Charlie Brooker's How Video Games Changed the World
December 1, 2013 12:00 PM Subscribe
Following on from Gameswipe (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5) and a less than successful attempt to teach Jon Snow about Videogames. Charlie Brooker explains how videogames changed the world.
Cool! Charlie Booker started his career reviewing games, so I guess full circle and all that.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:09 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:09 PM on December 1, 2013
You know nothing.
posted by Beardman at 12:26 PM on December 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Beardman at 12:26 PM on December 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
"These ice-zombies, I suppose you can just push them over with a stick. You willing people must be very stupid not to have tried that. I'll go try it now."
posted by Artw at 12:39 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by Artw at 12:39 PM on December 1, 2013
How Jon Snow dissing the PlayStation 4 explains why no one cares you can't afford a house
posted by Artw at 12:40 PM on December 1, 2013 [11 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:40 PM on December 1, 2013 [11 favorites]
Just watched this; interesting as always, though not very indepth yet.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:52 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by MartinWisse at 12:52 PM on December 1, 2013
This is a misstep for Brooker in much the same way that Kieron Gillen's Uber was also terrible.
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:39 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:39 PM on December 1, 2013
Also this is a good article.
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:41 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:41 PM on December 1, 2013
Was hoping for some hint of good news in this piece, so at least there's this:
> The average age of a Daily Mail print edition reader is creeping toward 60.
posted by ardgedee at 2:37 PM on December 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
> The average age of a Daily Mail print edition reader is creeping toward 60.
posted by ardgedee at 2:37 PM on December 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Well, if Twitter's a video game, then so is MetaFilter. Am I winning yet?
posted by benito.strauss at 3:00 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by benito.strauss at 3:00 PM on December 1, 2013
Any show with Robert Florence (previouslies) being incredibly keen on stuff has got to be good.
posted by scruss at 3:03 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by scruss at 3:03 PM on December 1, 2013
> Am I winning yet?
The only way to win is not to play.
posted by ardgedee at 3:07 PM on December 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
The only way to win is not to play.
posted by ardgedee at 3:07 PM on December 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
This show was of course at least partially an excuse to plug the PS4 and XboxOne, even if it was done with relative subtlety. I wonder how much Sony & Microsoft were prepared to pay for the ads & placement within the program?
I enjoyed it regardless & the final point about twitter / facebook et al effectively bringing gamifiction to our 'real' lives was well made.
posted by pharm at 3:19 PM on December 1, 2013
I enjoyed it regardless & the final point about twitter / facebook et al effectively bringing gamifiction to our 'real' lives was well made.
posted by pharm at 3:19 PM on December 1, 2013
I should have added a link to Charlie Brooker on why video game television is so hard to make
posted by Z303 at 3:34 PM on December 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Z303 at 3:34 PM on December 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
At 42 years old, Charlie Brooker is settling into his middle age
You go to hell and you die.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:58 PM on December 1, 2013 [5 favorites]
You go to hell and you die.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:58 PM on December 1, 2013 [5 favorites]
Were there any new-gen game system games mentioned, even once, in this show? If there were, I missed it entirely. That's so subtle, it might as well have never happened!
It's a subtle slam on the XBRO for lack of backwards compatibility.
posted by Artw at 4:25 PM on December 1, 2013
It's a subtle slam on the XBRO for lack of backwards compatibility.
posted by Artw at 4:25 PM on December 1, 2013
pharm - So, you are claiming that this video is shilling for a product that is mentioned for the very first time 1 hour and 20 minutes in?
Those were some wasted marketing dollars.
posted by Riemann at 4:33 PM on December 1, 2013
Those were some wasted marketing dollars.
posted by Riemann at 4:33 PM on December 1, 2013
It's odd that he never once slammed modern computers for being unable to play those brilliant Sinclair games.
Well, but they can. All it takes is a Sinclair emulator. You can run those in a browser window these days.
posted by baf at 4:36 PM on December 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Well, but they can. All it takes is a Sinclair emulator. You can run those in a browser window these days.
posted by baf at 4:36 PM on December 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
"So if you pull up next to the streetwalkers and honk-"
"I SWORE AN OATH!" sorry.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:10 PM on December 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
"I SWORE AN OATH!" sorry.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:10 PM on December 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
I thought it was a reasonably interesting show, if understandably lightweight. I did crack up when this throwaway line came out of nowhere.
The article Artw linked to makes a worthwhile point. It seems to be a fairly popular thing to bring up recently, though there never seems to be much of an aim to it other than to rub in a sort of bonus scoop of malaise.
posted by lucidium at 6:02 PM on December 1, 2013
The article Artw linked to makes a worthwhile point. It seems to be a fairly popular thing to bring up recently, though there never seems to be much of an aim to it other than to rub in a sort of bonus scoop of malaise.
posted by lucidium at 6:02 PM on December 1, 2013
I have finished the program and I am deeply disappointed in Charlie for a repetitive and crappy final 20 minutes. Twitter as videogame? Well, yes, I used to participate in #hashtaggames (#religiousgameshows Whose God Is It Anyway?), but he didn't even bother to mention that.
