Video Games: The Movie

I don't consider myself a gamer. Of course I've played video games. Growing up, my siblings and I would play on our Nintendo 64, Play Station 2, and Game Boy Advance. I still play video games with my friends, but not consistently. I don't have the knowledge that some of my friends do about video games. I was interested in watching this film though, because I knew little about the video game industry and was curious.

Jeremy Snead's "Video Games: The Movie" is a documentary about video games that is broken up into 4 clear sections: history, culture, creation, and future. Throughout these 4 sections, Sean Astin narrates and a collection of video gamers and creators tell us about video games, what they mean, how we use them, where they were, where they're going, and why so many people love them.

The first half an hour or so bursts with energy and gives us an overview of the history of video games. The opening credit sequence is fun and is a tribute to video games. Although it feels rushed, has missing parts, and can be a little hard to keep up with, it keeps you engaged. The rest of the film jumps around and fills in the blanks throughout the other sections. I'm not sure why Snead did this. Why not give a complete telling of the history of video games from start to finish? "Video Games: The Movie" feels kind of broken up when it could have been more of a holistic documentary. It could have been stronger in storytelling, but it still works.

Sean Astin has fun being a narrator and the people being interviewed have a deep passion for video games. Snead does a great job of capturing the love of video games and what they mean to our society. You may not always get the small details of who built what and why, but you get the essence of video games and why they have been so successful and ingrained in our culture.

Snead's "Video Games: The Movie" has its speed bumps and may not capture all the gritty details about the video game world, but it's a good overview of video game history and culture that captures the love people have for video games. Going into this knowing little about the video game world, I feel like I know much more about them now. I want to go out and play some video games now.

The film completely ignores the co-development of PC games. A gaping hole as far as I'm concerned as the superior capabilities of the PC allowed the development of more sophisticated games(e.g. Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization etc.). The film also does not detail the corresponding improvement in microprocessor technology which completely dictated the advancements in graphics and game speed. Otherwise the film is well put together and for the most part touches on the major milestones of game history. Personally I would have enjoyed more emphasis on the early mainframe computer game development. For instance the origins of Colossal Cave Adventure and it's subsequent genesis into the RPG games of today

Calling this "The Movie" is a little ostentatious; it's actually a TV- style documentary — and I have to say I was quite disappointed. In short, it felt like a 2-hour long commercial for the video game industry.

Funded through Kickstarter and making close to double what it was asking, their pitch claimed this would be "the first ever in depth feature length documentary about the video game industry & the culture it's created," a claim which is demonstrably false... but one of the reasons they said they should be backed is because they would "tell the whole story... not just part of it." In this regard, the finished documentary completely fails. It's not hard to see why they needed to use Kickstarter to drum up funding; better and more professionally made feature length documentaries already exist, and this one apes most of their style while adding little to the subject.

One of the tricks that "Video Games: The Movie" has up its sleeves is this: it's constantly tickling your nostalgia bone through frequent fast montages of video games of yore. You'll see an obscure game you forgot you loved and think "Wow! I remember that one!" It's like the book "Ready Player One" in that regard; by merely mentioning something nostalgic, it's able to somewhat piggy-back on the feelings that memory brings... rather than inspire feelings on its own merits.

These documentaries always need talking heads, and what puts this one straight into the lower level of "television documentary" is the inability to give voice to actual industry veterans and people of importance to the gaming industry. These lesser documentaries always seem to fall back on using famous (or more attractive) people more than they use people of actual import to the topic, and that's definitely the case here. Wil Wheaton, Alison Haislip, Chris Hardwick, Chloe Dykstra... these are all fine entertainers to be sure, but you'll find little or no relationship with the games industry in any of their Wikipedia articles. Now, having famous actors talk about the influence of video games on their lives is fine — more interesting than any Joe Blow off the street, I'm sure — but these people are given way too much screen time, far more than the actual people from the industry. Much more valuable is hearing what Nolan Bushnell, Ed Fries, David Crane, Hideo Jokima, and the likes have to say about the industry. They're there, but edited down to small sound bites.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure they actually included interviews with ANY women at all who actually work(ed) in the games industry? Early on, they inform you that 47% of gamers are women, but ironically the documentary then itself immediately pushes women aside... leaving the representation of women confined to the couple of talking- head actresses and visuals of all of the deplorable imagery of the tropes Anita Sarkeesian has been pointing out. (I daresay you'll learn more eye-opening facts about video game history from Anita's Kickstarter project than this one...) Where are Amy Hennig, Jade Raymond, Robin Hunicke, Jane McGonigal, Kim Swift, Rhianna Pratchett, and all the rest...? So much for telling "the whole story."

