Extra Credits

James goes backstage to interview Anamanaguchi at PAX 2010.

PAX 2010 Panel discussion with James Portnow, James Ernest, Nicole Lazzaro and Steve Jackson.

James interviews Jeff Pobst from Hidden Path Entertainment at PAX 2010.

PAX 2010 Panel discussion on becoming a game writer.

James interviews Richard Garfield & James Ernest at PAX 2010.

James interviews author Rusel DeMaria at PAX 2010.

Sign a petition to have the ESA remove their support from SOPA/PIPA. Ask your favorite gaming websites and youtube channel to join the cause by not attending and covering E3 this year until the ESA changes their stance on SOPA and PIPA! If they truly apposed this legislation the last thing they want to do is support an entity that spent $190,000 on PIPA lobbying.

Since artist Scott DeWitt couldn't join the rest of the Extra Credits crew for PAX 2015, he animated a short, educational video about how the show gets made and what it's like being an artist for EC.

Extra Politics is an 8-episode mini-series exploring the United States political system from a game design perspective. Today we're discussing why candidates spend their action points during the election cycle in bizarre but interesting ways.

Today we discuss what a win chart is, and how win charts explain why election polls aren't always accurate--or in some cases, completely inaccurate.

Today we're learning about the structural powerups built into US elections that give advantages to whoever is currently losing the race.

Today we talk about why we need stable social rules in order for our political system to work.

Today we talk about what cheating in a political system looks like, and how we can counter cheating!

Today we talk about how checks and balances in our government should work, and why they aren't right now.

Today we discover why, if a rule is missing, any of our political "mini-games" (such as electing someone to office) can break the designer's intent.

Today we talk about how to fix gerrymandering, which is probably the biggest exploit we have in US politics.

The Extra Credits team is going to be celebrating LGBTQIA+ Pride Month by playing games and hanging out with all of you on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/extracredits all day today! We'll be roughly following the schedule below, so tune in to chat with the crew!

The D&D one shot is nearly here! Thank you all so much for your generosity during our charity livestream. Now we get to show you our appreciation by having Matt, Ali, Jac, Will, and Geoff dive into a dungeon to wrangle some monstrosity in a one-shot run by Arthur. We've been working on this for a while, and we can't wait to share it with all of you.

Welcome to the return of Extra Politics! We'll be examining different problems in our political systems for the next 4 weeks, right up until the election. We're using the lens of game design to understand how our political systems are constructed, how certain mechanics interact, and what patch notes might be helpful for the future. First up: social media. We all know that misinformation is rampant online but how does that impact our democracy? What can we do to try and fix bot farms? Is there any way to start valuing more valid sources of information over things that get clicks like fear and outrage?