A real history of video games | Pay to Win
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- ko-fi.com/jimmcgee
A video about arcades, early home consoles, and why they made old people so angry.
Video sources and """vibes:"""
• Pay to Win E2
Text sources and video script:
www.coolgames.zip
Chapters:
00:00:00 Pokemon Time
00:02:22 5 Nothing Dies Down Here
00:44:59 6 Not a Fad
01:04:25 6.5 Picking Stuff Up
01:23:13 6 Not a Fad
01:32:16 Playing Pokemon while the world dies - Hry
Hi! If you see ads on this video it's because I used 20 seconds of the Mickey Mouse club song, from a show that probably stopped airing in like 1958 (the original incarnation at least). Providing a commons for people to remix, criticize, and comment on is very important if we ever want to create new culture. Disney is humanity's biggest enemy on that front. Thankfully, their monetizing my video gives me an opportunity to share this article about Disney's material and thematic ties to fascism. RIP Walt!
www.pastemagazine.com/politics/walt-disney/walt-the-quasi-nazi-the-fascist-history-of-disney/
and uh, the script/bibliography will be up on my website shortly if you want to learn more about video game stuff
oh my GOD
BASED
@@floober6428 couldn't have said it better myself
Oh don't worry, I'm pretty sure CZcams just puts ads on any video they deem ad-worthy these days, regardless of the contents or if the uploader wanted ads run or not. Their "right to monetize", they call it.
Appreciate you clearing things up either way tho! Rock on.
"The moral panic about video game has only moved inward and downward. The issues get more specific, the stakes get much lower, but the voices get a lot louder." You sir, are a poet. Thank you for this well-documented and masterfully-argued piece of popular history.
i wish i had this kind of insight when i was younger. i've always been into game design, and the clever tricks that enable games to create experiences, but only recently (with a lot of help from videos like this) have i started to grasp how huge the fulcrum of finance is, and how much it can shift the entire reason games exist at all, and the shape they take. thank you for this video, i'm going to share it around
I think ten years ago it was easier to dismiss stuff like horse armor and always-online Diablo 3 as mistakes rather than a shift toward internet-enabled monetization (Mr. BTongue, a fantastic but mostly forgotten CZcams guy, did catch a glimpse of it in his 2011 Diablo 3 video). When you take e.g. horse armor as an isolated thing it seems pretty stupid, but over time these mechanics accumulated into a kind of market-tested science of dopamine feeding and money extraction. Obviously I'm not a big Fortnite guy, but I think lootboxes and battle passes and daily rewards are just part of the language of games for people who are growing up now.
@@JimmyMcG33this is absolutely the case. The more time I spend in discord servers around people who are 18, 19, early 20s, the more I see that this is just normal to them. This is what videogames are and what they've always been. They can maybe remember a time from their childhood where they could pickup their DS and play a game without it trying to sell them something but that's far from their norm. Most of these people were in their mid childhood when Diablo 3 happened. Always online lootbox heavy microtransaction storefront games are just what videogames ARE to them. It's so fuckin sad because I see them get genuinely confused or upset when they can't spend extra money on costumes in some indie game. They're fully conditioned to believe that one of the primary ways to interact with games is with a debit card
@@TurboNemesis That's super sad to me. I'm 21 but thankfully me and most of my friends enjoy older singeplayer games and offline stuff or indie stuff, but I can also feel this normalization happening around me and as a hobbyist game dev it's really depressing
Shit ME and all my friends and people like us tried to warn EVERYBODY. We were screaming it at the top of our lungs on every forum every lobby every in person conversation. People were calling us conspiracy theorists and paranoid REAL games will never be pay to win that is ONLY mobile games that would allow that crap. No self respecting studio would do that sort of thing. HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA said I and everyone who has two brain cells, They are a corporation 1st and foremost they do not care about you and me and they still dido';t get it. They didn't understand that once it started it would slowly go as far as it could be pushed and younger gens would see it as normal and no big deal.
It's incredible how you built on Joeseph's Mario Odyssey's critique by relating it back to the Skinner Box. Every chapter brings previous points together in a way that makes the transition between them, and even other videos that I may have last watched months ago, seamless. I hope the algorhythm allows you to reach more people so your message, style, and creativity can be received by the larger audience it so clearly deserves.
When “Cave makes gacha games now” appeared on my screen, I said “It’s so over” out loud without even meaning to
"Culture war means everybody is mad, but nothing changes." Well put! Great production value. Thanks!
yeah it's just worthless inane shit that one side wants to kill people over
person a sees cringe lgbt representation in media, he's not fond of it due to its quality and not because he hates gay people, but ends up having to defend it because other side of the debate is "let's kill all gay people"
This is a Jimmy McGee video. All craftsmcgeeship is of the highest quality. It is encrusted with research and encircled with bands of retrospection, philosophy and humour. This production menaces with spikes of raw prescience. On the video is an image of slugcat. The slugcat is gaming. The artwork relates to the uploading of Rain World: A Guided Tour by Jimmy McGee of the Internet in the early summer of 2020.
