4: Deadlock: The debate without progress

Post 4: Deadlock



Matthew Robert "Mat" Patrick (more commonly referred to as "Matpat") is an American internet personality, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known as the creator and narrator of the YouTube web series Game Theory, where he comments on topics such as the logic, scientific accuracy, and lore of various video games and the gaming industry. He is also known for creating the spinoff Film Theory, centring around cinema and internet filmography.

My specific points today will be regarding one of the spin-off shows done on Game Theory is known as "Deadlock". Deadlock is a debate show where 2 people take completely opposed sides and argue their points on a stage. Points made will "damage the opponent's health bar" for the first few episodes. The episodes have covered topics such as The SNES vs Genesis, Best Pokémon starter, Is Dark Souls good etc.

Now there are other aspects of Game theory people have criticized, but I want to focus specifically on Deadlock.

Now Deadlock's biggest strength and limitation is its format. I would describe the show as "The Debate Version of a rap battle". This is because the show focuses on rapidly firing simple points in quick succession and requires snappy comebacks and exaggerated points. This is exemplified by the "health bars" in the earlier debates, Matpat and his colleagues saying boldly if a game "sucks" despite liking the game in other shows (Dark Souls comes to mind), and even Matpat saying "it's all about being mean" in character on the debate regarding games journalism.

My point is that Deadlock is about this big debate back and forth. If you've gone to actual debates, you'll realize that more traditional debates tend to be more "centralized". Here's what I mean:

Deadlock has these over the top presentation and performances that are fine and actually pretty fun when discussing more "trivial" topics like the SNES vs Genesis and Pokemon starters (at least in theory) because the style can reflect the over the top rivalries and the points have that back and forth quality to them. However, when discussing more "practical" and relevant topics like TF2 vs Overwatch, and the quality of DS and Crash, the format's flaws start showing up. Namely, the over the top black vs white style naturally disregards many nuances and common ground or even just mundane points.

Here's what I mean, contrast MisterCaption's video on TF2 vs Overwatch with Deadlock's. You'll see that Caption takes a long time setting up individual points, playing long through scenarios and providing theory behind his points. In other words, even if you've never played these games, you can follow along with Caption and see how he arrived at his points. By comparison, Deadlock, if we continue with the rapper analogy, to do same would have one rapper spend 10 minutes setting up the context before dropping the burn which takes 3 minutes to explain. Dark Souls has most of Jared's complaints be about how frustrating the game is rather than things like the game's apathetic nature, redundancies in combat or any other criticism beyond what can apply on the surface.


So yeah, Deadlock wouldn't flow as smooth then.

So at best, Deadlock would be a snappy "x has this" in video form. Now like I said earlier, this is fine for the trivial stuff but doesn't really flow for the more practical stuff.


So how would I change Deadlock if I were in charge of it?

I have 2 solutions:

The first is to double down the first part. Take cues from "Epic Rap Battles of History" and remain over the top but change the subject matter to reflect and even compliment that approach. The second is to tone down that and become more serious. They made strides towards this with the Crash video.