Second Skin Coming To DVD In August

@belo:

A social anti-social? As much as I love the good oxymoron, you're confusing MMO's with something that are productive. In fact, they're not only less productive then doing any other activity in life, but they're negatively productive. They're so unproductive that they consume the person and all of their daily activities. The problem here is that it becomes so addictive that life in the real world doesn't hold as much value as it does in the fake world, and things slip through their fingers. Fake friends, fake universe, fake items, fake happiness. Don't confuse all of these with reality. You might enjoy yourself while playing massive amounts of WoW, or any other MMO. But you will feel massively unhappy about your real life. So tell me, which is more significant?

NewSpecies

@Clarke: Yep.

masterdingo

@Budkin: Ya never know. I don't play them either, but just watching the trailer, it looks kind of fun to "... kill creatures, complete tasks...". Extremely nerdy, but somehow fun looking.

"You've got kids, you've got, you know, just the mundane existence of life". WTF?

Bursar

I can't wait for the sequel... foreski- never mind.

@belo: Hurray hedonism!

@NewSpecies: because making new friends is a waste of time, right?

How dare they have fun and not do something more productive. The nerve.

@NewSpecies: Oh believe me, in my case, it's plenty justified. Plenty.

PS: I knew it was tacky. But in this scenario, it was a relevant statement.

mienai

@Odin: It's okay. We think you talk funny too. Never met a Brit who could properly say "pasta" or "macho" (hint: short a).

@mienai:
What I find funny is that some people actually they're playing for something. You might disagree, but when you think about it in the long run. You are paying them for a service where you care about abstract items, mere bytes of data and a record in a database.

Drinking a beer is a short amount of time.
Watching sports centre is short is a short amount of time.
Working on a car takes a lot of effort, but at least you have something to show for it.

But, I can honestly say. I played for nothing. Nothing gained what so ever, and what I lost in returned was my high school social life. Friends, and social contact with my family. Even now, I'm more close minded to them then strangers.

If you work at a job, after that amount of time you'd show some productivity and finish a project. If you had a hobby like auto-repair or programming, you'd have a project completed. But, MMO's aren't physical, they aren't real and most of all they aren't productive. It's fine to soak your head and play when ever you're burned out, or need a break. But if your finding that you're trying to justify your habits to your parents, friends, or someone that cares. Really think about yourself.

PS: Quoting someone who is already in to MMO's is tacky, more tacky then quoting someone to justify a point.

NewSpecies

@Ackers rhymes with Crackers: tis why i use flash block these days. lets me decide when flash is necessary, and when i want to start watching videos.

This might be a good documentary, but it won't make me actually enjoy MMOs.

Budkin

@sereal: i was scared to....

@NewSpecies: I have to disagree with you there. Except for Disney Land.

At the risk of quoting Andy Belford, I say the following. Maybe your time could be better spent than watching Sport Center, or drinking beer, or working on a car. We play MMOs.

mienai

@TaylorEatWorld the Baby Twisting Motherfucker:
What statistics? Good for you, you're one of the decreasing number or people who are actually somewhat social. Here is your ribbon and badge of half-socialness. * hands it to you *

@DaemonGildas:
I can't help but laugh at the fear you have for your own neighbors because of the media. The media is really the last source you should trust for peoples real intentions and judgment of character, because they look for exposes.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but you know. Being online isn't as great as people make it out to be, I'm on my computer programming practically all day but I only visit Kotaku. Maybe it's just me.

Well. It's not quite true that TV Shows, Disney Land, etc. Fit in to those categories. But those are meant to be enjoyed, not abused. People don't spend their lives at Disney land unless they work there. And people get tired of playing the same series over and over and over. So the shelf-life of most products, whither you pick it up later or not is quite small compared to an MMO. I think I'd feel safer if my friends wasted it on beer, he wouldn't get a lot of beer but he'd be social and hang out. I've often tell my friends that I'd feel better if they did Cocaine over WoW. I joke around, but there is some truth to it.

NewSpecies

@NewSpecies: Actually, when they first started making this, their initial focus was the negative aspects of MMOs, not defending them.

In fact, the film touches on quite a bit of the dark aspects.

I could go on and on about the film, but I won't.

mienai

Interesting... I remember your brief mentions of this in the past. I try to see every gaming documentary (Even if that means just a History Channel show on gaming) I can, so I have to scoop this one up. I wish there was more to go on. At least Current (The TV channel) is with the times enough to cover this. I'm really starting to dig their network (Also: See their "Rotten Tomatoes" TV show... really excellent stuff... I don't even go to that site, but the show is hilarious).

TILT, a film about the Pinball industry was recently released on disc. I have yet to see it, but you should know it's out there.

@NewSpecies: I like how you pull statistics out of your ass. I often have friends over to play the vidyuh.

@NewSpecies: It's mostly just that we no longer had great social cultures anymore. I mean, think about it; if a kid falls off his bike, you go over, pick him up, dust him off, and put a bandaid on his knee, you're actually putting yourself at risk for a lawsuit. Sure, it's not likely it'll ever happen, but the media is happy to act like it happens everywhere, all the time.

In truth, I've had much of a love/hate relationship with MMO's. It's definitely not productive; it's really not so different from lazing around watching movies with friends. But at other times, like when my close friend first passed away, it was kind of nice to have that sense of anonymity to just have some support through hard times.

Mankind would be better off without MMO's, no doubt. But the same could be said of Disney World, tv shows, or pretty much any form of "art". But, for better or worse, we aren't robots, and need ways to indulge ourselves. I certainly wouldn't say it's worth being *proud* of playing an MMO, but certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It's not as bad as flushing money away on drugs or beer, which I've known a lotta folks over the course of my life do.

