It's over-acting in the same sense that, by hollywood rule, cars have to detonate on contact with other objects. It just makes it more "exciting". I think the difference here is that 1) if you watch people playing video games they're a bit tame, and 2) the audience for (most of) these intended shows and films are non-gamers.

As a gamer when I think of watching another person play games, and I don't mean looking over thier shoulder at the screen, but watching *them*, it really is dull.

Regardless, I completely agree with your points. I too get a little irritated when I see a character on a TV show bouncing around on the sofa left and right and mashing away at the controller. But that's just another reason why I don't watch TV. ;) I can just go play the games myself.

Smacks of paranoia - is this really restricted to videogames? Piano-playing in movies is usually a case of the actor/actress raising and lowering their arms in an octopus-like manner, totally out of sync with the notes being played; connect to the internet on a movie screen and you'll be greeted by an animated "Welcome To The World Wide Web!" animation and spoken message, and a search engine that takes you directly to a DVD-quality video of the megalomaniac you were looking for.

Granted, it tears at your heart somehow to see controllers wielded wrongly on film - but to suggest that it's purposeful victimisation of our upstart industry is clearly wrong. I doubt weapon manufacturers think they're being slapped in the face by Hollywood when someone fires seven bullets from a six-chamber gun.

They're all playing Decathlon for the Atari 2600.

Hollywood's just trying to bring it back. All the cool, good looking kids play Decathlon these days.

Actually, it was Fred Savage's half-brother that was the Wizard.

In case no one noticed, people shouldn't be shown playing games on TV or Film anyway. Maybe they play it that way because it looks fucking boring.

Also, in the original TMNT game by Ultra for the NES (not the Arcade style game), there is a Mechaturtle. Though if Mike is right, that would t0t@lly r00l d00dz.

A person of a craft or hobby shouldn't see a movie about his craft or hobby, because they WILL find errors and they WILL nitpick it despite whether the film is good or not.

I'm sure many a computer geek has complained about the computer tech in Hackers.

And, I'm sure many a gamer has complained about game portrayal on tv or film. Sure, it's generally inconsequential (unless you're talking about The Wizard -- scoring in SMB3!?) but if that's what you know best, that's what you mostly notice when it's wrong.

I'm reminded of an episode of CSI. I don't know squat about forensics so most of that stuff seems feasible to me. And because it's believable, it doesn't interfere with my watching. Then, on one episode, they were talking about tracking down a person through their IP address; there were numerous errors... I have not looked at the show the same way since. Seriously.

So really, to the average non-gamer these representations aren't noticeable. To us, they are.

The movie "Swingers" does a decent job, as I recall, of depicting people playing a console ice hockey game (probably on an NES or SuperNES).

If they want to accurately portray my typical video game experience they will have to have the character yell "F***ING A**HOLE RATCHET!" and then toss my controller across the room in frustration and fury about every ten minutes.

I think it's more interesting that a video game got it wrong. In "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" if you leave the main screen alone for a while, Ratchet starts playing various games (Going Commando, Jak & Daxter I & II, etc) but with the same button mashing, not having anything to do with the action in the game, verve that you see in movies and television.

I think it's more interesting that a video game got it wrong. In "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" if you leave the main screen alone for a while, Ratchet starts playing various games (Going Commando, Jak & Daxter I & II, etc) but with the same button mashing, not having anything to do with the action in the game, verve that you see in movies and television.

I think it's more interesting that a video game got it wrong. In "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" if you leave the main screen alone for a while, Ratchet starts playing various games (Going Commando, Jak & Daxter I & II, etc) but with the same button mashing, not having anything to do with the action in the game, verve that you see in movies and television.

I think it's more interesting that a video game got it wrong. In "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" if you leave the main screen alone for a while, Ratchet starts playing various games (Going Commando, Jak & Daxter I & II, etc) but with the same button mashing, not having anything to do with the action in the game, verve that you see in movies and television.

I think it's more interesting that a video game got it wrong. In "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" if you leave the main screen alone for a while, Ratchet starts playing various games (Going Commando, Jak & Daxter I & II, etc) but with the same button mashing, not having anything to do with the action in the game, verve that you see in movies and television.

