By: Sinbad

Sinbad — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 06:03:41 +0000

Thats fantastic work.

By: Sinbad

Sinbad — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 06:01:35 +0000

Thats Astounding. Great work

By: SpearedPage

SpearedPage — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 14:51:42 +0000

@JimFleury, I enjoyed your paper – a smooth, informative read. With regards to your thoughts on the appeal of “retro” culture in the AVGN videos, I would argue that – in addition to what you mention about the “deep, emotional” potential that revisitations of the past can have for the gaming community – another, arguably more fundamental role of the AVGN’s focus on old games from obsolete platforms is that of eliciting comic effects.

I don’t think the reviews would be nearly as funny (or at least not funny in the same way) if they were about newly released games. As James has frequently pointed out (and your paper acknowledges), the purpose of his videos is not actually to express fair and balanced criticism – something video game fans and consumers might have a right to expect, I think, from reviews of new games on the market. Part of what makes the AVGN videos so successful is that the Nerd’s vitriol is unleashed against an antiquated collection of odd, worn-out, and for the most part obscure games, whose potential claims to greatness have long since expired. If James’s rage was genuine and targeted at new games, I think the humour of the AVGN videos would have a more difficult time transpiring through the harshness of the tirades. (In the same way, the Epic Meal Time videos perhaps could not be taken so lightly if the individuals gorging themselves in front of the camera were not somewhat fit, young specimens of masculinity rather than, say, a group of morbidly obese people. As with the AVGN videos, audiences are aware that the objectionable behaviour being shown is at least to some extent part of an act.)

Of course, I recognize that many of the Nerd’s critical reactions are – however obscenely exaggerated – often rooted in truth. This too is part of the humour. Given the videogame industry’s “breakneck leapfrogging,” that is, its increasingly rapid cycles of evolution, the exploration of games from generations past affords reviewers like James opportunities to expose and make fun of the preposterously out-of-date conventions such games often rely on. Many of the Nerd’s oath-ridden lamentations arise from differences in the ways games were made in days of old; for example, their overly complex password systems, the lack of save points, the pointlessness of high scores, obscurely hidden codes, and most commonly, egregious difficulty levels.

As I’m trying to show, however, it’s not just the outdatedness of game conventions that provoke comedy in the AVGN series, but the primitiveness of the games themselves. Just the appearance of a game cartridge – bland, inert, almost clumsly-looking – has something almost embarrassingly comical about it. And yet there was a period in history when this technology had the pretention of being state-of-the-art. As anyone who owned a Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Sega Genesis can attest to, they were once awe-inspiring objects of reverence. (Admit it, who in their youth didn’t have that friend who perhaps might not have been quite so dear an acquaintance – don’t lie to yourself, opportunist! – if it weren’t for his glorious 16-bit game console?)

The early periods of video game history were a time when game genres were still very much fluid and subject to various kinds of experimentation – not always with positive results. Graphics, of course, were not as advanced nor were audio capabilities as perfected as in the current generation of consoles. Successful games depended on the developers’ abilities to produce unique visual styles, immersive universes, and engaging forms of gameplay without the use of realistic graphics and sound. Successful games, however, are not the highlight of the AVGN series. The games James reviews are not only obsolete, but typically poorly conceived, even by their own contemporary standards. A lot of the pleasure I derive from watching the AVGN videos stems from discovering along with the Nerd the various sources of frustration and boredom in a game, its glitches and errors, and the many possible flaws relating to gameplay, stage design, and controls. Viewers laugh at the primitiveness and misconceived nature of these games as they might laugh at similar limitations in medical theories from Antiquity and the Middle Ages, for example. (Ancient Greeks and their medieval followers used lettuce, for instance, to treat venereal disease. This notion is amusing to me – but it had the status of wisdom when it was hatched up many centuries ago.)

I agree that the appeal of retro games in the AVGN series involves viewer identification and the exploitation of nostalgia, as you underscore in your paper; but I also think that retro games provide the videos with much of their comedic potential. As James himself has stressed, a lot of very bad games were being made for systems like the Atari and NES. The foreignness of old games can surprise viewers into laughter, and their more primitive aspects are what induce many of the Nerd’s humorous, over-the-top reactions. The way the Nerd character takes the games he reviews so seriously is absurd and evocative of futility precisely because these games are just dusty relics of the past, which were never meant to meet today’s gaming standards. This kind of humour in the AVGN videos is perhaps indebted to the long tradition of comedic portrayals in which people are constantly getting worked up and being put through all kinds of emotional states as a reaction to the obstinacy of the material world. (Think, for example, of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times!)

Let me just close here by saying thanks to James for all the gut-busting and surprisingly thought-provoking videos! And congratulations to you Jim on the publication of your paper! (Apologies in advance for the long-windedness of this comment as well as for any typos it may contain.)

By: JimFleury

JimFleury — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:55:23 +0000

In reply to Ellpoyohlokoh.

@Ellpoyohlokoh I can’t believe that typo slipped through – thanks for catching it. I had proofread the paper more than a few times and it had gone through two peer revisions before it was submitted to the journal’s web editor. Funny how long a typo goes unnoticed, but that’s the same with any publishing (journals, websites, newspapers, magazines, books, etc.).

By: Kaleidoscopic God

Kaleidoscopic God — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:49:02 +0000

In reply to Ellpoyohlokoh. @Ellpoyohlokoh Oh, please. Everyone has brainfarts.

By: Ellpoyohlokoh

Ellpoyohlokoh — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:09:31 +0000

At one point in the paper he spells James’ last name “Rolph.” I believe that this man has lost ALL his credibility.

By: Firewall_Philip_Hanan

Firewall_Philip_Hanan — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:17:26 +0000

Whussup, Essay?!!

By: Eman1

Eman1 — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:53:31 +0000

In reply to TobiasMathes.

@ZombieKillerXXX

Thanks for the recommendation on hvgn… just watched splatterhouse review so awsome.

By: My1stday

My1stday — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:41:49 +0000

Jesus fucking crist! whatafak is wrong whit that faking Mobile ad comercial, everywhere I clig i get redirected to that page, i realize you need money guys, but god dam, leave some kind of directory wich i could press to move forward to segment i was going to, not just leave me on that faking page whit mobile add, wtf sould I do ? just stare at that ? is juat faking to much for me. I have to go back to faking main page, then look again for the segment i was looking before, for god sake !

By: My1stday

My1stday — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:38:22 +0000

Comments on: Recently Published AVGN Scholarly Paper

By: Sinbad

By: Sinbad

By: SpearedPage

By: JimFleury

By: Kaleidoscopic God

By: Ellpoyohlokoh

By: Firewall_Philip_Hanan

By: Eman1

By: My1stday

By: My1stday