Basic Value: 10*
:) Thanks!
Is this a Dredmor thing?
@@Schemilix No it is worded like an item description that Dwarf Fortress generates to describe crafted items. Dwarfes love their menacing spikes
@@Rightclicksfriendlies Oh cool! That ,must be what Dredmor is referencing since it's a big ol' ball of references.
encrusted is one of my favorite words :)
Truly astonishing how underviewed you are. Some of the most thought-provoking, well-researched, well-crafted video essays I've ever had the pleasure of watching. Kudos and godspeed
36:00 “Cause when you lose your world, there’s no way of getting out of it.”
Damn.
I wrote a thesis on narrative in interactive media and traced the history of games from text adventures to the present. This is a completely different way of seeing video games history and a parallel one. After 35 years of gaming now I have a clearer picture and not many people have traced back this route. Thanks for the video.
Is that thesis available to read somewhere?
When the whole Bullet Hell section was happening, I was thinking to myself "If given the knowledge of the current market and how Gamers™ consume media, I wonder how the genre would've turned out" wondering of how the mechanics of those games like hitboxes and continues were influenced by arcades and then home media, and how it could've turned out
And then the Gacha game appeared and all of that was thrown out the window because... They would've chosen whatever makes the more money, always and forever
It's a gacha shoot 'em up, I think they've made a few but it's hard to keep track because I don't speak Japanese. The game is definitely worth playing if you can get it to work, it's a very different game from DoDonPachi, clearly made in response to its monetization structure.
altho was gacthas and time gates before MTX and IAP pokemon gold and silver come to mind, leadgend of zelda minish cap has a gatcha.
to answer your question, i think after Touhou Project semi-mainstreamified the concept of Bullet Hell, the torch has been passed over from Shoot Em Ups to Roguelikes.. i've even seen people mistake Bullet Heaven 3 for being a Roguelite (no idea why, probably because the Bullet Hell mechanic is now associated with Binding Of Isaac clones?) whilst in actuality Bullet Heaven 3 is just a regular Shoot Em Up with free 360 movement rather than being a side scroller like the first 2 games.. or to make a long story short, "i wonder how the genre would've turned out" play Bullet Heaven 3 and see for yourself.. i think it's on Steam, but if not, it is on Newgrounds, posted by Matt Likes Swords (the Epic Battle Fantasy guy)
Yeah, that's why I follow developers rather than studios now. Some of the best games are coming out of two- to ten-person studios: the two indie Factorio-alikes (Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program), Black Ice, Demon's Tilt and its fantastic sequel, or even solo endeavors like the Touhou series.
Incredible video! The standout quote from this video for me was "The conflict at the heart of all games is between the rat-like satisfaction of collectibles, and a higher satisfaction, the truth revealed by game mechanics." It really summarizes what I've been thinking with games lately.
There's a type of game I can be drawn into like Destiny 2 and it has made step back and really examine why I keep playing video games. The endless chasing of better loot, the need to login everyday - it's why I refuse to play Destiny anymore; it's too effective on me.
I played a lot of Noita lately, and I think its wonderfully designed in how it feels mysterious and encourages exploration, but a significant amount of my playtime felt like just chasing the carrot on the stick. Just starting another run to see what luck I would get. Finding that line is between rat-like satisfaction and higher satisfaction is difficult, and I really appreciate this video for expressing it so well.
soon enough chunkopops will be real
that would be really scary
If it weren't for the quality of your other videos (and the previous one in the series), I would've been hesitant to watch this one, due only to the sheer volume of videos titled: "The history of X" that give nothing more than a surface-level knowledge of things I already knew. This is not that at all. The title is telling the truth (a bizarre concept); it's a *real* history, replete with story-telling, humour, and philosophy.
What I appreciate most is the way you've weaved together several fields of study (From Skinner to Debord to Bernays and Lippmann) into a converging point through the lens of video games. Your videos thus feel entirely new, insightful, and thought-provoking. A modern day McLuhan. It's not just a video about past events in gaming, it's a video about the way the world shapes our thoughts, feelings, and actions. I look forward to the continuation of this series.
i thought it would be pretty shallow too (like most videos out there), and i'm really glad i stuck through to see where this went!
I think living here in Germany it's a great "what if" for game arcades since arcade games were quickly deemed exploitative towards adolescents and as such not free for anyone under 18 to peruse, hence why you don't have any arcades at all here. I play a lot of fighting games and one interesting resulting tidbit is the amount of usage the arcade stick sees compared to the US. Even today I'd argue that while fighting games obviously had their origin in the arcade, a lot nowadays really didn't grow up with it anymore, so the arcade stick is a weird "vanity relic" which technically offers a lot of disadvantages even to currently popular input devices (not to mention costing ludicrous amounts of money). So obviously here with no one growing up in the arcades the effects on gaming culture in general are really interesting to see.
