MyVidsDon'tSuck finals: My Thoughts (Opinions Ahoy!)

Hello folks. It's been a while since I've actually written a blog of this lenght, so I thought I would hone my writing skills (or perhaps lack thereof?) by addressing a very hot and somewhat controversial topic that are making it's rounds around the ScrewAttack site at this time. I'm of course speaking of the MyVidsDon'tSuck Contest. In this blog I will give a brief opinion of the contest as a whole, but I will mostly concentrate on the contest final between the Game Overthinker and Psychotaku, and the heavy discussions this final has caused.

When I first heard the idea for ScrewAttack's MyVidsDon'tSuck contest, I had high hopes. Think about it, ScrewAttack and it's community would pick out one lucky person to become the next ScrewAttack feature. That's just plain awesome of them. I knew that the ScrewAttack community, the g1s, had some very creative people in it, and I waited in anticipation to see what the g1s would put forth.

So, the day arrived, and I watched the previews for the final 8 participants in the contest. Alright, this will be cool! Okay, so the first show-off is between Director Toby and The Other Castle...

...wait, who? Who are these guys? I can't remember them from the blogs or the forums...

Yeah, while I didn't think about it back then, I've suddenly realized that this so-called "g1 contest" was actually more like a "independent Internet filmmakers contest". Not that it's bad in any way, as such a contest is a very neat way for us g1s to choose a new ScrewAttack feature. I just don't think that this is the supposed g1-centric contest that I thought it would be. It was simply not quite what I expected from the contest.

Okay, enough about that, let's get to the real meat of this... dinner.

I need to work on my metaphors.

Anyways, Psychotaku vs. Game Overthinker... okay, where do I start? Well, maybe I should just give my general thoughts on both of these contributors, and see where it goes from there.

I'll start of the the Game Overthinker. To be honest, while many people has criticized him for the way he presents his views on video games (with that whole slide-show thing), I really can't criticize him for that. It may look slightly cheap, but he manages to get his points across to the viewers that way, so who am I to complain? Well, while the presentation is okay, it's WHAT he's presenting that makes me a little more... shall we say... disapproving of him. And no, it's not because my personal opinions differs from his or anything like that. In fact, I found myself agreeing a lot with what he said in his final vid about video game violence. It's just that the way he presents it... I dunno about you, but I feel like he's not taking his viewers seriously. It is something about him that I find smug and pretentious... although I can't really pinpoint it. It's just the vibe that I get from him. And I don't like it. Also, while I can agree with GO on some issues, I feel like the stuff he presents are something that most people already know about. It just feels slightly redundant to listen to GO lecture me on subjects I already thought was common knowledge for 10 minutes.

Now, let's see what I has to say about Psychotaku (BTW, c'mon SA, can't you just learn to spell his name correctly by now?). Here's a show that's on the opposite end on the entertainment scale in relation to the Game Overthinker. No I didn't now just say that GO isn't entertaining. What I mean is that GO is based around entertaining via educating. PO is more like pure entertainment, with over-the-top characters and characterizations. And I just really like the premise of the show. Watching an obviously insane Japanese "supervillain" of sorts taking over public access shows to present the games that most of us will never get a hold of. This is another stark contrast to GO, who I've already claimed that he presents nothing new to the table, while PO gives me a look at a gaming culture which I find very interesting. Although to be quite fair, I think that JewWario's "You Can Play This!" show over at ThatGuyWithTheGlasses does an even better job at both entertaining me and teaching me about Japanese import gaming. But I digress.

So, as you can guess, I'm more of a Psychotaku fan rather than a Game Overthinker fan. With that being said, let's move on to the finals videos that both of these filmmakers presented.

For Game Overthinker's entry on the whole "Violence in Gaming" debate, I feel like it's the best video of all the submitted videos that I've previously seen from him. I absolutely felt annoyed by that high-pitched chipmunk thing in his previous videos, who even didn't discuss things that were all that relevant to the subject at hand. By trading this annoyance with a more viewer-friendly Black Mage who make remarks via text boxes was a huge step up from his previous attempts. I also enjoy the fact that GO shows no remorse to make fun of his own clichés in his videos. And with regards to the subject matter at hand, he does present some valid opinions regarding violence in gaming. Problem is, I knew most of that stuff from before, and nothing that he said changed my original viewpoint on the subject. I thought the GO was supposed to make us think about our stance on certain issues, and not just hammer in stuff that we already knew beforehand. I don't feel particularly enlightened by his video, which means that, at some point, he messed up. How can I vote for a show that doesn't even fulfill it's own premise?

As for Psychotaku... to be honest, I see much the same thing I saw with the two previous videos, only with a different game. And while I still find that amusing, I do fear that, at some point, this may become stale in the long run. I can not predict whether a show will grow on me or not. Therefore, I hope that the creators of Psychotaku manage to freshen the show up in the future. I don't know how, but I just hope they do. I like Psychotaku now, but who knows if I will like them in the future? That's my main concern with this show.

Okay, I think I've pretty much made my points about this subject. I've talked about my slight disappointment with the contest at hand, I've given my own opinion on the final two contestants, and I've also discussed their final entries. But there is one more thing that I would like to point out... namely, the relationship between the final contestants and the g1s.

Yes, this might be a slightly odd subject to bring forth, but I just want to voice one of my observations. If you'd paid any attention to the voting threads on the forums, you'd notice that there's been a lot of foul words thrown about, and criticisms of both shows have been voiced by the people, some of them valid, and some of them just plain silly. But I also noticed one thing: I never saw MovieBob (the creator of the Game Overthinker, if you didn't know already) respond to the criticisms that his show has garnered. And yes, I've checked; he has a g1 account on this site, and he has visited the forums within the last 24 hours, which makes me think that he does pay attention to what's happening in the contest. So he's there, he just doesn't respond to any of his critics.

Psychotaku, on the other hand, has, to some extent. He's actually responded to some of the posts on the forums. He's thanked the g1s and the fans who's supported him. Heck, he's even made a response in a thread which doesn't even concern the MyVidsDon'tSuck contest. This may seem trivial to you, but to me it isn't. To me, it shows that the creators behind Psychotaku are actually willing to be actual members of the g1 community, as opposed to just being some video maker who's videos happens to be on ScrewAttack. I like stuff like that. It shows that the creators behind a feature aren't just that, they're also people who wants to hang out with you, discuss things that aren't necessarily about their videos, but also taking suggestions and listening to your thoughts about their product. I just feel like they can be even more approachable this way. And strengthening the ties between feature creators and the fans are just A-OK in my book!

So there you have it. Now, I know that this entire blog looks more like a pro-Psychotaku praisefest than anything else. It's just that these are my opinions on the matter. And as everyone knows, opinions are never unbiased, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't respect them. Besides, the Game Overthinker is not a BAD show, it's just... redundant.

So, what are my final thoughts? Despite the outcome, no matter who wins or loses... I sure as hell hope that ThatGuyWithTheGlasses has paid any attention to this contest, because some of the eliminated features should be picked up by someone!

Please let it be Rockumentary...