I think it's more interesting that a video game got it wrong. In "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" if you leave the main screen alone for a while, Ratchet starts playing various games (Going Commando, Jak & Daxter I & II, etc) but with the same button mashing, not having anything to do with the action in the game, verve that you see in movies and television.

Sorry, the POST button wasn't responding, so I didn't realize I'd posted the message.

I don't think we'll ever see it done right unless a Director wants it done right. Two people playing a video-game is typically visually boring. If the focus of the scene is them playing a video-game, it needs to be interesting, lest people lose interest. This is the same reason why fight coreography now resembles a dance and less of a real fight. The mentality of keeping a scene interesting goes beyond video-games. Drivers behind the wheels of cars are constantly turning the wheel ever so slightly, making smallish corrections for a road that isn't turning, people typing at a computer will just start flailing aimlessly at the keys to make it seem as if they know how to type at 90 wpm, etc.

But I have to say I'm on board with your pet peeve. Mine is the umpteen commercials, TV shows, etc, which still use Pac Man and Super Mario Bros. sound effects when someone is obviously playing on a modern console. I think I even heard one that was using Pac Man for the Atari 2600. UGH.

I dunno about the rest of you, but I don't really care all that much. Seems like you're making a big deal out of something that really isn't all that important. You should focus on the significant things, like how many lemon vs. cherry fruit loops come in a box. It's all about picking your battles.

We have all to eagerly accepted Hollywood's manipulation of reality. I understand that movies are supposed to be an escape, but something has to give. For instance, how many times have we watched a scene where two people are in a car headed down the steet. Any time the driver says something he turns to the passenger to say it regardless of the length of what he is saying, No one does this for more than a brief second. No one could do it without causing an accident, but we just accept it because thats the way it's been done.
I want more realism in movies. Games are getting more realistic with each major release. Hollywood is sticking to the same formula year after year.

Why on earth would anyone want to limit film to being 'realistic'? Are you joking? Is there a law somewhere besides your mind that says that movies or any other form of media should adhere to any kind of notion of reality you subscribe to?

Hollywood (or anyone else for that matter) has absolutely no obligation to anyone to represent anything in any way other than how they choose. If you don't like it, please make a movie and show people just why exactly it is important to show people playing video games accurately.

Sofia Coppola got it right in Lost in Translation, both in the video arcade and pachinko parlor scenes. From firsthand experience: spot on. Then again, Coppola got a *whole lot* right in that film.

Might i also point out the two kids playing Final Fantasy 8 in the Charlie's Angles movie as Drew Barrymore slides naked down a hill.

Two kids playing Final Fantasy 8? And they were mashing buttons like they had some sort of control over the on screen action. During that scene I am always staring at the video game instead of naked Drew Barrymore. So yeah, who has the real problem?

Well, if you've seen Drew Barrymore naked once -- and who hasn't? -- I guess that's good enough for an excuse to watch the video game instead of Barrymore in the Charlie's Angels scene. Now watching the Charlie's Angels film at all... That in itself is highly suspect.

It probably has something to do with the fact that when you mime driving a car, you swerve eratically from left to right...

Films themselves don't have to be limited to being realistic, but the driving factor of a movie, or play, or anything that tries to tell a story is suspension of disbelief. Nothing brings me back into the real world as quickly as seeing a normal activity being done wrong. You can have a movie about a furturistic crime fighter who uses noddles as weapons as long as he drives the Noodle-Mobile in a believable way, and in the scene where Noodleman sits down in front of his X-Station for some relaxation actuallly looks like he is playing a game.

Well there is a huge difference between your first manipulation of reality comment and the one you just wrote.

Having said that, I'm sure hollywood does it because they know exactly how well they need to portray something in order to get people to believe it. You know, like how they figured out film should run at 24fps. So it may bother you, but I'm sure most people just don't care. And since this is Hollywood we're talking about and not a state-funded artistic concern and that has no intent outside of profit. I'm sorry it gets your knickers in a twist. You could stop watching movies, perhaps watch only those movies that choose to portray video games in a postive light. Or perhaps start a collective intent on sticking it to the man. Of course by that rationale, if I were a hard-core computer guy the only movie I would be willing to watch would be the matrix reloaded and maybe Antitrust- and we know how true to tha' game that movie was.

I would imagine this happens because a) Shooting a person playing a video game is already inherently boring. b) They tried to shoot it with the person playing and realized that it was *really* boring. c) They asked the actor to move their hands a little more to make it look more like they were doing..um...something.

