Games Media in Review: Noclip
Video game documentaries covering who exactly?
Noclip began in 2016. Danny O'Dwyer had worked at GameSpot in its UK and San Francisco offices from August 2011 until September 2016 when he joined the growing number of independent games media groups on Patreon to launch his own take, a “crowdfunded YouTube channel that films and produces documentaries about video game history and design.” As of this writing they have 3,935 paid members with a minimum funding level of $5 creating an estimated gross earning of $19,675 monthly from Patreon. Danny O’Dwyer remains the face and voice but is most often credited alongside Frank Howley, Jeremy Jayne, and Jesse Guarascia in the most recent videos. I myself was a patron from September 2016 to January 2019. My strongest memory of that time was during E3 2018. Noclip announced it was going to be premiering a documentary on the making of Fallout 76, a game that had not yet been released. Both the timing and pre-release status of the game really made me confused as to why this decision was made. Pre-release coverage of games are always filtered through corporate lenses, and announcing it around the huge PR push that is E3 didn’t help it stink any less like a piece of promotional marketing material. Then the game comes out and has a disastrous launch which doesn’t help. Right now they are covering another game that has yet to be released, Hyper Light Breaker. This doesn’t really raise any eyebrows comparatively due to being broken into multiple updates over the past year-plus of development, as well as Heart Machine not being a huge company like Zenimax. I don’t remember why I stopped supporting the channel. Most likely it became successful enough that I thought my money would be better spent on less successful patreons, or maybe I just found I wasn’t watching the channel enough to justify sending my $1.
What sets Noclip apart from similar channels are: 1.) They are a channel solely dedicated to producing videos where they talk to developers about the making of a specific game or the history of a specific studio. Other games websites and YouTube channels do similar things but either they are multifaceted in their daily operation (such as an IGN or GameSpot) or lack access to primary sources.1 2.) They have high production value. Their cameras and audio equipment are of a professional quality and you can definitely tell when they are forced to use a microphone or video footage that is not theirs. The gap in quality between the two makes it clear that they have good equipment and know how to use it. They try to match this quality in their gameplay capture as well. For older games this means utilizing fan made mods and patches that get old PC games running at modern resolutions on modern hardware, which brings up some questions later.
As a “documentary” channel, they sit amongst a wide variety of documentaries. You have the traditional film documentaries of The Decline of Western Civilization, Strange Victories, and Hoop Dreams, and then the realm of YouTube, with other similar channels such as Defunctland’s Disney’s Fast Pass: A Complicated History, GVMERS’ “The Rise and Fall of [X]”, Double Fine & 2 Player Productions PsychOdyssey, internally produced promotional material such as God of War - Raising Kratos: Full Length Feature and commissioned “making of” videos such as Grounded: The Making of the Last of Us2. The latter type of content Noclip recently engaged in by creating a sister company: Secret Tape. This company premiered alongside a paid making-of documentary of Half-Life for its 25th anniversary, which makes sense considering the two most popular videos currently on Noclip’s channel are on Half-Life and its remake mod-turned-commercial-product Black Mesa.
Each individual video will be on its own topic, which makes each video’s value even more subjective to the viewer and their interest/familiarity with the subject at hand. The best documentaries are able to create interest in their subject in even the skeptical, but I don’t think that is something that occurs in these videos. It is also very difficult to escape the standard narrative of video game development, and you will notice the format and flow of each doc feels very similar.
Something such as the Returning to Monkey Island - Noclip Documentary has some interesting tidbits for myself, one with no love or interest in the subject, and nothing much beyond that. I did really appreciate their video on DMA Design, the original developer of the Grand Theft Auto series. They cover the developer from their origins up to the release of Grand Theft Auto III. Since Grand Theft Auto III is one of the biggest and most well known games in history, framing the documentary as a sort of ascension to that pinnacle makes it more interesting as a journey, revealing along the way that while DMA Design were credited on early copies of Grand Theft Auto III it was the end of that specific team of developers. One little bit I enjoyed was an admission that the belief that NPC’s had detailed schedules to follow in the original duology of Grand Theft Auto games was artificial and largely bullshit, something that is applicable to even the latest Rockstar game, Red Dead Redemption 2.
The most outstanding work Noclip is currently doing is their preservation of old game tapes they obtained from GameSpot after the latter's new owner, Fandom, sought to simply trash the entire collection of decades of footage, as they presumably saw no commercial value in keeping them. These are the same “game tapes” used in Giant Bomb’s old Game Tapes show in which they would watch old E3 conferences, Nintendo’s showings at Space World, B-roll, press kits, and other miscellaneous footage. I cannot praise Noclip enough for putting in the work to record and upload the footage in the best quality available for all to use. I also cannot condemn Fandom enough for intending to simply erase these from existence.
