Noclip

Last updated
Noclip
Company typeMedia company
IndustryCrowdfunded documentaries
Founded2016
FounderDanny O'Dwyer

Noclip is a crowdfunded media company dedicated to creating video game documentaries and archiving video game media. It was founded by Danny O'Dwyer, an Irish video game journalist and documentary producer, in 2016, and is solely funded via Patreon donations.

Contents

History

Prior to starting Noclip, O'Dwyer gained recognition through his work as a host and producer on the video game website GameSpot, where he hosted shows including Escape from Mount Stupid, Random Encounter, The Point and The Lobby. [1] He was nominated as Trending Gamer of the Year at The Game Awards 2016. [2] [3]

On September 5, 2016, O'Dwyer created the YouTube channel for Noclip, releasing a trailer on September 12, 2016. In it, he says that "gamers deserve a media that reflects our passions, a press that uses its access to tell stories about how games get made, the people who play them, and the ways in which they affect our lives—stories that make us proud to be gamers." [4] The company's name comes from "noclip mode", a video game cheat that allows players to pass through walls. O'Dwyer said: "With [Noclip] we're going to walk through gaming's walls and take a peek at the other side." [4]

O'Dwyer was inspired to use crowd-funding instead of the traditional advertising model of most video game websites because he believes that a focus on clicks has influenced the quality of games journalism. [5] In a December 2016 video he said, "I want the only thing to matter about games coverage to be the quality of the videos, the quality of the work." [6] Noclip was launched via a Patreon campaign and is supported solely through crowdfunding; in 2019 more than 5,000 patrons were donating over $23,000 USD per month. [7]

O'Dwyer was contacted by a San Francisco-based media company in 2023 about a number of video tapes the company had but were about to throw them out. O'Dwyer recovered the boxes, finding they contained numerous video game media spanning the late 1990s to 2010, such as E3 conferences, game trailers, and footage of early game releases, most which had not previously been available on YouTube or other video sites. O'Dwyer and others with Noclip began a project to digitally capture the tapes and made them available through Noclip's YouTube channel and the Internet Archive. [8]

Documentaries

When filming documentaries, Noclip require that subjects have no control over the final documentary, giving the creators the ability to create a documentary free of the subject's influence. [9] O'Dwyer takes a laid back approach when interviewing subjects, encouraging them to be relaxed and open up about the topic of discussion. [9] Noclip documentaries do not run advertisements, with crowdfunding being the only source of income. [7]

Noclip's first project provided viewers with insight into Rocket League – the game was chosen as a deliberate middle-point between large AAA studios and indie games. [7] The second project covered a history of Doom , [10] [11] revealing some previously unreleased footage from Doom 4. [12] Other documentary subjects have included Final Fantasy XIV , Horizon Zero Dawn , GOG.com, [13] The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt , Astroneer , and the games of Bethesda Game Studios, [14] Arkane Studios, [15] Jonathan Blow, John Romero, and Brendan Greene. [7]

Related Research Articles

Arkane Studios SASU is a French video game developer based in Lyon. It was founded in 1999, and released its first game, Arx Fatalis, in 2002. Besides the Lyon studio, Arkane Lyon, Arkane Studios operated Arkane Studios LLC in Austin, Texas, from July 2006 until its closure in May 2024. The studio has created the popular Dishonored series as well as developing Prey (2017), Deathloop (2021) and Redfall (2023). Marvel's Blade is under development.

GameTrailers (GT) was an American video gaming website created by Geoffrey R. Grotz and Brandon Jones in 2002. The website specialized in multimedia content, including trailers and gameplay footage of upcoming and recently released video games, as well as an array of original video content focusing on video games, including reviews, countdown shows, and other web series.

<i>Spencer Halpins Moral Kombat</i> 2009 American film

Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat is a 2009 documentary film, directed by Spencer Halpin, an American independent filmmaker. The title of the film is in part a reference to the Mortal Kombat series of video games. The title was changed from Moral Kombat to Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat to avoid the risk of a lawsuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethesda Game Studios</span> American video game developer

Bethesda Game Studios is an American video game developer and a studio of ZeniMax Media based in Rockville, Maryland. It is best known for its action role-playing franchises, including The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield. Bethesda Game Studios was established in 2001 as the development unit of Bethesda Softworks, separating from publishing operations. Todd Howard serves as the studio's executive producer, leading it with managing director Ashley Cheng and studio director Angela Browder. As of November 2023, Bethesda Game Studios had 450 employees.

<i>Prey</i> (2017 video game) 2017 video game

Prey is a 2017 first-person shooter video game developed by Arkane Austin and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on May 5, 2017.

<i>LMNO</i> Cancelled video game

LMNO was the working title for a video game in development by Electronic Arts, notable for Steven Spielberg's involvement in the project.

<i>Doom</i> (2016 video game) First-person shooter

Doom is a 2016 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is the first major installment in the Doom series since 2004's Doom 3 and was a reboot of the franchise. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in May 2016. A port for Nintendo Switch was co-developed with Panic Button and released in November 2017, and a version for Google Stadia was released in August 2020. Players take the role of an unnamed space marine, known as the "Doom Slayer", as he battles demonic forces within an energy-mining facility on Mars and in Hell.