If anyone happend to see 'The Game Before the Game' on Sunday before the Superbowl, you must recognize just how shitty people playing games looks on TV. They even got rid of it on Xplay because it just doesn't come off well.

You can have a realistic depiction of people playing games in television and movies when you agree to a realistic depiction of people talking and fighting and skating and smoking cigarettes in computer games.

'And since this is Hollywood we're talking about and not a state-funded artistic concern and that has no intent outside of profit.'

This sentence should read, 'And since this is Hollywood we're talking about and not a state-funded artistic concern, it has not intent outside of profit.'

And by not intent I mean no intent. I'll stop now.

Hey, if they want to make video games look exciting, have the actors pretend to be novice videogame players..

..you know the ones, they have to physically turn the controller while pressing the buttons for the driving games, lifting the controller way up in the air when trying to get their character to jump.

I love watchin' that stuff.. cracks me up.

Shoo~t. I do that a lot anyway, and I'm far from a novice gamer. :D I think it's just the "getting sucked into the game" factor that makes me do it. I'm sure that watching me play Capcom vs. SNK in the arcade is highly entertaining--I jump around and swerve left and right before slamming my hands down on the buttons. Oh, and I yell quite a bit.

That said, I do agree on what kyle said: suspension of disbelief is a huge factor for me in even the most unrealistic of movies. Nothing snaps me back to reality faster than someone behaving erratically in a normal situation. In Amelie, [Amelie] mentions one of her dislikes as being when people in old movies don't pay attenton to the road when they're driving. The gaming nitpick is kind of like that, only centered on our hobby of choice.

My point is that, while wild arm waving can be acceptable (*cough*), blatant disregard for scoring (or amount of players!) is unexcusable. >:D

Not a major topic of discourse in my life, but interesting nonetheless.

Shoo~t. I do that a lot anyway, and I'm far from a novice gamer. :D I think it's just the "getting sucked into the game" factor that makes me do it. I'm sure that watching me play Capcom vs. SNK in the arcade is highly entertaining--I jump around and swerve left and right before slamming my hands down on the buttons. Oh, and I yell quite a bit.

That said, I do agree on what kyle said: suspension of disbelief is a huge factor for me in even the most unrealistic of movies. Nothing snaps me back to reality faster than someone behaving erratically in a normal situation. In Amelie, [Amelie] mentions one of her dislikes as being when people in old movies don't pay attenton to the road when they're driving. The gaming nitpick is kind of like that, only centered on our hobby of choice.

My point is that, while wild arm waving can be acceptable (*cough*), blatant disregard for scoring (or amount of players!) is unexcusable. >:D

Not a major topic of discourse in my life, but interesting nonetheless.

Shoo~t. I do that a lot anyway, and I'm far from a novice gamer. :D I think it's just the "getting sucked into the game" factor that makes me do it. I'm sure that watching me play Capcom vs. SNK in the arcade is highly entertaining--I jump around and swerve left and right before slamming my hands down on the buttons. Oh, and I yell quite a bit.

That said, I do agree on what kyle said: suspension of disbelief is a huge factor for me in even the most unrealistic of movies. Nothing snaps me back to reality faster than someone behaving erratically in a normal situation. In Amelie, [Amelie] mentions one of her dislikes as being when people in old movies don't pay attenton to the road when they're driving. The gaming nitpick is kind of like that, only centered on our hobby of choice.

My point is that, while wild arm waving can be acceptable (*cough*), blatant disregard for scoring (or amount of players!) is unexcusable. >:D

Not a major topic of discourse in my life, but interesting nonetheless.

ARGH. Stupid triple post. Sorry 'bout that. :D

"The movie "Swingers" does a decent job, as I recall, of depicting people playing a console ice hockey game (probably on an NES or SuperNES)."

DEFINITELY the BEST portrayal of video game playing in a movie that I can remember. Good movie too. :)

TV and movies don't want us to see people truly playing video games. We'd start questioning why we're watching the movie/tv show instead of having fun playing video games!

I've been known to button smash my fair share. When I was younger I even threw controllers across the room when I died. I've stuck my tounge out, moved my physical body left and right as if that had any influence over my character, I've lunged backword in my seat in reaction, and I'm sure I've been the opposite of all of that where I've laid motionless and intensely staring with a light reflection on my face (specially for Resident Evil games). I don't see how any of that misinterepts game playing.

