ideas

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas spends months in the virtual world Decentraland and delivers a long critique of the metaverse, NFTs and DAOs, and why virtual worlds fail as places.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas investigates the Mikkelsen Twins and the ghostwritten-audiobook passive-income course industry, even playing along with the scheme. It is a long video essay on get-rich-quick publishing grifts.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas critiques Fortnite's monetization, arguing it uses manufactured discontent, such as shop design and skins, to push spending. The video dissects the psychological techniques behind the game's business model.

Folding Ideas examines weird, algorithm-gamed children's content on YouTube, from automated toddler videos and educational spam to exploitative prank channels. It looks at how autoplay and recommendation systems reward this material.

Innuendo Studios uses Phil Fish, creator of the game Fez, as a case study in internet celebrity. The essay argues that fame online works differently from traditional fame, and shows how audiences turn on the people they have elevated.

The first part of Innuendo Studios' six-part video essay series on the online hostility around Anita Sarkeesian and GamerGate. It lays out the history and the motivations of the people involved.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms makes a 76-minute argument that selling video games as a service is a form of consumer fraud. He lays out legal arguments that games are goods, covers ownership and programmed obsolescence, and discusses game preservation.

Miniminuteman begins a long, humorous point-by-point debunking of Graham Hancock's Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse and its claims of a lost ice-age civilization. It is part one of a multi-part critique.

Ross Scott's Game Dungeon episode on Deus Ex, a long review of the game covering its narrative, politics and economic philosophy as well as its design.

Razbuten has his wife, who has never played games, try a sampling of titles and shows where she struggles. It highlights unspoken game conventions that experienced players take for granted.

A videogamedunkey video essay on video game critics. It argues that a critic's taste and integrity matter as much as their score, and tries to explain why major outlets give such inflated ratings.

SsethTzeentach reviews Space Station 13, the chaotic multiplayer game, by recounting absurd stories of singularities, malfunctioning AIs and plasma fires.

MrBtongue argues that modern theme-park MMOs lost what made earlier sandbox online games compelling, and that MMOs could be saved by returning to sandbox design.

A short, music-driven video built from Neil deGrasse Tyson's remarks on why advancing the space frontier matters, contrasting NASA's small budget with war spending and stressing inspiration.

Physicist Angela Collier's nearly three-hour critique of Richard Feynman's public legacy. She examines how his books, written with Ralph Leighton, shaped a mythologized great-man image, and covers his personal behavior.

A 70-minute video essay by Jimmy McGee on gambling, addiction and game design, tracing horse racing, slot machines and collectible card markets. It is the first in a series on making money from games.

Ross Scott's Game Dungeon episode critiques Deus Ex: Human Revolution, looking at its design, politics and visual style. It is part of his series of opinionated game reviews.

CGP Grey argues that a classroom works well only for the one student pitched at the average level, and sketches a future of personalized instruction. It introduces the idea of a Digital Aristotle, a tutor for every learner.

Egoraptor's Sequelitis compares Mega Man Classic and Mega Man X, analyzing how the games teach players through level design without explicit tutorials. It mixes comedy with design analysis.

The opening episode of Ted Nelson's Computers for Cynics series, in which he casts doubt on conventional accounts of computer basics. He argues that conventions and packaging are mistaken for technology.

Jacob Geller's video essay examines how architecture in schools and in video games, such as cover shooters, is shaped by violence. It touches on brutalism, campus policing and protests.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms lays out a campaign to stop publishers from permanently shutting down games, using The Crew as the test case. He covers government initiatives and the legal options, and the stopkillinggames.com site.

A video essay from lawyer-turned-YouTuber Moon Channel on the South Korean gender war, tracing its historical roots and modern origins through the lens of a gacha game controversy. It is the first part of a two-part series.

Coffeezilla investigates Counter-Strike skin gambling, the role of Valve and the legal and PR response, including effects on minors.

A Jimquisition episode examining the human cost of predatory videogame monetization, focusing on loot boxes and microtransactions. It features testimonials from people harmed by gambling-style game mechanics.

A long video essay by Kraut arguing that Trump's biggest failure was his handling of China. It spends much of its length on Chinese history, culture, the trade war, and the rise of a communist superpower.

A short clip of Steve Jobs arguing that the best people are self-managing and that professional managers who cannot do the work add little. He says leadership is about a shared vision.

Freya Holmer delivers a long critique of generative AI, arguing it degrades the internet by flooding it with machine-generated junk. The video grew out of her frustration finding reliable information about a technical file format.

Day9 gives a passionate first look at what his StarCraft: Brood War Remastered series will teach. He argues Brood War is primarily a real-time game and only secondarily a strategy game, making the commander fantasy a matter of mechanics.

The Game Theorists analyze how PewDiePie rose to become the most subscribed channel on YouTube. The video looks at why let's plays and gaming channels thrive on the platform.

A Technology Connections video essay arguing that algorithmic feeds make people passive about finding content, leading to complacency in how they seek information. It urges people to actively choose what they consume.

A video essay arguing that the next major real-time strategy game will fail unless it gets the fundamentals right. It covers the playerbase and demographics, what older RTS games did well, and the roles of the engine, spectacle, development tools and player-generated content.

Jacob Geller's video essay on empty cities and what they say about our relationship to places, using games, literature and aerial imagery. It touches on works such as Invisible Cities.

FitMC tells how the Nocom exploit let griefers track players across Minecraft's oldest anarchy server, 2b2t, and the fallout that followed.

ArtosisTV's commentary on Game 1 of DeepMind's AlphaStar (Protoss) against top Zerg player Serral at Blizzcon 2019. Artosis analyzes the match with beginner-friendly commentary.

A 1996 clip of Steve Jobs saying that Microsoft lacks taste and is not a creative company.

A short clip of Steve Jobs explaining why Xerox failed, arguing that product people lose out to sales and marketing people once a company becomes dominant.

A Jimquisition episode by Jim Sterling demonstrating the Copyright Deadlock, where a video includes footage owned by several companies so that competing YouTube Content ID claims cancel each other out. It highlights how absurd the system is.

A one-minute clip of Steve Jobs saying Microsoft has no taste. It is vintage interview footage about design and product sensibility.

A video essay by Tom Nicholas critiquing Elon Musk's futurism, covering SpaceX's Mars plans, Tesla versus Ford and the idea of a slow cancellation of the future. It asks whom Musk's vision of the future serves.