Great video as always.
just finished. i dont understand how you consistently get better everytime.
some of the most unique stuff in this format. bravo for all of part 6
The "blue coin" complaint is always funny to me about Super Mario Sunshine because it's quite simply something you don't ever have to do unless you want to 100% the game, and I don't know a single game that has 100%'ing not include random annoying tasks.
Even though I disagree with a decent amount of the points made in this video there's no reason to bring all those trivial points up, overall I enjoyed the video, nice work brother
Incredible how much of an empathetic grasp on American culture you have being someone who I imagine isn’t from the United States. I also love how well and thoroughly you explain and break down difficult concepts like the commodification of attention into very simple to understand rhetoric. It’s a real treat to listen to.
Thanks!
But he has an American accent...
He has an American accent and only talks about this from an American perspective. What on earth makes you think he's not American?
@@drifter402 I thought he was an American but he’s been reading Keynsian (socialist) economics. Which is not the typical viewpoint of the US mainstream but gaining popularity.
That's very silly.
The guitar instrumental you used to transition from chapter 5 to 6 was so sobering already knowing what happens next, like seeing everything come out of Pandora's box firsthand, knowing what it means for everyone, and not being able to do anything but watch. Fantastic work.
your videos have actually radicalized me to demand more from what i consume, and to actually THINK about the things i enjoy instead of just mindlessly enjoying them. thanks for being such a consistent voice of quality on this rapidly decaying planet
Yeah bro, you like totally got me to take the red pill. I’m so great now thanks to these videos, no longer a sheep or a loser(well working on that one still)
@@joemamr710the answer to the constant evolution and infestation of the capitalist machine and market is to take the red pill?
If you needed a youtube video to tell you to use your brain on a basic level youre ngmi
1:16:27 "Whereas Ikaruga expands the shoot em up, Dodonpachi asserts the primacy of bullets."
As a big STG nerd I absolutely loved this line (and this entire section of the video (and the entire video)). The purity of the STG genre is I think the thing that always keeps me coming back to it. The inherent reward of practicing and seeing yourself improve at a difficult, tightly designed 20-30 minute game about being a dot avoiding other dots is imo infinitely more worthwhile than a 300 hour long open world skinner box.
27:50 But Disney did produce their own Space Jam 2. It was called Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Salute 🫡..that movie was a pretty decent for what it represented
18:10
I really despise how the "Flow State" as a model has been effectively delegated to a tagline for nootropic shills and clickbait youtubers. The original book and research by Csíkszentmihályi contain very interesting and holistic interpretations of motivation that could be extremely beneficial to a lot of us if we would just stop bastardizing the theory.
The whole point was to research an internalized form of motivation in substitute of external rewards to progress society away from their dependence on symbolic factors of motivation (eg. Money), something that becomes extremely moot when paired with the average "Grindset" channel mentality.
Eitherway, great video. I completely relate with your apprehension for the term.
True. I feel like that's happened with so many concepts, especially those under the (I'm using this word extremely ignorantly) Buddhist umbrella. Instrumentalizing things like flow and mindfulness toward $$$ productivity feels very perverse to me, so much so that I can't really engage with those ideas in their original form anymore without mentally filing them under "American Cubicle Buddhism".
Understandably. Always a shame when centrally "uplifting" fields of study and thought get completely curbstomped by blind, wild American hedonism (Buddhism included.)
Mindfullness itself is a very cNical attempt to coopt the very concept of meditarion. I have no idea why we cant just call it by its real name.
I'm sure others have mentioned this: the 1983 video game crash was a significant event in the US, but elsewhere it was very different, for example in the UK where the home micro scene and "bedroom" coders was in the middle of exploding on the back of the Spectrum, BBC Micro, C64 and others. Somehow the "consoles" so widely used in the US never seemed to gain that much traction in the UK. I remember briefly using a 2600 around 1981 or maybe 1982, but within just 3 years everyone I knew at school with some kind of game system at home had a micro of whatever variety, not a console (I had an Acorn Electron, my older brother a ZX81, one friend a BBC Micro, another a C64, and even the chemistry teacher's family had a Dragon).
A lot of games were very cheap, sold on cassette (floppy drives were very rare here), so the cost dynamic was radically different, one could afford to gamble without being burned too much by bad games, though most were generally worth the low price (such as the 1.99 Mastertronic games for the C64). Acorn games for the Beeb/Electron were more expensive, but then 1984's Elite helped convince a great many that a comparatively costly game could indeed be worth the price, with its excellent included-in-box items only underlining one of the best games ever made.
Perhaps the lower cost of system entry made all the difference, inspiring competition at lower price points, kicked off by the likes of the ZX80/81 and later the Electron, alongside the Dragon, Oric, Amstrad and other systems, while the presence of Acorn machines in pretty much every school ensured all children within a particular age range had exposure to what was a very high quality system. I wrote several programs for the school I attended, doubtless a common occurence across the UK (such as a chemistry database and a program for teaching fractional math to the remedial class students).
