Video Game Documentaries: Helping Movies Understand Games

We look at how video game documentaries are helping studios understand the merits of gaming.

Hollywood has always had an awkward relationship with video games.

RememberThe Wizard, the feature length Nintendo commercial?

Or 80s sex comedyJoysticks?

There is, however, an area where cinema is actually getting games right: documentaries.

Films like 2014sAtari: Game Over, 2012sIndieGame,and this yearsThe Lost Arcade.

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It is, essentially a sports documentary.

And thats maybe why these films work.

But actually, they are far more like sport.

The latest film to add to this list isThe Lost Arcade, whichhits VOD shortly.

But it also one of those great films about New York, that can stand alongsideDark DaysandParis Is Burning.

It attempts to fit the entire history of the medium and the artform into 100 minutes.

This doc treats games as something exotic, that you need your hand held going through.

But games are mainstream now.

Everyones growing up with them, and has a relationship with them, whether it isCandy CrushorSkyrim.