Back in November of last year, we came across an interesting documentary on gaming and MMORPGs. In the 60-minute film "Gamers," filmmaker Ben Gonyo explores today's online gaming culture in an effort to make it more accessible and understandable to a wider audience. For two years, Gonyo immersed himself in World of Warcraft and the gaming subculture to find out what it's all about. Although it touches on controversial issues like a player's potential obsession with his or her virtual hobby, the documentary's aim is to heave a mostly light-hearted tone. It includes interviews with gamers, game designers, comedians, celebrities and psychologists.
Although the film aired on several TV channels, only a brief trailer for the film was made publicly available online. The full 60-minute documentary has now been made publicly available for streaming via the internet. Head over to the video stream at SnagFilms to watch the film and leave your own comments on the issues covered. International viewers should be advised that the stream may be restricted only to US residents.Watch more free documentaries
This "documentary" is a PoS. It is a demeaning and inaccurate portrayal of a majority of MMORPG players. This guy is a troll. It is that simple. He has zero credibility to begin with and ends up in the negative by the end. We couldn't even watch more than 1/2.
I agree that the show focused too much on the negative; Gonyo should have made the effort to talk to more of us who are happy with the gaming lifestyle and who have forged new relationships through MMOs. Even so, I enjoyed seeing the conventions, the board gamers, the cosplayers, and the upbeat view of F2P. And Jay Mohr did a good job of pointing out the positive side of gaming.
I thought it was a good film. There really wasn't anything negative about it at all.
Are there dangers in too much gaming? Of course! Any film about gamers and gaming must address this problem. But the filmmaker certainly didn't dwell on that subject.
And after watching this, I can say it.......I retract my statement earlier...
This film was a piece of garbage..Horrible..The music was crap, the players he interviewed total morons. He had no understanding of play mechanics at all.....
His photo shots throughout the film were cut haphazardly, giving me a headache while the camera jumped around...
Ive never seen such a bad movie.....Fucking horrible....dont waste your time
As if gamers were a homogenous group of people with similar interests, habits and lives and needed to be studied so the rest of the society can understand this bizarre behavior... yuck
I am starting to see a pattern, free=crap; Same as the majority of movies on hulu and crackle. Its funny that he based it around WoW too, the easy target. And whats up with that long-hair lunatic at the begining, no mmo gaming until age 18 or 21, freaking over-passionate quack.
Someone should do a documentary about "television addiction".
How many people sit like a vegetable in front of the television for hours each day and call it entertainment? At least with gaming you're using your brain constantly.
..so tired of hearing about "gaming addiction". Video games are simply a relatively new form of entertainment that for whatever reason hasn't been largely accepted by the mainstream yet.
It's acceptable to talk endlessly about all the TV shows you watched last night but you can't admit to sitting down with a group of people to strategically take down a raid boss?
It actually ended on a good note. Alot of what they said was true. I can see why people were offended or in denial of it. I got one thing of us this, moderation, learn to balance your gaming life with life off the pc.
@DirtyLary I haven't watched the video (since I can't) but the last statement still irks me.
We hear about this thing called "moderation" all the time as gamers. If you play any form of video game you get told to play them in "moderation". But if you were to simply watch TV, go out and watch movies for the same length of time or even play sports for 12+ hours a day, you wouldn't get any of this "moderation" bullshit.
Playing video games can be dangerous when not used in moderation, yes. But so can a lot of things. Sports can be. Watching TV can be. Playing a pack of cards can be, too. It's not just video games, yet people enjoy targeting them due to convenience.
