Stop talking! Just stop!
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:58 am
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?
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?