Stop talking! Just stop!

[Locit]

Last night I sat down and watched an episode of Rise of the Videogame on the Discovery Channel. I had heard some pretty good things about its treatment of the history of gaming, and was excited to see some respectful and interesting treatment of the subject material on a mainstream channel at long last.

You'd think I'd be smarter than this by now.

This particular episode was about "god games," and it was awful, down to the last detail. The show consisted of about 90% stock footage, about a third of which was close-ups of gamers sitting either in the dark or basking in the blue glow of a television screen. The 10% that wasn't stock was either incredibly non-representative gameplay footage or the same ten seconds of a single Sim City ad over and over again.

The other 2/3 of the stock footage, then, was of the fucking Berling Wall being torn down. Don't ask how they managed it, because I have no idea. Any time that was left was taken up by one of two types of talking heads: industry people and, uh, "professionals."

The industry people included Will Wright and Peter Molynexuxuxeus, and the way the show presented them gave the distinct impression that the two pretty much programed every one of their games completely by themselves. While what the two actually said themselves was pretty intelligent, it was offset by the "professionals," a bunch of college professors who were overcompensating for the fact that their field of study was video games by describing trends in the industry in grand arcs and delving deep, deep, deep into the psychological ramifications of simulation games ("You're God! Everyone really just wants to be God!" "No, you're a fucking city planner!"). Then, they totally missed the point while discussing the only real "god" game they gave any consideration, Black and White. Maybe I'm just remembering things wrong, but I don't recall Black and White actually being that well received.

Then they spent ten minutes talking about the guys at Red vs. Blue. At least Sid Meier got one sound bite in, I guess.

This got me thinking: what's it going to take to get an intelligent mainstream historical perspective on the gaming industry and the development of video games? On the one end we've got stuff like Rise, which makes them sound like the second coming of Christ and is about as accurate as a GameFAQs messageboard, and on the other we've got the crap that G4 (or whatever it's called now) puts out (or at least used to) that's narrated by a guy that sounds like he's 15 and leaves huge chunks of important factual information out.

So, what do you guys think has to happen for us to get shows that give people an accurate impression of how video games came to be as they are now? Is there anything out there now that does a better job than what I've mentioned, or is it all generally just schlock?

[Isuka]

Watch out, 'cause here comes The GHZ TV Network, with the whole new season of Nitro the Sarcosuchus!!

Peter Molynexuxuxeus

You're wrong, it's <i>Molynexxus</i>.

Maybe they're just quite similar, but I think I just saw the same "documentary" (if you can call a TV program that goes off-topic way faster than this forum a documentary) as you did, and the only interesting part, the second episode about the industry's historical development starting with the NES, was such a crapfest... they switched from Sonic to Resident Evil/ Ridge Racer in less than a blink, and mixing-mishmashing all the systems and pivotal games into a pool of non-understandable nerdfuckery to everyone who isn't into this. Man, they went as far as showing Haruhi cosplayers just to explain why Pac-Man was so "strange".

Whatever, at least the narrator was dubbed by the same guy who dubbed Mr/ Mrs Garrison. That was funny. And we still have that Angry Nintendo Nerd, don't we?

[Shadow Hog]

Wait, the narrator is Trey Parker? Seriously?

[Yami CJMErl]

Watch out, 'cause here comes The GHZ TV Network, with the whole new season of Nitro the Sarcosuchus!!

I'd watch it.

[cjmcray]

I hate GHZtv. it's just a bunch of 20-something Sonic fans bitching all day about how downhill the Sonic series has gotten.

It's still better than G4 though.

[Shadow Hog]

What isn't better than G4?

[Majestic Joey]

G...3?

[Opa-Opa]

Last time I checked the G3 was Joe Satriani, John Petrucci and Eric Johnson, and they were better than G4.

Anyway, it's a hard topic to be taken seriously. Hell, not even comics, that are already accepted as an art form don't get any decent serious historical coverage. But I have faith that I'll still see a good documentary about it while I'm alive.

[Yami CJMErl]

What isn't better than G4?

SONIC 2006?

[Shadow Hog]

Nope, that's definitely more entertaining than G4 as a whole.

[DackAttac]

It's always fun to watch a train wreck, but G4 is just watching the corpses burn.

[cjmcray]

I love Kevin Pierra.

[Isuka]

Wait, the narrator is Trey Parker? Seriously?

Hehe, I meant that the <i>spanish</i> dub had the same voice actor that dubbed Garrison for the narrator. Actually that guy has dubbed a fuckload of other programs and series, so it's not that strange.

The main problem with all these programs is that they, in fact, don't bother in presenting a factual, ordered and detailed vision of the game scene from years ago, just quick flashbacks because they probably think most people'll get bored with a lesson in games' history (on television!!).
Also, they definitely don't think it's a popular hobby because most of the time they try to explain that "it's a big business that just gets bigger with every passing year" and nothing more, as if negating another entity who says "it's just kid's crap that many basement dwellers happen to be into".

So basically I don't think that we'll get a decent coverage of this in the "main" media for a long time, and I'm not sure if we're getting nearer or farther from that possibility as time passes.

[Double-S-]

G4's Icons was a pretty good show, back when it was actually about videogames.

[Locit]

The earlier ones were definitely well done, and they gave a fairly competent idea of how a series or certain company came to be. I'm not sure said period lasted too long, though- I seem to recall them doing an entire episode on Square, but they only ever called it "Square Enix." It was like a creepy sort of revisionist corporate history.

[Frieza2000]

what's it going to take to get an intelligent mainstream

The root of your question is the root of your problem.

[The Ghost Of Ember]

I'll admit it was terrible, but overall it didn't seem much better (or worse) than say The History Channels documentary they did on Comic Books a year or two ago. Neither really promised to be any sort of legitimate commentary. The point of both is to attempting appeal to the youth to lure them into watching documentaries. It's as desprate and awkward as a politician who plays video games at a PR session. 'Hey! We're hip and cool and we like video games and comic books too!' please watch our world war two documentaries.