It wasn't until many years later that I even heard of the US video game crash of 1983, and equally as long to encounter the various consoles related to it. When I went to uni in 1987, the popular focus was still on home micros, which revolved around the Atari ST and Amiga offerings, with a sprinkling of others such as the Acorn Archimedes.
PC gaming kicked off eventually, likewise consoles, but it was a slower burn here in the face of what was an initially much stronger presence of general 8bit/16bit home micros. It led to a strong gaming industry based in the UK, such as Rare (one of their early guys was in my class at uni).
Anyway, excellent video series, and you've helped me resolve a mystery about why a particular game I wrote (called Airwolf, a helicopter shootemup) was so popular with my friends, even though I thought it was too simplistic; now I understand, it was definitely a Skinner Box, and quite a potent one. The other games I wrote which tended to require some skill and had varying difficulty were not as popular, though I preferred them because of their more complex mechanics, visuals and controls. I suspect a game that I had been planning to write, which required machine code, but never did due to going to uni, would have been a better fit for what my friends preferred in a game (it was going to be a fast paced but visually simple geometric solids shootemup).
I began writing a machine code version of Airwolf, styled like Defender, but never finished it, uni again interupting progress, though by then I was in over my head with the complexities involved anyway. One can only go so far when self-taught, and I realised later I was often reinventing the wheel when trying to solve various problems, inparticular hidden surface removal for 3D.
It's funny though thinking back after watching your videos, contemplating why the games I wrote either did or did not strike a chord with my friends, though preferences were not universal. Some did like my Battleships game and my 3D maze game, but Airwolf had a pull which at the time I couldn't fathom. My own favourite I wrote wasn't a game at all, instead more a sort of CAD program, partly because I liked the way the control menus worked.
I wonder now what the experiences of others were like back then. I never really thought about what other kids my age were up to elsewhere (I lived on an island). The only wider exposure I had to external creative efforts was via the awesome INPUT magazine (anyone else here in the UK remember that?).
Nobody on this platform is doing what you're doing, this is the only place for gaming analysis through the lenses of culture and theory even remotely of this caliber.
All your work is so eminently resonant. As someone who thinks we traffic in the same online spaces and I'm just talking about myself here but part of the downwardly mobile. You get it, you get it all.
Thanks!
You should also watch Jacob Gellar if you don't already. He makes straight poetry.
I find him bromidic at best. He always has a nice framing device though. @@colinobriant6895
@@colinobriant6895 more like gay poetry but yeah he's great
This is EXACTLY what I needed after an eight hour shift. Been wondering when the next part of this project would drop.
I hope you enjoy it!
I did indeed! I’m really glad for this “people’s history” approach to the industry, it’s a road that frankly needs taking because the more people who see past the mythification and mystification surrounding it, the better; especially while putting it in context with the economic framework that surrounds it and highlighting the addiction exploitation aspects. Nowhere near enough people have tried this and so far you’re doing a great job.
I don't know who you are, but you are clearly, incredibly well informed and well researched in many facets. Can't imagine the amount of time and effort you put into research and distilling the information for us into this video format, which in itself probably took forever to edit. Nothing but respect for you, and you have all my support. Keep up the great work!
I was just rewatching a bunch of your videos the past two days and I've been eagerly looking forward to the continuation of your masterpiece of a video "Gambling and the Desire Machine."
I'm ecstatic to see a new upload from you. Your videos are informative, thought-provoking, excellently paced, excellently written, and thoroughly enjoyable. I sincerely hope your channel takes off; not just because "This man needs internet fame," but because more people need to hear the messages you're delivering to the viewers.
This is fantastic. I am blown away by your editing, research, writing -- overall arcs, info presentation, plus line-to-line sharp observations or well referenced jokes --- just everything is done so well. Looking forward to more.
As a reformed Nintendo fan and lover of one of nintendos forgotten franchises “FZERO” I try to stay positive that gaming will get better and we will rebuke the fucking endless monetisation reboots and sequels capitalism and mindless bullshit……. But every year a bit more of my hope slips away and yet another thing gets gobbled up by some super corp to never see the light of day again and is cannibalized to feed the ever eternal yearly releases of whatever loot box stuffed sports or cod Skinner box they come up with next
i'm not well-versed in game design or the psychology of gaming or any such stuff, but i was surprised at how much of this stuff resonated with me as a person who's worked on the creative/art side of game design. i've never been able to articulate why newer games play different these days beyond just being like, "hey is it just me or do these new games hit different."
someone, can't remember who, once told me that being a designer is all about making decisions-- when you're working on a concept, you're considering what its function is meant to be, and deciding how to convey that function through design. i remember playing through breath of the wild and being struck by how it seemed like a game that committed to nothing, artistically. the art direction of past zelda games has zigged and zagged all over the place, but botw's driving design philosophy seemed to be "make everything look as inoffensive as possible." visually it's not presenting us with anything groundbreaking (save for maybe the gouache-inspired backgrounds, but i'd argue they already did this in skyward sword nearly a decade prior.) everything looks soft and pretty without much substance behind it, like the visual equivalent of a slot machine jingle. it's really fascinating to hear how this trend towards lowest-common-denominator design is also present in gameplay.