In fairness, yeah, the people shown on that clip looked like the sort who may play more than might be healthy. But to each his own, I suppose; it's not like there weren't a ton of couch-potatoes before. At least they're enjoying some extent of company now.

Cool. I'm interested in seeing this when it comes out. I also like how they streamlined explain the basics of an MMORPG, because for my social psychology class, I gave this presentation on Alternative Lifestyles: Electronic Worlds. Some fun stuff.

@Makoto: which is how I pronounce the name "Basil"

not the spice, that's like a bay with a zil tacked on.

how interesting, the computer case in that screenshot appears to be the lian-li case I am planning on using when I build myself a new computer this fall.

@Odin: So you pronounce it like the country Brazil, without the R?

....How odd.

Makoto

@fulgore66: I can see your point there. I had a friend that played that won tickets to see his favorite band off the radio, and he gave the tickets away because there was a scheduled raid that evening. I have never personally gotten into an MMO, I tried the WoW demo and could tell it wasn't for me.

Awesome avatar and nick man, The KI theme music just ran through my head!

Amsterdaam is Egon Spengler

@Amsterdaam is Egon Spengler:

A friend of mine has logged 3600 hours into WoW (on one of his 10 characters). He was a normal gamer before this happened. The only difference as far as I can tell is that he made "friends" with his guild and now feels like he has an obligation to be online to raid with them. It's not just the game, it's the social/psychological aspect of it.

fulgore66

No offense to Americans but the way you pronounce some words bugs the hell out of me.

e.g. Mul-tye-player

It's Mul-tee-player.

And lets not forget the worst offender: Basil.
BAH-ZIL not BAY-ZUL >_>

Again don't mind me, I'm just ranting.

Odin

@NewSpecies: But in that respect, isn't all gaming a waste of time, not just MMOs? What are you actually achieving whilst playing a FPS or RPG? I don't think I can consider MMO's a "plague on humanity" as the people that spend their entire lives on them would most likely be doing another similar, introverted activity.

Amsterdaam is Egon Spengler

I will watch this.

@Ackers rhymes with Crackers: java script :p

sereal

Saw this at SXSW in 2008. It was awesome and very well done.

@Skyline7284:

It was later renamed 'GameMakers,' but yeah, I fucking loved that show. I learned so much about the game industry from it...

ReconToaster.

@Cheroro: actually a _lot_ of non gamers were in the theater when I saw this. They [the makers of the film] asked how many in the group played MMO's and only 2 people in the audience raised their hands. The rest of the audience were middle aged adults and older.

Many folks are interested in watching what they don't know.

i.roboto

@undefined: I've seen the documentary. It's pretty good. They focus on a couple of things like gold farming, romances, good and bad, suicide groups, anti-addiction groups.

It's a fairly good watch.

i.roboto

@masterdingo: Bioware?

@Kitchen Fresh Hands:
Sure, everyone technically has a life. But not all MMO players are stuck in dead end jobs, living their lives out playing the games in their spare time. Gathering a family that they can talk to better then their own.

Personally I think MMO's are a plague to humanity, I've already clocked my hours playing them. They're nothing but a waste of time when you finally cut the addiction and look back.

But defending them, and treating them as a social network. Maybe we've lost our values somewhere along the line when people seriously consider online video games as a social thing. When games are missing local multi-player and only have online features. Games aren't really social, because in reality, most games today are being played less and less together.

NewSpecies

That movie doesn't interest me at all....... The people it seems to be aimed at (non-gamers) aren't going to even watch it, and the people who would watch it (gamers) already know everything that their telling us.

The guy in the begging has the same logitech headphones I have (but broke). Also one guy has the same Gateway computer case as me.

@Kitchen Fresh Hands:

That's kind of how they made it sound in the clip, which is bad.

@bfwings55: It's mostly surprising to see how shitty their setups are for people who play MMOs. I could never sit that long in front of such tiny monitors on such tiny desks.

Also, that dog is begging for a walk.

@NewSpecies:
Not all WOW or Everquest players have no life you know.

I have a life.

This looks excellent. I'm a big fan of those documentaries. And so are my friends doing their Masters in sociology. Humans are very interesting to study when they get in front of their blue screen.

Funny, I don't remember a guild called, "The Syndicate" being the "premiere" guild in ALL MMOs?! But, it's very cool that my boss is in this clip.

masterdingo

@NewSpecies: I'm not even sure if I quite understand that but it sounds like another one of our lovely American cop-outs to further lessen personal responsibility.

ShoopDaBoofs

I'm sorry. But they sound like their defending MMOs. So because their social lives don't extend past their couches, were to believe that fear is keeping these people in and this gated community is the only way for them to get back to reality... after escaping from it?

NewSpecies

wow the video magically starts all on its own - WHAT EVIL POWERS ARE AT HAND!

Well, this sounds like it has potential. I will be watching this hopefully in theaters.

@Mucudadada: I used to love watching Icons and Judgment Day. *sigh* An episode of Icons came with my copy of Civ IV though which is neat.

Hm. Seems like a really interesting film. It's surprising to hear some of these people say some of these things.

@Skyline7284: Eh, I doubt G4 will bring Icons back. They are just run such a different way then back then. It's sad. Alas, we can still watch some of the old episodes. Here's a few...
[www.screwattack.com]

And ya, King of Kong is a great documentary is general.

@BubbleF**kingBuddy: Because Twitter gets about as close as you can get to a news source besides seeing it happen.

I still have no idea why people in the news media made such a big deal out of Second Life and Twitter.

Not a fan of the autplaying video everytime you click on the post. Otherwise it doesn't seem as interesting as King of Kong, which is the best gaming documentary out there.

Also, someone tell G4 to bring back Icons. That show was great even if only 5 people watched it.