/noclip - community funded videogame documentaries

speedboatchase wrote:So the public pays him to produce puff piece documentaries for major studios? Have things with his interview subjects ever got testy/interesting/journalistic?

I had this same thought after watching the Hitman documentaries. IOI should have absolutely been pulled up and challenged on their episodic distribution of Hitman and their decision to sell the game in pieces. But not a negative word was said and everything was portrayed as a positive. It just felt incredibly seedy being fed a load of industry bullshit from the CEO.

I still like the videos for fluffy entertainment but I don't expect anything truly interesting to come from them now.

He relies on these companies granting him access to make these documentaries. That'd stop pretty sharpish if he started to take things in difficult directions for them.

And to be fair, by all account Hitman is one of the few cases where the episodic model actually worked out quite well.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:He relies on these companies granting him access to make these documentaries. That'd stop pretty sharpish if he started to take things in difficult directions for them.

Isn't that the purpose of a 'journalist' though? Because otherwise, he's basically a propagandist for major studios, who could afford to produce identical, unchallenged and white-washed accounts of themselves.

speedboatchase wrote:

Cheeky Devlin wrote:He relies on these companies granting him access to make these documentaries. That'd stop pretty sharpish if he started to take things in difficult directions for them.

Isn't that the purpose of a 'journalist' though? Because otherwise, he's basically a propagandist for major studios, who could afford to produce identical, unchallenged and white-washed accounts of themselves.

I don't think he's presenting himself as Donal Macintyre, Peter Cook or Paxman. He's not claiming that's the kind of journalism he's doing. So going into them expecting some kind of gotcha moment isn't realistic.

He's wanting to present the stories behind a lot of the games that people really love. Part of that will no-doubt require him to tell these companies what he would like to discuss. The Final Fantasy XIV series (Still my favourite ones actually) he did was an excellent example. They spent a whole hour (I think) episode talking about how much of a shitshow the original release was and what a mess it was. The company has to be open to discussing that otherwise they would have just kicked him out the strawberry floating door and we wouldn't have ANY of the story behind it.

I just think you're expecting more from them than they ever claimed they were going to be.

Yeah, he's doing interview documentaries, not undercover investigations. There are some videos where he's talking about things well after the fact where people are clearly prepared to shed light on the negative things that happened, like the one about the collapse of Telltale, for example, but I'm not sure what else you're expecting to be in there.

If you're honestly expecting studio heads or employees to just start badmouthing their own workplace, on camera, when they've invited the film crew in, then I don't think you're really looking in the right place.

I actually quite like the way that these docs are an unashamed celebration of the people who make these games, and how they go about it. Not everything needs to be a harsh examination of shady industry practices, especially if the goal is to learn from people about their craft.

Knoydolig Llawen wrote:Yeah, he's doing interview documentaries, not undercover investigations. There are some videos where he's talking about things well after the fact where people are clearly prepared to shed light on the negative things that happened, like the one about the collapse of Telltale, for example, but I'm not sure what else you're expecting to be in there.

If you're honestly expecting studio heads or employees to just start badmouthing their own workplace, on camera, when they've invited the film crew in, then I don't think you're really looking in the right place.

I actually quite like the way that these docs are an unashamed celebration of the people who make these games, and how they go about it. Not everything needs to be a harsh examination of shady industry practices, especially if the goal is to learn from people about their craft.

Journalism is more than 'gotcha' questions or investigative journalism. I'm saying that for something such as this, which involves taking public money, shouldn't the interviewer be asking the questions some fans want to hear, rather than asking the questions that won't get them thrown out of the building?

It's not about getting subjects to badmouth anyone, but about keeping them on their toes and taking them out of their comfort zone if needs be.

You see the same self-censorship from 'nerd' channels and creators who don't want to piss off Marvel/Disney so they can keep the press invites/goodies coming, and it gets rightfully criticised. That's without the added layer in this case of espousing that Noclip needs to be Patreon-funded so that it can remain 'free of advertisements'.