Another major problem with this documentary is that it clearly comes from the angle that home video game consoles are the only really important story in the history of video games. It skips pretty quickly over arcade games, and with the exception of mentioning Doom, it completely ignores the home computer revolution that changed video games in huge ways. Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga... IBM PCs and the advent of dedicated 3D video cards... none of this gets so much as a mention... and yet arguably the biggest game of modern times, World of Warcraft, owes everything to the Ultima series that began on home computers, the risks Richard Garriott took with Ultima Online, and the development of PC gaming technology. Again, so much for telling "the whole story."

Other mishaps had the effect of pulling me out of the narrative; just a couple of examples: while someone speaks about the influence of the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders, they show footage of the arcade version instead (there's a big difference). When the PS3 is introduced, it's done with the iconic music of the Halo franchise playing in the background — which was exclusive to Xbox. These inconsistencies happen throughout.

On a positive note, I have to say, one of the best things they did with their Kickstarter money was invest in the creation of an animated visual time-line. It becomes absolutely essential to the documentary, because the narrative ends up meandering all over the place. Prepare to watch the time-line fly forward, and then backward, and then forward, and then backward, making it possible to understand where you are in the disjointed story.

All that said, you're not going to watch this documentary and hate it... it's enjoyable enough... but you won't really learn anything, and you won't remember it for long. Alas, this is yet another example of a Kickstarter project that greatly overstated what it would ultimately deliver. Unfortunately, the world really could still use the documentary that they originally pitched to backers. Hopefully one day we'll get one.

In the mean time, if you're looking for more than what "Video Games: The Movie" has to offer, see if you can find "Video Game Invasion: A History of a Global Obsession" from 2004, or the Discovery Channel's 5-part "Rise of the Video Game" documentary series from 2007. Neither are perfect — the later seems a bit obsessed with a connection between video games and war, for example — but both have more to offer, I think.

First, the good news. If you enjoy your Video Game history books & documentaries, you will more than likely enjoy this. It's a fun overview of gaming, with plenty of enjoyable parts to make you nostalgic and entertained, done in that very slick, polished US Hollywood kind of way. A few celebrities pop through and talk about the effect gaming has had on their lives as well. Yes, I enjoyed it, and will purchase the DVD when it comes out next month as I love documentaries on the gaming industry. Now the bad news. It's very lightweight. It omits far too much to be considered a decent documentary on gaming history- And the earlier Documentary "Game Invasion"- which still made too many omissions- is still superior in that regard of better fuller coverage of the industry. If you are looking for a fun overview of gaming to watch, and can forgive many, MANY, omissions- and can forgive a bit of industry Cheerleading- you will still be entertained by this. Perhaps adding an extra 30-45mins and adding more detail may have sorted some of the issues. I think the reason there are quite a few exceptionally poor reviews for this, is because many feel this movie could have and should have been so much more, was hyped to be more, so left many disappointed. We still wait for the definitive Video Game History documentary. The recently released 'From Bedrooms to Billions' is a brilliant example of how it can be done- Which covers the early UK gaming industry. We need a similar thing done for the industry in general.

"Video Games: The Movie" aims to educate and entertain audiences about how video games are made, marketed, and consumed by looking back at gaming history and culture through the eyes of game developers, publishers, and consumers.

Immediately there are some concerns: the intro runs a bit too long (but the use of Queen is a good choice). And then we have the necessary interview of Wil Wheaton (who is less annoying than usual here), but also some nice unexpected gems like the creator of "Metal Gear Solid" and the president of Nintendo. And then there is Chris Hardwick, who comes across far more dorky than he does on television.

There are some interesting statistics on ages, genders of those who play and purchase video games. As people generally know, the ages have been increasing and more women are getting into the gaming scene.

The film goes somewhat into history, with Nolan Bushnell of Atari widely thought of as the father of video games. Yes, they tracked down Bushnell for an interview, and he in turn gives the "father" title to MIT scientists. We also get a nice description of pixels and "bits" for those not familiar. The history is, perhaps, too brief, with many systems getting no coverage at all, and much of it in no particular order.

We have the legendary tale of the E.T. game made in five weeks in the fall of 1982, which helped launch the term shovelware, and indirectly killed off the Atari.

If this was re-edited to be more in chronological order, it would be a stronger film, but it is not a bad one.