Extra Credits
Extra Credits is a series of educational videos concerning mostly games. Created by animator Daniel Floyd in 2008, later, since 2010 with collaboration of games producer James Portnow and other artists; in a few years it became a highly popular online show with lessons about games as a medium, their topics, improvement, design, and other issues particular for gaming culture. At first connected to the online magazine The Escapist and then to Penny Arcade, in 2013 Extra Credits began to appear on their independent YouTube channel. So far, by the end of September 2017 Extra Credits acquired above 1.1 million subscribers.
In 2013 another cycle joined the channel: Extra History – videos on significant events and processes of world’s history; usually these consist of animated shorts, and, occasionally, non-animated lectures, always enriched with some references to online editions of the sources or important Wikipedia entries in the description. A new episode of the series is published on YouTube every Saturday.
The episodes of both Extra Credits and Extra History are not animations in motion, but sequences of illustrations flipped quickly one after another with the narrator’s voice sped up by 10 percent. All of this gives the show a very fast pace, making it easily accessible for modern viewers who tend to be easily bored by long speeches or texts and slowly moving audiovisuals – one must remain all the time focused in order to catch all of the information; moreover, the illustrations are prepared in a way that can be viewed as amusing and stimulating imagination, sometimes with the use of material such as photographs or Internet memes in order to represent past events and concepts in an unexpected manner.
Sources:
Wikipedia profile (accessed: June 18, 2019)
List of Extra Credits episodes (accessed: June 18, 2019)
“The Show” & “Our Current Team” at the website of Extra Credits (accessed: June 18, 2019)
Prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@al.uw.edu.pl
Carrie Floyd
Carrie Floyd is a video editor of Extra Credits and wife of Daniel Floyd. The only information about her available to date can be found on Extra Credits' website – a list of her favourite games: Undertale, Minecraft, The Sims.
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@student.uw.edu.pl
Daniel Floyd
(Animator)
Daniel Floyd is an animator who received professional education at Savannah College of Art and Design and at online animation school Animation Mentor. It was during his graduate studies that he prepared the very first videos for Extra Credits; he continued with the project later because he felt the need to present information about game design in a more accessible way than written texts. He still remains the animator of the series, and being also its narrator, he calls himself “the high-pitched talky guy.” In 2010–2013 he was hired by Pixar in Canada: he worked on Toy Story and animated series Cars; since 2013 he works for Undead Labs games studio.
In his private life, Floyd is the husband of Carrie Floyd, video editor of Extra Credits.
Source:
LinkedIn profile (accessed: July 3, 2018).
JS*Media YouTube Channel, Extra Credits: The Complete Testimonials (accessed: June 18, 2019)
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@student.uw.edu.pl
Soraya Een Hajji
(Screenwriter, Scriptwriter)
Soraya Een Hajji holds a BA in Classics and History from Brown University. She worked previously in the field of marketing. Since 2012 she has been the media director of Extra Credits, and since 2013, the co-director of volunteering program at GaymerX, a yearly convention devoted to games concentrated on queer and LGBT-related topics.
Source:
LinkedIn profile (accessed: June 18, 2019)
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@al.uw.edu.pl
David Hueso
(Artist)
David Hueso is an animator, illustrator and artist who worked, including for LEGO, Disney and Archaia Press comic and graphic novel imprint. Together with the writer Rufo Ayuso he is the author of the comic Sons of the Forgotten, published online in chapters.
As the rest of the Extra Credits crew, he is deeply interested in games, Dark Souls, Overwatch, RPG and survival games among his most favourite ones.
Source:
Profile at deviantart.com (accessed: June 18, 2019)
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@al.uw.edu.pl
Joseph Maslov
(Artist)
Joseph Maslov, a graduate from San Francisco School of the Arts (2009), illustrator, animator and storyboard artist, is a freelancer preparing graphics and videos for different corporate clients.
Sources:
Instagram profile (accessed: June 18, 2019)
Twitter profile (accessed: June 18, 2019)
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@al.uw.edu.pl

Retrieved from the profile of Vancouver Film School at flickr.com, licensed under CC BY 2.0 (accessed: December 30, 2021).
James Portnow
(Director)
James Portnow has a BA in Classics from St. John's College in New Mexico and an MA in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Largely inspired in his childhood by Final Fantasy 1, he became a designer, writer and consultant of games – now he is CEO of Rainmaker Games, and Interim Design Director for video games publisher Snow Cannon; among his most recognized projects are Call of Duty and Farmville games. He also teaches at DigiPen Institute of Technology.
Portnow considers games “the world's first interactive media,” because games are not merely receivers, but also participants. He claims to be interested in RPG and strategy games, as their purpose is to stimulate the intellect, and considers that games industry should feel responsible for providing children with something more than time-consuming entertainment.
Sources:
Profile at the website of Snow Cannon Games company (accessed: June 26, 2018).
LinkedIn profile (accessed: June 26, 2018).
Twitter profile (accessed: June 26, 2018).
The Many Roles of James Portnow, March 19, 2013 (accessible at news.digipen.edu/, accessed: June 18, 2019)
Jasper, Tyler, Interview with James Portnow of Extra Credits, Siskiyou. The Voice of SOU Students, June 2, 2013, accessible at siskiyou.sou.edu, accessed: June 18, 2019).
Bio prepared by Joanna Kłos, University of Warsaw, joanna.klos@student.uw.edu.pl