Noclip not only produces their documentaries but also have a few other avenues of publishing both on YouTube in the form of Quick Looks which, despite his closeness with Giant Bomb (being an unofficial member throughout his time at GameSpot in my mind) it still seems a little weird to be using that branding. And as with any outlet, they also have a podcast. A recent episode of said podcast opened up a line of thinking that really kickstarted my approach to covering Noclip. On the May 10, 2024 episode of their Crewcast podcast Danny brings up some of the talk in the aftermath of Arkane Austin’s closure by Microsoft. Specifically bafflement and annoyance at the mention that Arkane Austin saw significant loss of talent between the release of Prey and Redfall. There was an estimation that 70% of the staff for Prey were gone by the release of Redfall, an indication that the studio was suffering internally. The source of this was a Bloomberg report by Jason Schreier, though Danny believed it to be unfounded reddit rumors.
This is not the first time Danny talking off the cuff has led to some confusion as a listener. Back in September of 2022 YouTuber Dunkey announced he was launching a game publishing company named Big Mode and later announced he had signed, as their first client, Billy Basso’s Animal Well. Danny was one of the many online who voiced some criticism/confusion at a YouTuber turning game publisher. This was mostly due to Dunkey’s phrasing that his experience playing and covering games in YouTube videos meant he knew how to find and publish good games (on top of occasionally antagonizing games media folks in videos and playing into an already tense relationship between traditional games press and the YouTube influencer generation). Danny was specifically more confused as to the case of ethics behind Dunkey, someone who made videos covering video games, now having a financial investment in, as of this writing, one video game. Danny made a video titled, “How Should I Feel about Dunkey Publishing Games?” which, upon rewatching this past week, it is still not clear to me what exactly is being asked or pushed as wrong, just conjecture and what-ifs.
I mention these incidents as they both show the risk of talking off the cuff3, mainly that you will either say something simply wrong (Redfall staff attrition was made up) or just confusing in and of itself (whatever was being pushed in the Dunkey video). There is also a lack of follow up in both of these instances. Others had pointed out to Danny in YouTube comments and on Twitter that the story about Redfall’s staff attrition was not made up but actually sourced from that Bloomberg report. As of this writing he acknowledged the article with a tweet saying, “Thanks! I’ll give it a read,” but no other follow up. He sidestepped any lengthy discussion about Dunkey’s involvement in publishing Animal Well when the game was discussed on the May 17, 2024 episode of the podcast, though did acknowledge his original befuddlement. Animal Well’s release, and subsequent critical reception, disproved many who were doubtful that Dunkey would be able to successfully serve as game publisher4. Not that the original fears were unfounded, but my original take at the time was:
His response to the Redfall comments also set off a chain of questions that guided a lot of my subsequent perspectives on their output. Mainly, who are they talking to? And how high up on the development studio ladder are they? Because yes, when I went through the list of talking heads featured in Noclip’s video on Prey and then compared them to the credits listed on Redfall (thanks eternally to MobyGames and its users for all their contributions to these kinds of things) all the people in the Prey video were credited on Redfall. But you also notice something else: all of these people were team leads.
Here is who is featured in the Noclip video with their Prey credit via MobyGames
Gameplay Engineer Andrew Brown (NoClip lists as Lead Gameplay Engineer)
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare
Lead Engineer Stevan Hird
Lead Level Architect Karen Welford Segars
Lead Level Designer Rich Wilson
Lead Producer Susan Kath
Level Designer Anthony Huso (NoClip lists as Lead Level Designer)
Playtesters Harvey Smith (NoClip lists as Studio Head)
President Raphaël Colantonio (NoClip lists as Founder/Former President)
QA Lead Amber Hoffman
You then read the Bloomberg report, in which it is stated, “Filling vacancies became a challenge. Within the industry, ZeniMax had a reputation for paying lower than average salaries...” As the head of a team, your salary will be greater than a regular team member, meaning you had a greater incentive to stick around than those at the bottom of the ladder who could find better and more fulfilling opportunities elsewhere. “Since Redfall wasn’t yet announced, the studio couldn’t describe its details to prospective employees — a predicament that exacerbated the staffing issues, sources familiar with the process said. Arkane wanted to hire recruits with experience on multiplayer shooters, but the people who applied were by and large looking to work on single-player immersive sims.”