Guess what: a pre-release Fallout 76 documentary that is tweeted out by Bethesda and promises to 'explore the map of West Virginia and dive into the gameplay' IS an advertisement! People literally paid for that

speedboatchase wrote:

Knoydolig Llawen wrote:Yeah, he's doing interview documentaries, not undercover investigations. There are some videos where he's talking about things well after the fact where people are clearly prepared to shed light on the negative things that happened, like the one about the collapse of Telltale, for example, but I'm not sure what else you're expecting to be in there.

If you're honestly expecting studio heads or employees to just start badmouthing their own workplace, on camera, when they've invited the film crew in, then I don't think you're really looking in the right place.

I actually quite like the way that these docs are an unashamed celebration of the people who make these games, and how they go about it. Not everything needs to be a harsh examination of shady industry practices, especially if the goal is to learn from people about their craft.

Journalism is more than 'gotcha' questions or investigative journalism. I'm saying that for something such as this, which involves taking public money, shouldn't the interviewer be asking the questions some fans want to hear, rather than asking the questions that won't get them thrown out of the building?

It's not about getting subjects to badmouth anyone, but about keeping them on their toes and taking them out of their comfort zone if needs be.

You see the same self-censorship from 'nerd' channels and creators who don't want to piss off Marvel/Disney so they can keep the press invites/goodies coming, and it gets rightfully criticised. That's without the added layer in this case of espousing that Noclip needs to be Patreon-funded so that it can remain 'free of advertisements'.

Guess what: a pre-release Fallout 76 documentary that is tweeted out by Bethesda and promises to 'explore the map of West Virginia and dive into the gameplay' IS an advertisement! People literally paid for that

They're not getting public money though.

If you don't like it, don't fund it. If people feel like they're not getting value for money, they can stop paying in as well.

Knoydolig Llawen wrote:

speedboatchase wrote:

Knoydolig Llawen wrote:Yeah, he's doing interview documentaries, not undercover investigations. There are some videos where he's talking about things well after the fact where people are clearly prepared to shed light on the negative things that happened, like the one about the collapse of Telltale, for example, but I'm not sure what else you're expecting to be in there.

If you're honestly expecting studio heads or employees to just start badmouthing their own workplace, on camera, when they've invited the film crew in, then I don't think you're really looking in the right place.

I actually quite like the way that these docs are an unashamed celebration of the people who make these games, and how they go about it. Not everything needs to be a harsh examination of shady industry practices, especially if the goal is to learn from people about their craft.

Journalism is more than 'gotcha' questions or investigative journalism. I'm saying that for something such as this, which involves taking public money, shouldn't the interviewer be asking the questions some fans want to hear, rather than asking the questions that won't get them thrown out of the building?

It's not about getting subjects to badmouth anyone, but about keeping them on their toes and taking them out of their comfort zone if needs be.

You see the same self-censorship from 'nerd' channels and creators who don't want to piss off Marvel/Disney so they can keep the press invites/goodies coming, and it gets rightfully criticised. That's without the added layer in this case of espousing that Noclip needs to be Patreon-funded so that it can remain 'free of advertisements'.

Guess what: a pre-release Fallout 76 documentary that is tweeted out by Bethesda and promises to 'explore the map of West Virginia and dive into the gameplay' IS an advertisement! People literally paid for that

They're not getting public money though.

If you don't like it, don't fund it. If people feel like they're not getting value for money, they can stop paying in as well.

Absolutely. Danny must be laughing all the way to the bank, so fair play to him.

New video on the making of what's been one of my favourite games this year, The Forgotten City.

That should be a good watch. I really like all of his documentaries.

Knoyleo wrote:New video on the making of what's been one of my favourite games this year, The Forgotten City.

I’ve just started playing this and absolutely hooked! I’ve heard it’s quite short at around 8-10 hrs which suits me. Loving the Groundhog Day timeloop premise.