Enjoyed this video. A loving port of Dodonpachi DOJ/Blissful death was just released for switch and PS4 making the game more accessible than ever.
There are a lot of interesting points in this video (the longstanding connections of gaming companies to gambling for one) but I particularly appreciated how you detail how arcade game design emerged as a distinct philosophy from the creative, commercial and technical pressures of the time. The tension between art and consumer capitalism isn't going to be resolved any time soon, but that doesn't mean there can't be pockets of progress, when conditions are right.
It's grim that CAVE are now making gacha games. The Electric Underground has a great video on them as a business. But I think it's worth remembering that it isn't a corporate logo that makes games - even if that's where the IP rights reside. Developers who are passionate about creating art will always strive to do so, the question is only to what extent they will be able to pursue that passion in the face of other economic pressures - and to what extent those pressures will influence the art in turn.
Your videos are absolutely refreshing and sorely needed in a time where the only discourse we have for video games on YT are twenty-hour-long ramble-thons that basically just read through wikipedia and recite the plot beats moment by moment.
Thank you so fucking much.
I've never heard someone sound so charming yet critical, so coherent and yet depressed all at the same time. Truly brilliant videos JM, whoever you are. You have a deeply appreciative viewer in me.
With all the talk of skinner boxes and no friction n stuff (especially the super mario odyssey section) made me wonder if the recent semi-rise in vampire survivors clones (and other "semi-automatic" games) of the indie scene will ever be mentioned.
lmaooo: "this isnt super important to the video but i found the most unhinged game review of all time."
A lot of people are talking about how insightful and well structured these videos are, which is absolutely true, but i wanted to shout out how funny yr writing and editing can be. The extremely deadpan humor and stuff like the flowchart of company acquisitions remind me so much of jon bois. also your music choices and the flow of the video editing really create a really unique vibe, the passage of cut together news reports on arcades w/o commentary is especially great.
I still can't believe how criminally underrated your channel is. Keep up the good work.
Lool we got the same profile picture no way
The moment of breaking into the Mario soundfont Komm Süsser Tod when revealing Cave's modern business model broke a tiny piece of my heart
This popped up in my reccomended, and now a week later ive seen nearly all of your video essays. Your style is unmatched, keep it up
It’s always so nice when I stumble across a good long form content channel. Some people could sound interesting reading a phone book and this guy is one of them.
I've been following your content since the Cruelty Squad video and honestly you have a great way of breaking down more complex topics. Despite some disagreements I may have regarding the video, you make a very compelling argument for the direction of how the game industry has changed overall. Things really aren't like they used to and this video truly encompasses people who may feel that way but don't know how to word it. Excellent work. I can't wait to see you tackle digital media. I can see a lot of interesting talking points to make.
1:29:00 This whole section is a perfect summation of how American politicians broke the booming economy and funneled it's wealth to corporations.
"Life was getting worse in the states and politicians didn't have or couldn't give the reasons why. In the 70s Western economies we're experiencing something called stagflation. There was high inflation and the economy was not growing. Economists like to pretend that they know how the world works, but their stories weren't explaining the problem and their solutions weren't working. Stagflation is a problem whose solutions make it worse. You fix a stagnant economy by increasing the money supply but that causes inflation. You fix inflation by raising interest rates, but that slows the economy down. What happened is beyond the scope of this video, but to put it simply, the old economic theories were replaced by free market evangelism.
The new story said you could fix the government's economy problem by taking the government out of the economy, which is technically true. But, remember the economy is everything. If we start feeding people with public money, which was soon to be rebranded as taxpayer money, Walmart loses a sale. If we house people, who's going to pay the poor real estate companies? So in the 80s and 90s there were tax cuts, banks were deregulated, welfare was severely limited, and most importantly there were some big free trade agreements struck between countries. Suddenly the incentives changed. It was cheaper to make products in other countries and ship them back to the states. That's where Nintendo comes in."
I especially love the line, "If we house people, who's going to pay the poor real estate companies?" Such a good distillation of the government's warped priorities.
This is fast becoming one of my favourite video essays about video games ever, it's grown on me, on my mind, since the first time I watched it. Your excellent writing, thoughtful prose, and understanding of the pop cultural zeitgeist of video games is mind altering. I always come back to it when I want to remind myself of a real history of early video games. Thanks mightily for that!