Danny did not recognize this loss of talent because he was only focused on who he talked to, who were people such as studio head Harvey Smith and founder/former president Raphaël Colantonio, and not someone under “additional character art” who was not around for Redfall’s launch. This line of thinking also calls to mind the lack of proper accreditation in video games, as those who contribute work, but are not present at launch, largely get ignored when it comes to the game’s credits. Danny will often talk about wanting to show the people who are making the games we play but mainly focuses on the people on the higher rungs of the development studio ladder. Which, yes, makes sense in terms of they will have a better overall view on the game’s development, but I think there is still much value to be found in talking to someone who is not a team lead and simply did their work week in and week out, to make sure the game released in the best shape it could. Speaking to everyone, something Geoff Keighley states with pride when recalling his time with Valve for his documentary write up “The Final Hours of Half-Life5,” is impossible today. There are over 500 credited individuals who worked on Prey compared to the team of 34 for Half-Life. That should still not stop an outlet like Noclip from talking to more than just the team leads, and I know there are many more spoken to who do not appear on camera but maybe that too, who gets to be featured, should change. I also want to point towards Noclip doing coverage on much, much smaller games as well, such as Gavin Eisenbeisz who made Choo Choo Charles and Outerloop Games who made Falcon Age to show they are not only covering the most well known games, just tend to do so.
In that Bloomberg report you’ll also read, “Developers under Smith and Bare said the two leads were outwardly excited but as the project progressed failed to provide clear direction. Staff members said that, over time, they grew frustrated with management’s frequently shifting references to other games, such as Far Cry and Borderlands, that left each department with varying ideas of what exactly they were making. Throughout the development, the fundamental tension between single-player and multiplayer design remained unresolved. Smith and Bare did not respond to requests for comment.” Is this something you would ever hear in a Noclip documentary? Even if that belief existed while you were interviewing, would anyone be willing to go on camera and state it outright? In most reporting such as this you’ll nearly always find the disclaimer, “speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly,” because very rarely is anyone willing to speak on the record for fear of damaging their future career prospects. Just because nobody is talking to you about it though doesn’t mean this attitude doesn’t exist. How often do we act surprised when we find out a beloved developer actually had a toxic workplace when it comes to worker treatment in relation to labor and gender and race?
I believe there is also a blind spot at Noclip when it comes to older titles. A majority of the games covered by the channel were released between 2012 and our present time. With the release of the iPhone app store, digital distribution, and the opening up of platforms like Steam to allow more and more people to publish their games for the mass market, we have seen an explosion of releases where there are more games being released each year than many generations previously combined. However, I think with a channel that has established it has access to primary sources and as more and more of the developers of the first generations of video games pass away, there should be a larger focus on those earlier games. They have mentioned a project on Amiga games, but right now the earliest games that have their own dedicated video (not part of a developer retrospective) are mostly due to the patrons picking them as part of the “Greatest Hits” internal branding and are from 1993 onwards.
Mapping the games covered by the channel there is also an accumulation centering on the “good” games. Pretty much all games spotlighted fall above the 80 mark on Metacritic. A trend like this just reinforces a traditional canon of games6, whereas I would prefer an outlet that seeks out “bad” games as well. I understand it can be difficult to approach someone and have them talk about how they made the “bad” video game. There are individuals who acknowledge that sure, they worked on a game that had intense negative reception, but it was just a job and hearing someone enjoy it for what it was, ironically or not, is fulfilling for them. You can see my Rogue Warrior video for evidence of a developer doing just this. I also think the point of Patreon funding is that you can take risks and do things that are not focused on getting the most numbers on YouTube views. Sometimes it feels as though the numbers chasing is still what contributes to the decisions behind what’s covered given the consistency in what games have been covered in this regard. When speaking about Black & White Danny asks why a game like this has been abandoned but his output of game docs is mostly concerned with contemporary releases. Four of the eight pre-2004 titles covered on Noclip are only due to the “Greatest Hits” branding (which also resulted in the video on DMA Design, their best of recent uploads), which is a vote by their audience and not them outright picking something. Isn’t that telling?
Sometimes it can be difficult to watch these videos as someone more angled towards the critic approach than the documentarian when thinking about games and hearing statements from the people who made them. The most baffling statement I came across was Sam Barlow on film noir in their Immortality video, “Thinking about Ambrosio and the original book, The Monk, and the extent to which that book is essentially a film noir. You have the authority figure, the cop, who is in this a monk, who's supposed to be the most moral and upholding all of the laws. And then he's introduced to the femme fatale, Matilda, who essentially then just destroys him and makes him commit every crime under the sun. But thinking about the extent to which that book from the 17th century sets up, you know, has this tradition and all the tropes of being a film noir.” And I don’t think any of that is an aspect of the film noir genre. Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, Humphrey Bogart in A Lonely Place, destroyed by a woman and not themselves! Men who are supposed to be the most moral and upholding all of the laws!
Documentarians and journalists have similar responsibilities and goals, to present the truth, though sometimes the approach ends up being just asking questions and offering absolutely no pushback or follow ups or disagreements on what is being stated. Something like New Blood Interactive claiming to have donated all money made on sales of Super Galaxy Squadron to Child’s Play charity, you gotta follow up on that! As we have now seen with the Completionist scenario that you shouldn’t let things like this get said without verifying it, or else you end up playing into the illusory truth effect and reinforce a falsehood. Very comedically Noclip has a video of Jirard on their channel too! This was months before the accusations came out. It is a nothing video in regards to that drama, just a behind the scenes footage of the near-canceled indie MIX event at Summer Games Fest 2023 that ended up using Jirard’s studio to show off games in progress as their original venue was shut down for not having correct permits.