Also totally unmentioned (unless I missed five seconds in there): Portal. WTF, Charlie?
Where is Farmville? Or Bejeweled? Not Top 20, but significant enough to get a mention in the timeline.
And yes The Last of Us is important, but in a big way as the maturation of a dozen "the zombies are attacking" games before it, NONE of which I saw namechecked. (And the gameplay element of easily excusably killable sorta-human opponents - let's face it, every zombie game ever made is more entertaining than most episodes of "Walking Dead").
Yep, Charlie, you missed some big important points just so you could repeat, more times than necessary, some others. Charlie Brooker is usually his most entertaining when he is his most superficial, but not this time.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:40 PM on December 1, 2013
Also totally unmentioned (unless I missed five seconds in there): Portal. WTF, Charlie?
Where is Farmville? Or Bejeweled? Not Top 20, but significant enough to get a mention in the timeline.
And yes The Last of Us is important, but in a big way as the maturation of a dozen "the zombies are attacking" games before it, NONE of which I saw namechecked. (And the gameplay element of easily excusably killable sorta-human opponents - let's face it, every zombie game ever made is more entertaining than most episodes of "Walking Dead").
Yep, Charlie, you missed some big important points just so you could repeat, more times than necessary, some others. Charlie Brooker is usually his most entertaining when he is his most superficial, but not this time.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:40 PM on December 1, 2013
This is well weapon.
posted by meehawl at 10:45 PM on December 1, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by meehawl at 10:45 PM on December 1, 2013 [4 favorites]
Watching that train wreck with Jon Snow makes me wonder what game could you take into an environment like that and succeed in engaging an older news presenter? The only things that spring to mind are mindless fare like Angry Birds or Candy Crush that don't express the depth the medium of games are capable of.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:40 PM on December 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 11:40 PM on December 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
And to answer my own question, I wonder if the latest FIFA game wouldn't have been a better choice.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:53 PM on December 1, 2013
posted by ob1quixote at 11:53 PM on December 1, 2013
Riemann: Perhaps rather the likely guarantee of advertising cash from Microsoft & Sony helped to convince Channel4 to fund the program? You probably didn't watch it live - there were multiple PS4 specific adverts in the first half that I watched, including one with a code that you had to enter on the Sony website in exchange for a chance to win a PS4.
It was a program full of gems made by people that are not only utterly steeped in games but can also talk about them with clarity and enthusiasm to a non-gaming audience. It was a pleasure watching the guy who directed The Last of Us talk about Papers Please for instance - I find it quite heartening to know that the people making the AAA high end games can be just as interested in the more experimental, indie end of modern gaming as the RockPaperShotgun writers are.
hippybear: There aren't any new console games worth talking about yet. Also tbh, in gameplay terms it's hard to argue that the latest consoles offer anything new except greater visual & physical fidelity: in a program that wants to talk about the meta-narratives of games, those things are mostly irrelevant.
posted by pharm at 1:23 AM on December 2, 2013
It was a program full of gems made by people that are not only utterly steeped in games but can also talk about them with clarity and enthusiasm to a non-gaming audience. It was a pleasure watching the guy who directed The Last of Us talk about Papers Please for instance - I find it quite heartening to know that the people making the AAA high end games can be just as interested in the more experimental, indie end of modern gaming as the RockPaperShotgun writers are.
hippybear: There aren't any new console games worth talking about yet. Also tbh, in gameplay terms it's hard to argue that the latest consoles offer anything new except greater visual & physical fidelity: in a program that wants to talk about the meta-narratives of games, those things are mostly irrelevant.
posted by pharm at 1:23 AM on December 2, 2013
Goodness me there were so many advert breaks during it! It was quite good, and it was lovely to see people talk on television about Monkey Island (even if, weirdly, bits of the clips from it were cut off from the screen!). The problem with this program is that the conversations it is having deserve individual programs of their own. The development of indie games, the evolution of the portrayal of violence and women in games, increasing complexity in gameplay... all interesting things, all things he has to pack into the tiny two hour slot video games get this year... Also, possibly because of the lack of interest of the crew strategy games, and top down games in general got very short shrift. Starcraft and the Sims were there, but no civillization?
The weird thing is that in the 90s, when games were more marginal, there were several shows about video games! They weren't terribly good, but at least they existed.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 5:28 AM on December 2, 2013
The weird thing is that in the 90s, when games were more marginal, there were several shows about video games! They weren't terribly good, but at least they existed.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 5:28 AM on December 2, 2013
The main youtube link's down for me, here's a link to 4od if you're in the UK or if you can make your computer think you are.
posted by Ned G at 10:17 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Ned G at 10:17 AM on December 2, 2013 [1 favorite]
Keith Stuart: How Video Games Changed the World – some thoughts
posted by Z303 at 1:05 PM on December 2, 2013
posted by Z303 at 1:05 PM on December 2, 2013
The main youtube link's down for me
Seems it has been reuploaded to fix some sync problems
posted by Z303 at 2:23 PM on December 2, 2013 [2 favorites]
Seems it has been reuploaded to fix some sync problems
posted by Z303 at 2:23 PM on December 2, 2013 [2 favorites]
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