Nitpicky point because I have been specifically studying inflation for years:
Stagflation is portrayed by economists as anomalous so they can sell you on their stories of economic growth and the cause of inflation.
Here is how inflation actually happens: The largest businesses raise prices when their growth (which occurs primarily through mergers & acquisitions, as you demonstrate early in the video) slows but their desire for accumulation does not. Because markets are always dominated by a few extremely large players, they have near-total power to set the prevailing prices in those markets, while smaller players simply follow "the market". This has a corresponding feedback loop where it causes costs in other markets to increase, and so the companies with pricing power in those other markets raise their prices to preserve their intended margins. The fact that inflation occurs as an alternative to the ordinary cycle of growth means "stagflation" is just what inflation normally is.
And to address the immediate reaction most people have to hearing this, the reason they don't just raise prices infinitely all the time is because doing so is a conflictual action that creates resistance from the buyers (other businesses, or us). It's much more effective to accumulate by buying or merging with other companies, because basically no one other than the FTC and DoJ cares, or even knows, when Kroger merges with Albertsons, but they get really upset and potentially riotous when Kroger raises the price of groceries 200%.
The reason that money supply growth appears to be associated with inflation is because a) both just go up continuously so of course there's some sort of correlation, and b) if inflation gets really bad, banks and the feds have to inject money into the economy to compensate for the higher prices everyone is paying. If Weimar Germany had the same amount of money in circulation at the beginning of the hyperinflation as at the end, no one would be able to pay for anything and the economy would simply collapse entirely. However, just adding money to circulation doesn't fix the structural problem that caused the businesses to be in their position of power and to be willing to raise their prices, so it doesn't stop the inflation.
The thing with economists is they base all their stories on imagining what they think the economy is like and then doing elaborate math based on their imagination. Doing any actual investigation into the real world to verify their stories is incredibly rare. Their standard of proof is either showing that their toy model predicts a vague linear & monotone trend, or looking at a selection of real-world examples and then shrugging their shoulders when those real-world examples show conclusively that they're wrong. When they say money supply growth causes inflation, it's basically because they take their favorite wrong theory, equilibrium pricing, and just apply it to the money (which is the price of "output", the single aggregate good that one rational actor buys and sells in equilibrium).
There is one specific type of inflation that I've found that is actually "caused by" money supply growth, which is housing prices. Housing prices are able to go up so high and so continuously because banks are willing to create money to pay for them. Thus, nearly every housing purchase involves an increase in the price of a house that happens because of the possibility of money supply growth. Of course the people who most love to say that money supply growth causes inflation would absolutely hate to agree with this actual example of it happening.
Anyway, good video. This one and the AI one got me to subscribe.
Fuck, you made me revisit my suppressed memories about having to deal with "economists" as a stats student when I was in college.
The brief section about BOTW's obsession with nostalgia-armour is interesting because as a person with very little knowledge of previous titles, it never affected me and I wasn't really aware of it until you mentioned it. Which is kind of bizarre to consider the game is forcing those who can remember its previous iterations to do so, apparently for their own benefit. But you can escape this by being ignorant of the title's legacy.
Amazing job on this video man, it’s so packed with research and detail it’s clear that you worked hard on it. When I see video essay CZcamsrs who put this much effort into their work I’m always impressed. Keep it up and the algorithm will put you out there soon, you’re making the right kind of stuff for it
You all ways put so much work into your videos and each one is absolutely amazing keep up the good work.
Love your stuff man, can't wait to watch this one. Hope you keep making stuff for a long time.
the editing is wild, hope we're all appreciating it
You are the best video essayist I have seen on this platform. Period. You synthesise all of these ideas that have bounced around in my head for years with an eloquence that I could never achieve. Honestly brilliant, I have no idea how you aren't already huge
I've just come across your work and it makes me so happy to see someone using this platform in the way that I always thought is the most honest and truthful. You are an amazing creator and I can't wait to see what you have made. I find myself teetering between absolute agreement and surprise in your work and am repeatedly amazed by your unique and well-executed editing, great sound, journalistic research, and generous attitude to the sharing of ideas and information. I am commencing work on a few completely unrelated projects, and your style and approach is now my gold standard. Thank you.
Please keep going your work is incredible and I'm very lucky to have found your channel. You make so many people happy and thoughtful through these videos. Thank you!
This is a pretty chaotic and non linear launch off point, after the gambling to arcade+hotel chain connection you seem to just abandon the linear history set up in the 1st video and rip in on cultures, behavioral conditioning, and intertextual video essay analysis (re: matthewmatosis and anderson).
Abandoning the structure of time is a really neat writing trick and opens a claw up to all the more chronically online watchers that are sort of interested in hearing more of a point and less historicity. Keep it up dude you've got a real grace to this stuff.
Also I quoted that exact same Matthewmatosis excerpt recently, and read a few chapters of Addiction by Design from a gamedev friend of mine so it was cool to see that harmony of thought there.
