[12] the show was picked up by Penny Arcade's PATV network.^[13]

The indie fund would ultimately be created under Extra Credits LLC, which was started on November 18, 2011 and holds the show's unregistered IP rights.^[14] Starting with episode 100, Elisa "LeeLee" Scaldaferri (creator of former Escapist webcomic Name Game) became an official staff artist for the show, to rotate episode productions with Theus. Later, Theus departed from the series to work full-time at Retro Studios (though she still contributes to spin-off mini-series) and was replaced by webcomic artist Scott DeWitt.

On December 2013, Penny Arcade announced the downsizing of its services, including the detachment of Extra Credits and other partner shows from PATV. The crew announced that their official YouTube channel, which was previously intended to be an outlet for syndication, would become the official release outlet starting at the beginning of 2014. The first videos officially released since then were a previously-broadcast live Q&A video and the episode "The Good We Do".

Community

July 1, 2011 marked the creation of a fan-dictated community surrounding Extra Credits with a Steam group indirectly started in response to Theus' injury, and which was supported by Portnow. Group chat sessions ultimately led to the creation of a web forum, Extra Curricular, during the night of the 15th. The forum was publicly acknowledged by Portnow on July 21 and August 25, and was re-launched on a new domain for the show around January 10, 2012. Meant for PAX East 2012, a tribute video to Extra Credits was also made featuring some fans and colleagues of the crew. This was the basis for an independent testimonial program.^[15]

Mini-series

During the show's run, the creators have been requested to create game-specific mini-series based on Extra Credits. The first one was Extra Credits: Firefall, which spanned 5 episodes and was requested by Red 5 Studios to help reinforce the game design decisions in their video game Firefall.^[16] In addition, the team was requested by The Creative Assembly to create Extra History, which was first intended to deal with the Punic Wars, in which the video game Total War: Rome II was set. Both mini-series featured art by Allison Theus, and they are considered to be separate from the main series.

Spin-offs

After moving to YouTube, the team decided to make use of their space to expand The EC Network with new series running on different days of the week. First announced on March 24 and debuted 4 days later, James Recommends is an extension of previous "Games You Might Not Have Tried" episodes of the main series, and features Portnow discussing the merits of less-popular games which he finds unique. The following week, Floyd announced Extra Remix, which features spotlights on promising members of the video game music community, namely through OverClocked ReMix. Portnow also brought in colleague Dan Emmons to run Design Club, a series supplemented by live streams in which Emmons discusses the merits of design as they pertain to specific games or levels. The crew announced a campaign through Patreon to fund the continuation of a full time spin-off, Extra History, on August 23, 2014. This campaign gained over $2,500 within a 24-hour period.

Format

Extra Credits is produced and narrated by Floyd, who uses pitch-shifting^[17] to create a unique, high-pitched voice. Portnow is credited for writing episode scripts, which are refined by Floyd for recording. Floyd was also responsible for editing videos, but has since assigned these duties to his wife, Carrie Floyd. Original art was drawn by Theus in the first years of the show, but episodes are now split between Scaldaferri and DeWitt. Previously, guest artists have substituted for Theus, most notably Erin Siegel, who has made repeated appearances. Business operations have been handled by Kate Donaldson until the end of 2013, and have since been handled by Soraya Een Hajji, who is also a volunteer director for GaymerX.

The show is presented in the style of a lecture hall, and addresses the topic of the week with "doodles" and random imagery from various sources on the internet, with a strong focus on visual puns. The tone is generally light-hearted and often humorous, but always didactic, intended to educate the audience and encourage discussions on the presented subject. Generally, the show's topics target the perspective of a game designer rather than average gamers. Ending songs vary between episodes, but are typically sourced from OverClocked ReMix, where Floyd was a former contributor.

While Extra Credits discusses new topics every week as they apply to video games, there are some topics which are more frequently addressed than others, including: poor narrative creation, level design, gamification, tangential learning, sexuality and gender discrimination both within games and in the gaming community, and diversity in games (including gender, sexuality, and racial diversity). The show is also frequently critical of the triple-A video game industry.^[18] Extra Credits is also a big proponent of independent developers, although it has been frequently stated that they don't want to see only "art house" games either. "No one on this show wants every game to try to be gaming's Ulysses or even gaming's Blood Meridian. But we really would like to see a few more Mass Effects, Portals, Bioshocks, even Call of Duty 4s."^[19]

Episodes

Since partnering with PATV, all official episodes have been re-categorized into seasons of 26 each for technical constraints on their site. The only videos to not follow this format are the pre-Escapist videos, which are exclusively held by Floyd but have each been eventually replaced by updated official episodes.

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Extra Credits

• Official Website
• Extra Credits's channel on YouTube
• Extra Credits Team on Twitter
• Extra Credits on ScrewAttack