Extra Credits is a web-series started by Daniel Floyd. The episodes are generally written by video game developer James Portnow, and narrated by Daniel’s high-pitched voice. The topics have always been about video games, ranging from advice for aspiring video game developers, critics about the state of the industry, addressing issues within the community, and looking into the psychology of video games.

I began watching the series in 2010 just after starting university. As someone who played a lot video games at the time and wanted to become a video game developer eventually I was ecstatic to find a smart show about video games from people involved in the industry.

Extra Credits have discussed a lot of topics that will be useful to refer to in a video game developer’s career. They’ve looked at poor game designs like using Skinner Box reward systems to keep its players to keep playing instead of using a genuinely rewarding system. Issues with how gender, race, and sexuality have been portrayed in games have been addressed. Extra Credits have covered other concepts useful for developers to learn, such as the concept of failing faster and proper software testing.

As I go forth with my career I’ll be sure to keep what I’ve learnt from Extra Credits in mind, and hopefully these lessons will take me far!