Hi Erato
@@cynzoe7258hi bestie
@@cynzoe7258Hi bestie!
@@cynzoe7258hi bestie! i stream occasionally every now and then if yr interested. love to see you around!
just watched both pay to win videos today, theyre incredible!! absolutely cannot wait for part 3!
I don't know why or how, but anytime you release a video I get violently ill and watch it in a haze. Thanks for continuing to make these deep dives on, well, most things game related.
this is the best documentary on the history of videogames I've ever seen in my entire life, huge props to you
dude the mpv interface popping up at 28:06 caught me so off guard as I was watching this video in mpv myself, lmfao
also this video made me hate companies a fair bit more and convinced me to finish rain world after having it on hiatus for months
I'm almost sick now; not towards the video itself, but towards the tragedies outlined in it
very, very nice job
fucking Gog and Magog from Space Jam Revelations got me so good
This is one of the best video essays I’ve ever seen. Well researched, clear and concise. Incredible video. Make more now.
"Disney is far too competent to produce something like Space Jam 2"
you haven't seen the new chip & dale movie have you
You are an amazing video essayist. Honestly, probably one of the best I have ever seen. Keep it up bc im running out of video essays to listen to while i commute :)
incredible stuff as always! you're probably one of the best video essayists on this ploopy site. keep doing what you do man it's always a treat
I just wanted to add my voice to the crowd praising your work. I feel lucky to have found your channel. Thank you for the gigantic effort you put into making these excellent videos.
I love how much research you put into these videos! It's really informative, while also leaving room for pondering about the world. Keep it up! xD
Gonna listen through this at work today. Haven't seen it yet besides a few minutes, but I am already a fan :)
they were relegated to dusty back rooms by the time i was a kid but i loved those old photo mechanical eacing and shooting arcade games. rec centers and amusement parks.
wow a video essay that actually makes you think and isnt bloated, thank you!
this is so so so interesting and well articulated! as an avid touhou player, your comments on bullet hells/shmups being the antithesis of modern game design made me really think.
also, as a pianist, the midi clair de lune bit was so good and also kind of changed my life
My God you make good stuff man. Take all the time in the world to make these videos, the amount of effort is staggering.
I've been looking forward so much to this video after watching part one. You are the best, thank you!!!
Amazing. Ill now go forward and evaluate every gameplay loop if its a skinnerbox or not, what a mighty tool to have!
This and related aspects could be turned into a product evaluation badge/score to help choose products that don't program kids for societal decay.
Fantastic video, as always. Your style is compelling, your writing is great. Especially love the final monologue, that kind of bleak prose is captivating to me when well-utilized.
discovering your channel now and the beautiful lines from 1:17:32-1:18:00 were so compelling and followed by showing cave making gacha games was such a whirlwind LMFAO I love it
You have very quickly in the span of a year and a half or so become one of my favourite people making content on this platform, and your videos seemingly just keep getting better and better. Thank you for your continued work and I will always be looking forward to your next video.
Also, given what you stated in the bullet hell section, do we finally have reason to believe that Touhou is indeed the peak of video games?
Of course!
I actually haven't played a lot of Touhou yet but the story behind it is really cool, just a dude making the games he wants to play.
@@JimmyMcG33 Thank you for replying! Yeah, it's a really cool series, and has developed one of the biggest but also most fascinating rabbit holes of fan made content around it due to the creator's generally lax rules around people using the ip.
Tangentially related, have you heard of a game called ZeroRanger? It's an incredible bullet hell with a unique aesthetic and Buddhist themes and imagery, and I feel like you'd enjoy it? I will say that it is one of *those* games that you ideally want to go into knowing as little as possible, and arguably the best part of the game is the most controversial, but it's given me an experience that no other game has given me and.. i-it's really good is my point and if you're at all interested, highly recommend.
Either way, I hope you have a wonderful day and continue to make fantastic videos
@@takumi782 I haven't, I'll check it out. Me getting into shmups was a side effect of this video, so I'm pretty new to the genre.
Man this doc is super badass. A great watch. Thanks for making/posting it.
I watch your guided tour of rain world like 4 times and i lost your track. It was a surprise for my when i encounter myself watching your pay to win series and realising that its you again. I really like your content. Wish you enjoy doing it
This video has made me nostalgic. Not for the old media on topic, but because, recently, I've been feeling like my days of discovering good, creative, but deliciously cynical video essays have been getting further and further away. This reminded me of what it was like. Thank you.
1:11:50 is blatantly wrong, there are clear indicators to what rocks to destroy and where to ground pound the floor for a moon. You have to recognise these sometimes very subtle clues to collect the moons, which doesnt make them skinner boxes. Other than that this is a masterpiece of a video; I have big respect for you, making such eye opening essays.
