[VIDEO] What Happened To Extra Credits?

There was a time on this website when I used to go to the YouTube series Extra Credits and its spinoff Extra Sci-Fi for filler content. It was a good show. Daniel Floyd based the show on a format he used for a college video project. It promoted video games as a positive force in the world, and the channel had a lot of fans.

Somewhere, something changed. Dan left the show. So did his wife, the former artist. So did another artist. Then the show’s perspective changed, getting a bit more political, until finally it created a video that chased people off. Eventually it lost me as well and I just stopped watching the channel altogether and haven’t looked back. It was worth promoting in the early years with some great videos for discussion, but lost its way as time went on.

Rhythm Rev on YouTube decided to explore the rise and fall of Extra Credits as the politics and the corporate world both altered the show, mostly the corporate side according to the video. Not mentioned are the treatment of the artists, a few of whom have not had the kindest of words for their time doing the art for the show. It’s kind of neat that Rev uses the show’s art style to help visually with going over the show’s many mistakes. Since I have a buffer to build and this is a rather long video (over an hour and a half), I’m going to get this out of my backlog and let you check it out for yourself. Note for BW regulars, there is some occasional swearing.

If you want to see what Floyd is doing these days, check out his daily let’s play channel (which I am really far behind on), PlayFrame, or his occasionally updated video game animation examination channel New Frame Plus. He uses his normal speaking voice instead of the sped up pitch voice he used for Extra Credits and his replacement never used.

As for the infamous “you’re a Nazi” video, at the time it came out I tried to find a balance between responses, and Extra Credits’ response in the comments didn’t help as much as they thought. My thought at the time:

In summary I understand the critiques against the video and some I agree with but they aren’t completely wrong either. If someone isn’t comfortable playing as a Nazi or some stand-in for Al-Qaeda or ISIS/ISIL (I don’t know what they stand for but I’ve seen both translations used) they shouldn’t have to and it isn’t fair to make them. That said, I don’t think this opens people up to being normalized when it comes to terrorists or Neo-Nazis or anything else, no more than games where you play mobsters, drug dealers, and other criminals where that life is actually made to look glamorous and “sexy” or also played for laughs. I’m not a fan of either, but unless it’s an actual propaganda game I don’t see it doing any more damage than those games, perhaps even less when you see who the villain is in the actual story campaign I don’t see it causing the same damage. It isn’t glamorizing to have to be the bad guys in a multiplayer game. It’s not promoting the Nazi view, nor is it weakening anyone’s view of what a Nazi or terrorist is.

I get where they were coming from but it was still kind of heavy handed. Extra History and Extra Sci-Fi were also leaning more into their political perspectives to come into play. I sadly haven’t been able to avoid it because the culture war keeps pushing further into every corner of our lives, including the storytelling we talk about around here. It’s a bigger issue now than it was back then. This video understandably caused a bunch of people to leave, while for me it fell away into the YouTube backlog and I decided I didn’t like the direction they were going and just never turned back. I don’t hate what Extra Credits has become because I’m not sure what they’re doing today. I’m just no longer there for it, while Dan’s let’s plays I want to get back into watching. He was better before James Portnow got involved.