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| MARCH 18, 2008 |
And then there's the amazing tale of Dan, whose life has been pretty much ruined by his
gaming addiction when we first meet him: he's lost his job and his girlfriend and is thinking
about suicide to put paid to his (real life) loser ways. Enter OLGA (that's OnLine Gamers
Anonymous), whose organizer knows a thing or two about addiction from her own life
experiences. The manner in which Dan pulls himself out of his own pit of self-destruction is a
truly inspiring (and entirely unexpected) narrative.
All this is told through a visually dynamic intermix of game screen animations and "real
person" film footage, set to a driving, swashbuckling adventure drama soundtrack.
It's cool to see the characters morph from avatars into their actual selves, but what's cooler
are the candid conversations to which we're made witness. Following the screening, the
filmmakers explained to us that they became close friends with their subjects over the course
of the two years of filming - which elicited a question regarding the extent to which the camera
wielders might have influenced the actions of their subjects: the old quantum physics
argument. While this resulted in a certain amount of hemming and hawing around, one of the
Fort Wayne Boys expressed his newly-found dedication to video game advocacy in response
to attacks on the culture by lawmakers.
Two other side stories of note are explored in the film: 1) the strange and almost
unbelievable practice of gold farming, whereby a boiler room full of industrial gamers play
level after level of, for instance, Warcraft in order to obtain flashy armor or powerful weapons,
and then sell them off to ordinary WoW Joes and Jills for actual (and substantial) cash
money; and 2) the manner in which persons with physical disabilities are allowed - through
virtual reality gaming - to escape from the limitations of their bodies and do things they could
never hope to do in real life. Such as walking, or carrying on a conversation with their peers
(via text), or - of course - slaying a dragon.
gaming addiction when we first meet him: he's lost his job and his girlfriend and is thinking
about suicide to put paid to his (real life) loser ways. Enter OLGA (that's OnLine Gamers
Anonymous), whose organizer knows a thing or two about addiction from her own life
experiences. The manner in which Dan pulls himself out of his own pit of self-destruction is a
truly inspiring (and entirely unexpected) narrative.
All this is told through a visually dynamic intermix of game screen animations and "real
person" film footage, set to a driving, swashbuckling adventure drama soundtrack.
It's cool to see the characters morph from avatars into their actual selves, but what's cooler
are the candid conversations to which we're made witness. Following the screening, the
filmmakers explained to us that they became close friends with their subjects over the course
of the two years of filming - which elicited a question regarding the extent to which the camera
wielders might have influenced the actions of their subjects: the old quantum physics
argument. While this resulted in a certain amount of hemming and hawing around, one of the
Fort Wayne Boys expressed his newly-found dedication to video game advocacy in response
to attacks on the culture by lawmakers.
Two other side stories of note are explored in the film: 1) the strange and almost
unbelievable practice of gold farming, whereby a boiler room full of industrial gamers play
level after level of, for instance, Warcraft in order to obtain flashy armor or powerful weapons,
and then sell them off to ordinary WoW Joes and Jills for actual (and substantial) cash
money; and 2) the manner in which persons with physical disabilities are allowed - through
virtual reality gaming - to escape from the limitations of their bodies and do things they could
never hope to do in real life. Such as walking, or carrying on a conversation with their peers
(via text), or - of course - slaying a dragon.