A few days back, we brought you the initial episode of Gamers Unite, a documentary chronicling reaction to the negative media stereotyping by those afflicted with the stigma, the gamers themselves. Today, I bring you the just released conclusion to the Gamers Unite series, focusing on the Gamers Unite Rally that took place in New York City on May 5th of this year, as well as covering the same themes as the previous edition.
As with the first part, the documentary maintains that same glossy sheen of professionalism, and the blokes at PBC Productions continue a streak of quality documentarianism (He's not even trying to use real words anymore, is he? -- The Board) despite being restricted by a budget comparable to the cash James Cameron found behind the ear of Edward Furlong during the filming of Terminator 2.
While some will dismiss this film as pro-gamer propaganda, watching part 2 does an excellent job of presenting the reality of the situation. When the location of the rally had to be moved, for instance, the momentum of the entire thing took a huge hit and the list of attendees was cut sharply. Instead of glossing over this loss of support, the documentary presents it plainly and as realistically as possible, and they should be applauded for that. Documentary film-making, after all, is about stark truth, not about personal agendas and dinosaurs piloting rocke tships. Some may argue it should be about the latter, but that's a discussion for a different time.
Sadly, the crushing reality of this issue is that it simply isn't the sort of thing that will ever appeal to the mainstream media. While telling parents the games little Johnny Joystick and Janie Quaddamage are playing could turn them into murderers is the sort of thing that guarantees ratings, having regular people explain calmly that gaming, much like television, sports or problem drinking, is a regular, safe past time, enjoyed by regular, sane people, that just happens to be experiencing the same growing pains that comic books, movies and rock and roll all went through upon their advent, will hold almost no appeal for Judy Housewife and Jim Problemdrinker when they're flipping through the channels searching for the latest sound bite to get up in arms about. Until gaming has saturated our popular culture to the same extent as Hollywood or 2 Live Crew, we all just have to contain our rage at hearing the Boomer generation extoll the evils of huffing glue the Mushroom Kingdom.
[UPDATE: Thanks to our bizarro sizing guidelines, this video may load a lil' weird. If it's looking strange to you, hit this link and watch it there.]
Contest:
2:51 AM on 06.15.2007
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but it's cool to see a stand being made. even though we're probably not being heard :/
Seriously, whenever they finally catch me and put me on trail at the Hague, the judge better be pimpin one of those as he sentences me to death for my war crimes.
Wow, perhaps the first time he hasn't lied on public television. :D
That guy in the black t-shirt with the mop hair is very, very clever, very eloquent, i think he's an excellent example.
at least you guys make me laugh on fridays!!
thanks!!!
...and that they already know all this stuff
Brian "Neatchee" Resnik, from the GGL, host of Critical Hit podcast. Not to pimp my shit or anything.
The event was actually a lot of fun, especially once we went back to NYCLAN. We've got a lot of coverage of the event that you can find on the GGL brightcove video player channel. You should be able to dig it up on GGL.com as well.