Maybe you've stumbled on the fact that actors can't always act. Maybe I missed point. I think what you're getting at is the "Hackers Movie" syndrome. A movie whose focal point is hacking and yet has absolutely nothing to do with, and perhaps the opposite of, hacking. But I know many who qualify as real hackers that love the movie. Because it's fun and that's all hollywood has to try to be.

If the movie in question was a documentary, on the other hand, a factual representation of the gaming world. I might be up in arms about something like this if I felt they were portraying gamers as something they aren't.

Videogames not exciting enough for you? Stop portraying videogames in movies and television.

The video media forms have learned their lesson about having characters watch movies, television, and other forms of passive media... Why should videogames be any different? When Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe popped into a theatre for a Hitchcock film festival, it was an attempt to hide from the outside world and a chance to have a revealing scene about Madeline Stowe in a surreal environment. When Al Bundy is watching television, it is to show the isolation of this lowly man from his family, and to have scenes with very active characters that he completely ignores. When Couplings had the main male characters play videogames, it had no relevance to the scene at hand other than to show a very light form of bonding, and it had no relevance to the action of the scene at all. Why show that?

People engage in many activities that aren't portrayed on television... Such as brushing teeth, taking out the garbage, reading, etc. You wouldn't have a character furiously flipping pages to show the excitement of a thriller novel. You would show a fraction of a second of them tensely staring at a page, then quickly cut to someone jumping through the window. The Neverending Story had a character who spent most of his time reading the book, but for his lofty status he was hardly ever on screen except for reaction shots.

If you are going to portray people playing videogames, you cannot be lazy and just have the camera showing them playing games. You have to have a deep understanding of the medium, and use your full repertoire of reaction shots, tension-building music, and instantly comprehensible but conflicted gaming situations. Otherwise don't bother. The interesting thing as always is the characters, not what they are doing.

This was a facinating read, thinking back to every time I have seen dipictions of game playing in TV and movies I can see where the idea for this article comes from.

I do belive most of the problem is due to overacting and due to the fact that gaming sessions in most TV shows and movies are little more then an afterthought to carry a scene. It could also be true that mashing the buttons and twirling the joysticks just looks more exciting to the casual audience, kind of like how hacking is portrayed in movies like "Hackers" and "Swordfish."

Maybe every player in every depiction of onscreen videogame playing is playing Def Jam Vendetta.....

Much worse is when you see someone playing a Game Boy with no freaking game in it... or using the wrong controllers for a system...

Or (in the case of this week's Angel) playing the original Donkey Kong on an Xbox- maybe Spike modded it!?

On a completely different (original) note:

Ummah, maybe they're ALL playing Winter Games or something of the like.. Track & Field also springs to mind, although the frantic button-bashing should have SOME pattern to it.

Posted by Scott Miller on his blog:
"Computer and video game software sales grew eight percent in 2003 to $7 billion and are expected to show strong growth over the next few years."
Finally, an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry.

So video game industry clearly has a long way to go before phrases like "nipping at its heels" can be taken seriously.

Posted by Scott Miller on his blog:
"Computer and video game software sales grew eight percent in 2003 to $7 billion and are expected to show strong growth over the next few years."
Finally, an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry.

So video game industry clearly has a long way to go before phrases like "nipping at its heels" can be taken seriously.

Posted by Scott Miller on his blog:
"Computer and video game software sales grew eight percent in 2003 to $7 billion and are expected to show strong growth over the next few years."
Finally, an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry.

So video game industry clearly has a long way to go before phrases like "nipping at its heels" can be taken seriously.

Posted by Scott Miller on his blog:
"Computer and video game software sales grew eight percent in 2003 to $7 billion and are expected to show strong growth over the next few years."
Finally, an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry.

So video game industry clearly has a long way to go before phrases like "nipping at its heels" can be taken seriously.

Spike mod an X-box? Let's be real here.

What was happening in that scene was Spike was playing with the Colecovision below the TV, and had the X-box (likely stolen) sitting on top because that's what "looks cool" these days.

Can we get some new video game sound effects in the sound library? I'm tired of everyone playing Donkey Kong for the Colecovision.

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