You shouldn’t be afraid of plainly stating that piracy and emulation are the reasons why games like Black & White are still available to be played by anyone in our current year, or that you were able to get high definition gameplay footage of Thief because of fan mods/patches, and also would be nice to credit them in the description. Another helpful thing would be listing out the individuals you’ve talked to in each video, as that text goes a long way in easing the search for interviews with specific people. Why are we so afraid of talking about piracy, even of long abandoned titles? Is it because Nintendo is responsible for committing an individual to a lifetime of poverty for daring to do work for a group pirating software for Nintendo’s Switch console, a console and ecosystem that has been more successful than all of Nintendo’s previous hardware and software efforts combined? Why don’t we talk about this more?
A benefit I kept thinking about is how having an even older games media individual helping on projects would be they are more likely to recall non-indexed sources and context and ask different questions that wouldn’t be thought of otherwise. A familiarity with the landscape while it was happening is how I’m able to cite the section of a Giant Bomb at Nite episode wherein Jeff Gerstmann and Austin Walker both displayed their concerns of becoming a marketing tool following Danny’s Fallout 76 announcement. Jeff Gerstmann himself is someone who has been around and can recall and contextualize the events during the many years he has been involved in covering video games, a large part of his appeal today. It’s too bad that there are not many, if any, from a time period such as the 1990’s or even older, as the NES was in the 80s, and the Atari before that. Why is that? Why aren’t there more games media people who have had a long career active in covering games? Is it because it is a very volatile landscape? Because your website might just get shut down and everyone laid off? Because your website might get acquired by another company and layoff those it no longer feels they need? Because you might get fired for giving a bad score in a review (and again for daring to put in your two weeks notice)? Because you might have been forced to publish a story with false information? Because you were subject to sexual harassment and belittlement by those around and/or above you? Because you’ve gotten an offer to work for a developer/publisher and they pay more and it means you no longer have to deal with the bullshit of editors, commentators, another long weekend playing a game for review with time you’re not getting compensated for? And if you’re not a staff at a website but a freelancer you’re buying a game yourself, spending the time playing it, writing about it, and pitching editors about it, all for a slim chance you’ll get published and an even slimmer chance you’ll actually get paid adequately or on time (if at all). No wonder those who generate enough of an audience go onto Patreon for funding and independence rather than continuing to wait around to eventually be laid off.
As a review, a critique, of Noclip I understand most of what I’ve written probably gives the idea that I don’t like the channel, but I do think it is a valuable source for game fans and critics. I think it would just benefit from being mindful of some of its blind spots in how they approach their subjects and the process itself. And once again, I cannot praise them enough for the preservation efforts in regards to the game tapes. It has been very valuable to me personally in my own research efforts and only exists because they were willing to take on the cost in both funds and manpower to do it.
Such as the many YouTube channels that make videos covering a specific game or studio’s history/development and rely purely on secondary sources such as published interviews, articles, or other video documentaries such as one from Noclip.
This specific making-of documentary was produced by Area5, a company created in the aftermath of the closure of Electronic Gaming Monthly in 2009 and mass layoffs for its website, 1Up.com. The company first attempted to continue its brand of video game coverage that was previously known as The 1Up Show under the title, “CO-OP” and produced one season for Revision3 before transitioning into for-hire work by publishers. I presume they have also done much work uncredited and untalked about as a decade long gap exists in their credited work. They did utilize Kickstarter in 2014 for a series of videos covering video games and their culture called “Outerlands” but as of this writing remains unavailable in whatever form it may exist in to those who did not financially back the project. Reading the Kickstarter comments, however, you’ll see many voice their displeasure with the lack of communication despite handing over funds. To me, Area5 is one of the closest to Noclip in terms of production quality, though Noclip has been much more transparent and prolific in their work.
Which nobody is good at. If I were asked to upload a soapbox unscripted it would be illegible blabbering as well. The difference is Danny wasn’t being asked to upload that video, he did it out of his own desire to talk about it even if it wasn’t clear what the purpose was.
As opposed to becoming a game publisher through the “traditional route” offered by Jason Schreier in this sarcastic tweet from the time of Big Mode’s announcement: https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1572947033983418369.
Isn’t it sad how an important early piece of games journalism such as this needs to be properly preserved by a fan and not the company GameSpot that still exists today?
Restating this here: we have three Half-Life videos: one on the original game without Valve’s involvement in making the documentary, another about the mod-turned-product Black Mesa, and a commissioned 25th anniversary documentary by Valve for Noclip’s sister company Secret Tapes.