I claim this thread for sad Odyssey fans, like me.
pinball is where its at. It is the GOAT of games. The big kids video game. I let my video game friend play for a whole night @ my house and a year later ... He eats, breathes, sleeps pinball now. To really "get" pinball you have to stick to one game for a good duration which is roughly 2-4 hours. AND i mean one game. if a particular game isn't jiving with you, then its either broken, not calibrated, or the rare chance that it is a sucky game. By this time in history sucky games are far and few. back in the 90's it was more common, but still was like 1 in 50.
Excellent video. Great music choices too. I'm now going to go back and watch this series from the start.
Fantastic video as always. Educational, informative, and incredibly biting commentary. Thank you for the feature length piece of quality content Jimmy.
jimmy i fucking love you
these videos are immaculate and incredible you do your research and write a compelling case
please never stop
This is just fascinating. Truly great work; well prepared and high quality in every way. Thank you for providing me with these insights into gambling.
I have been WAITING for this. Thank you J!
When I was a child the journey to my Grandma's house included to ferry rides, and on one of the routes one of the ferries had a small arcade and I always hoped we'd be on that one. I dunno, just a random nice memory.
Almost sounds like your parents made sure it wouldn't be that one.
Been excited to see if there would be more of these in-depth analyses after the discussion on slot machines and gambling. Hope the series continues and finds great success, it feels like these aren't topics video essayists cover too often.
Thanks. I'm working on less depressing stuff for a while but I will definitely make more videos like this.
Cant believe I sat through 1 and a half hours of this. Keep it up love ur videos!
It would probably take me years to figure out exactly how to communicate how this video made me think and feel, so I'll just say this. I'm glad I found this video, I'm glad you made this video, and I can't wait to watch and learn more from you. Thank you.
(im)patiently waiting for the next part, these are some of the best musings on the topic ive encountered. traditional film documentary, academic study, books, this is leagues above.
really enjoyed this video. keep up the great work!
I'm really glad the points from gems like Matthew and Joseph have been expanded by someone as dedicated and well-read as you. Great job.
While a lot of things about odyssey are true it really feels like you took the most pessimistic view possible it really feels if one truly wanted to they could describe anything as downright satanic with this perspective.
Doesn't help that he immediately starts uncritically fawning over bullet hell shmups (and gets a few things about Odyssey flat-out wrong. The slot machine segments aren't random at all, they're timed, and neither are the rocks as you can see in the clip he chose to play-they glow).
In other words, it's really clear which games he actually _likes,_ because he doesn't say a word against them. Utterly golden and blameless. Are people just praising this because he's more articulate and concise than most? Because with all due respect, this doesn't feel like good even-handed critique.
@@SpaceManRD tbh besides this small bit the whole thing is quite educational
@@SpaceManRD big words + concise spoken voice + pointlessly long video = "Great essay" to lots of sheep. Doesn't matter if it lacks anything meaningful to say just as long as the speaker sounds like a massive pretentious smug fart sniffer.
I worked the cash register in a grocery store in my mid teens. I took out a third of my first pay in rolls of coins, went down to my favourite arcade and spent around 80USD feeding the Gauntlet machine so my character wouldn't die :D That was the first, and the last time I spent serious money (relative to my fortune) stupidly on a game. I was inoculated.
Unlike me, there was another kid there who actually knew how to play. He put the minimum and played for hours, until the owner threw him out. I watched it happen and that was my second lesson. But Gauntlet was an anomaly back then, unlike now.
I've spent money stupidly on games since then, but not with such deliberation. For example, it took some time before I learned that most of the old AAA darlings were irrevocably corrupted. Dreams die hard. When I was young, games were mostly by and for people from the same tiny subculture. Creativity and pushing the envelope were the guiding principles.
Very roughly speaking, the big game changer was WoW. WoW taught the world of finance that a stupid video game could make you a billionaire. It's been down hill ever since. Nowadays, even indie developers make games primarily with their mind on the money. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
Luckily, the outliers still exist. From time to time a terrific game comes out that you can play for years and years for the purchase sum. I sent 5 bucks to Notch's PayPal account and got a lifetime "subscription" to Minecraft. Played thousands of hours on those 5 bucks and there's been others as well, like Slay the Spire. When a marketplace becomes saturated with crap, making something truly great is a way to stand out.
I’m convinced that the little sigh at 1:18:35 was his soul leaving his body for a moment
I'm glad you said everything you did about Odyssey since I felt exactly the same way but never heard anyone say anything negative about it before
The sheer caliber of your work here is incredible, it's so refreshing. There's dozens of others saying the same here but I just had to say it myself. I can't believe I've never heard of you before.
1:10:40 I'm glad someone found the words for this.
this video's fantastic, the pacing and editing is a lot better than part 1
I always loved how your video essays kinda made the viewer think instead of just thinking for them
also complete coincidence, i rewatched your previous video yesterday
God *damn* you're good at this. Just discovered your channel and I'm both entertained and enthralled by your writing ability. Kudos.
the production on your videos always amazes me