Gamer Revolution

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Ratings: 7.87/10 from 31 users.

Gamer RevolutionComputer games are a global phenomenon and a $25 billion a year industry. Over 800 million people worldwide are regular players. Gamer Revolution looks past the hype, paranoia and hoopla to explore the real stories behind the computer game revolution.

Gamer Revolution explores how computer games are not only changing the world, but giving rise to a new version of life itself. The line between the real world and the virtual world is disappearing. Millions of people feel that they have a life inside these games and that it's better than their real life.

Gamer Revolution takes viewers around the world from Asia to the heart of the Middle East in search of the most mind-bending stories from the cutting edge of the game revolution. It also features interviews with gamers and game developers including Will Wright, creator of the wildly popular life simulation game, The Sims.

Just how pervasive has gaming become? The US army uses video games to train new recruits and to simulate real-life battle situations in preparation for combat. In Korea, computer nerds are the sex symbols of the 21st century. In Syria, a developer has designed an extremely popular shooter game in which the player gets to kill Israeli soldiers.

Every year, the biggest companies in the industry try to out-do each other in an effort to create buzz for their games. It's a high-stakes business. The development cost of a new game has almost tripled in a decade. Eighty percent of games fail in the first year, but for those who succeed, the payoff is huge.

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15 Comments / User Reviews

  1. AM

    Doom 4 is pretty cool

  2. cyberfrank

    I think the video games are yet still in it s enfancy, like the movies, there will always be different genres, as for violence, well, it s a tough world, and humans are also quite childish as a specie, as the net binds us all together, we should get to see a lot less inter-racial killing games coming out, for sensitive and business reasons, the inequalities and imperfections of society are the reasons of the violence, it allows people to get rid of their frustrations, as for this documentary, it does nt cover everything about gaming, but, it s an extensive subject, many great games were nt covered, neither was the retro gaming phenomenon, or the fact that playstations we re defective, while sega had reliable products, and it went even worst afterwards with the x box and play 2... I feel it should have been covered how that has changed compared to the early technology, I feel that pc now is a better game machine because of this important issue.

  3. Robert Simpson

    I'd love to play a game where you got to shoot yanks, I think thats wht COD etc are missing, the immediacy of guerilla warfare. I'd love to scout out a battlefield looking for enough discarded explosives to make an IED and then roll it up to an infidel checkpoint - hell, if they programmed in the heaven with 70 virgins bit afterwards Id never stop playing!!

  4. Eupackardia

    Gaming is the first step to virtual realities. The thin line between reality and fiction will become blurred. We are still now fixed behind a screen. If you consider researches done in neural science and technologies, it is quite fascinating what we can do.
    As for me,
    I'm still rooting for the Ghost in the Shell type technologies :P... Which in principle should be realisable to a small part of the population within the next century..

  5. Sarah

    People take games too seriously they are only supposed to be light fun.

  6. emanuel

    Dreaded Halo,

    If you believe that there can be no benefit from playing and excelling at certain types of games..well you are wrong

  7. Tim

    ive been compelled to add to the conversation because ive been in korea for almost 2 years, and im from australia.

    its real, its so real. and just because gambling is illegal here, it doesnt mean that its not happening in pc rooms across the country. i see the same people every time im at the local (which is twice a week) and i wonder if a lot of countries would follow this trend if internet access was dirt cheap like this country. perhaps culture plays its part, but perhaps not.

    p.s... love the docs on this site. its one of the most informative sources of documentaries on the planet ;)

  8. Geosak

    Dreaded Halo,

    Thats like saying that its stupid to dream, or fantasize! If someone dreams of what it would be like to be an elf then that is there desire... its no more an illusion than the fantasy most people have of flying!
    I think the real issue is not virtual VS real life and thus virtual VS real life fantasy... the real issue is what fantasies do we want to encourage??
    The question isn't if the virtual world should exist but what we should do with it to protect the moral integrity of the virtual world which will spill over into the real world sooner or later.
    In short, it can be used for good and evil and is a reflection of the real world... What is real money but an illusion anyway? At least video games are honest enough to not trick you into thinking their money will buy you security in the very real 'hunter-gatherer' sense.

  9. Dreaded Halo

    empty people fulfilling themselves quietly inside an illusion there for it keeps being an illusion and has no value in the real life.

    As for the guy selling his house, that was really smart as along as there are people dumb enough to spend real money into an illusion. but if people don't spend that real money into it, then it was real dumb to do so.

    but its not their fault, they don't know its bad for them, they just feel good inside, its like a really good drug.

    1. blooddrama

      What's real anyway?
      When survival becomes relatively easy, people seek to fulfill those fake dreams and desires they have absorbed and built during their lives, wich relates to most actions of modern men.
      One struggles to find joy in the simplicity and comfort of modern life, and feels as he must prusuit the emotional arousal mass media is capble of creating, or , in a more active manner: chasing big dreams, or killing orcs..

  10. Geosak

    @ Don George:
    Its no more disgusting considering Christian kids are playing games shooting Arabs. However these are war games and there must be the players team and an enemy of some sort and since these games are modeled on real world conflicts and real word conflicts are usually based on race or religion thats why these games are themed this way. On the other hand I wonder how teams of mixed races would affect the players? Would they just become desensitized to killing in general rather than a specific race/religion?

  11. leelovesyou

    haha u look sexy in real life
    LOOOOOL

  12. Xtn

    I agree with you Mr M. Seems like a lot of it was fear mongering. Games are NOT out to get us. Apart from that some quite interesting stuff.

  13. Mr.M

    @Don George It's not an evil game it's a regular game. I cant even count how many games there are where you have to kill russians, germans, vietnamese, african or arabic people. No one ever called call of duty evil.

  14. Don George

    How disgusting that Palestinian children are encouraged to kill Israelis. What an evil game.