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Hollywood's Depiction of Gamers Getting Better?
Wired is reporting on the Hollywood depiction of games and gamers, and how it has improved (or not) over the years. From the article: "... has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture? For years, they've been achingly bad at it. Gamers have long been accustomed to seeing incredibly weird, off-key portrayals in TV and movies. The trouble began with the first wave of TV ads for video games. They'd inevitably portray the player as a spastic in mid-seizure, flailing away on a joystick while jumping and twitching."
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
With the revolution wont people be holding their remote, jumping and flailing? ;p
Oh crap, I'm on fire again.
I absolutely loved that scene... in fact, the whole movie seemed to be embedded with references to video games and computer culture: they worked at an electronics store, played video games, stole CD-Rs, sold things on e-bay... And yeah, Andy does have a sweet video game chair. I want that chair.
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
They'd inevitably portray the player as a spastic in mid-seizure, flailing away on a joystick while jumping and twitching.
Wait wait wait....are the slashdot editors telling us that that isn't normal? Crap.
Death by snoo-snoo!
When an association is made in the media between two groups such as these, the real question is:
Who's more insulted?
None better gamers than Shaun and his buddy Ed!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365748/
Along with other great aspects about the writing and acting in "The O.C.", the various scenes in which the main characters are playing video games are pretty well done, very similar to what the author of this article described in "The 40-year old virgin".
Tangential mini-review: While the promos for "The O.C." make it out to be extremely shallow typical soap-opera drivel, the writing, acting, and characters are great. So is the show's self-deprecating sense of humor, as it pokes fun at the characters' obsession with a show called "The Valley", which is a parody of "The O.C." itself.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I don't know that having somebody sitting quite still staring at a screen makes for compelling viewing. Normally the only people who twitch are the ones that don't often play games. Seems to me the more you play the more zombielike you get. Maybe it is interesting in an art house kind of way but since when were hollywood interested in making art house?
I kind of enjoy the hilarity of the hollywood depiction though. I never go to see movies with this type of subject matter thinking I'm going to get a serious journey in the mystical world of gaming anyway.
For me, gaming movies hit a pinnicale when The Wizard (1989) was released.
someone with the name c0d3h4x0r is recommending the O.C. to slashdot.
god help us all@#%@#%$@# END^OF CARRIER
I think that it became most clear to me that filmmakers "understood" video games during the scene introducing Mike Teevee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If I caught it right, Mike was playing a modern 3D first-person shooter that looked like Doom 3; and he was playing this on something that looked like an Atari 2600.
And that, my friends, is called cannibalism. Wait -- I mean that that, my friends, seemed an intentional irony, suggesting that there were gamers in the crew. Who would slip such a reference in, but someone with a deep and possibly unhealthy appreciation of video games?
__________
www.dejobaan.com - Deep and possibly unhealthy appreciation of video games.
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
I'm sure some people would agree with me when I say that Hollywood is actually redefining the general view of video gamers. For example, a good science fiction movie is almost guaranteed to have a video game released with it. Even television has ascended to such a level of 'interactive media' with shows and mini-series like Lost, which feed upon human interaction with mysterious websites to generate intrigue and hype.
In a sense we're playing the game before we're even buying it.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
"has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture?"
Anyone who thinks this is a recent trend needs to check out what I call the "Video Hockey Trilogy." The movies "Swingers," "Beautiful Girls," and "Chasing Amy" all had pretty prominent scenes where main characters in the movie sat around and played video hockey. These weren't the guys from "War Games" or "Cloak and Dagger." They were just normal people who enjoyed playing hockey on the Genesis ("Beautiful Girls" MIGHT have been an SNES). They also played it pretty realistically. Nobody looked like they were having seizures except for a character from "Swingers." The seizure like movements there were in line with what you would expect from the character.
The O.C isn't great. The O.C is the equivalent of junk food at best. Acceptable from time to time but only a tasteless person wouldn't get tired of it very quickly.