<i>Angry Video Game Nerd</i> Comedy web series about video games

The Angry Video Game Nerd, originally known as The Angry Nintendo Nerd, is an American retrogaming review comedy web series created by and starring James Rolfe. The series centers on Rolfe's titular skit character, often simply shortened to "the Nerd", a short-tempered and foul-mouthed gamer who delivers commentary on retro games of poor quality. While the series began with Rolfe simply playing games while providing retrospective commentary, the show has grown in scope to encompass sketches featuring guest characters, reviews of gaming consoles and peripherals, and short lectures about video game history and culture.

<i>Classic Game Room</i> Video game review show

Classic Game Room is a video game review web series produced, directed, edited and hosted by Mark Bussler of Inecom, LLC. The show reviewed both retro and modern video games along with gaming accessories, pinball machines, and minutiae such as gaming mousepads and food products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Miller (host)</span> American media personality

Gregory James Miller is an American media personality who came to prominence as a former editor and video host for the entertainment website IGN. He is the co-founder and CEO of the entertainment company Kinda Funny, and has been employed by WWE as a host since 2022.

Matthew "Mat" Taylor, better known by his YouTube handle Techmoan, is a British YouTuber and blogger, specializing in consumer tech reviews and retrotech documentaries about technology of historical interest.

<i>Outer Wilds</i> 2019 video game

Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure video game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the player character as they explore a planetary system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that resets after the sun goes supernova and destroys the system. Through repeated attempts they investigate the alien ruins of the Nomai to discover their history and the cause of the time loop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Benjamin</span> British YouTuber and political candidate

Carl Benjamin, also known by his online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad, is a British right-wing YouTuber and political commentator. A former member of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), he was one of its unsuccessful candidates for the South West England constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinda Funny</span> Online entertainment company

Kinda Funny is an online entertainment company that produces videos and podcasts on video game culture, film, television, and comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Great War (YouTube channel)</span> History YouTube channel and web series

The Great War is a history YouTube channel and web series which covered the events of World War I week-by-week from July 2014 to November 2018, now focusing on the events that followed it in longer episodes. The Great War is operated and owned by Real Time History. The series debuted on July 28, 2014. It is currently hosted and written by Jesse Alexander, a Canadian historian. It has been previously hosted by American historian and actor Indy Neidell. The channel produced weekly content that follows the events that occurred one hundred years prior during the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mikey Neumann</span> American YouTuber

Mikey Neumann is an American YouTuber and video game writer. He is known for the channel FilmJoy, which hosts film criticism series Movies with Mikey. The series celebrates the positive elements of movies, and was nominated for the Outstanding Informational Series or Special Emmy in 2017.

<i>Game Makers Toolkit</i> YouTube channel about videogame design

Game Maker's Toolkit (GMTK) is a video game analysis video series created by British journalist Mark Brown. Beginning in 2014, the series examines video game design and aims to encourage developers to improve their craft. It is hosted on YouTube and funded via Patreon.

Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter games created and published by Valve. Since the release of the original Half-Life for Windows in 1998, several ports, expansion packs and sequels have been canceled, including projects developed by other studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Backrooms</span> Fictional location

The Backrooms are a fictional location originating from a 2019 4chan thread. One of the best known examples of the liminal space aesthetic, the Backrooms are usually portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional expanse of empty rooms, accessed by exiting reality.

Analog horror is a subgenre of horror fiction and an offshoot of the found footage film genre, said to have originated online during the late 2000s and early 2010s with web series such as No Through Road, Local 58, Gemini Home Entertainment, and Marble Hornets.

References

  1. "Farewell Danny O'Dwyer". Gamespot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  2. "2016 Game Award Nominees". Nominees - The Game Awards. The Game Awards. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  3. "Who's Your Trending Gamer?". YouTube. The Game Awards. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  4. 1 2 O'Dwyer, Danny (director) (September 12, 2016). Noclip Patreon Trailer - Crowdfunded Video Game Documentaries (YouTube video). Noclip - Video Game Documentaries. Event occurs at 24 seconds in. Retrieved September 11, 2021.
  5. Danny O'Dwyer (2016-11-29), The Problems With Games Media & Why I Started Noclip , retrieved 2016-12-13
  6. O'Quinn, Bronson (2016-12-12). "Danny O'Dwyer on the Problems with Games Journalism". Maze Rats. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Webster, Andrew (5 April 2019). "Noclip makes long-form gaming documentaries that break nearly every YouTube rule". The Verge. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  8. Richardson, Tom (July 10, 2023). "Video games: YouTube channel NoClip rescues tapes from landfill". BBC News . Retrieved July 22, 2023.
  9. 1 2 Cook, Adam (10 November 2017). "Meet the man behind YouTube sensation Noclip". Red Bull. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  10. Makuch, Eddie. "Why Doom 4 Was Canceled". Gamespot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  11. "Go to Hell and Back With DOOM: Resurrected | Nerdist". Nerdist. 2016-12-18. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  12. "Footage From Canceled Doom Game Shown In Doom Documentary". Game Informer. Archived from the original on December 15, 2016. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
  13. Tarason, Dominic (23 July 2018). "Noclip's latest documentary charts the rise of GOG". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  14. Roemer, Dan (31 May 2018). "Noclip will be going behind the scenes with Fallout 76 and Bethesda in their upcoming documentary series". Destructoid. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  15. Nunneley, Stephany (26 May 2020). "Arkane's canceled game The Crossing shown off in new documentary". VG247 . Retrieved 26 May 2020.