Gamer Generation on Discovery HD
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Jan 7th 2007 at 12:25PM }
There's a couple showings left of Discovery HD's Gamer Generation special coming up, so set your TiVo Series 3 and your generic DVRs to record, and see what insight this latest documentary has to offer about gamers that hasn't already been said.Depending on where you live, and if your satellite/cable provider carries the Discovery HD Theater channel, there are two more showings today, and again on Saturday, January 13th. TV listings are showing it as "Part One," so hopefully this will be an ongoing series or special, but right now information about this, and a frustrating amount of HD programming, is hard to come by.
Let us know if you happened to catch it, and what you thought about it. That is, if you are able to find it ... just like The A-Team.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
OTAM @ Jan 7th 2007 12:31PM
HD programming.....LAWL
I guess real life isnt real enough.
Crazylink @ Jan 7th 2007 4:05PM
TiVo, DVR, who needs that? Long live VCR!
But seriously I do need a DVR of some sort.
james fear @ Jan 7th 2007 1:19PM
I've gotten about halfway through and I must say the part about the popularity of Starcraft, in South Korea is amazing. The show is certainly well done and worth a watch.
amco @ Jan 7th 2007 5:07PM
Watched an airing last night, it was actually pretty good. They basically did three pieces, once about the use of video-games by the US government for training and recruitment, one about a Syrian made game (state supported) that has you fighting the Israeli army (creepy stuff), and finally a piece on whether or not video games contribute to violence in teens (our buddy Jack Thompson showed up in that one). The quality was high and it was much less sensationalized than a lot of the coverage that these subjects get in the States (the show is Canadian produced). The next one is about MMO stuff, I am looking forward to it.
sigma @ Jan 7th 2007 1:37PM
It was an interesting documentary. The part about South Korea was bizarre but the most interesting part was the bit about Syria and their development of a game that promotes hate and violence towards Israel. They justify it comparing it with the US games that show Arabs as the enemy. Lots to comment on and rant about after seeing it but.. its poitnless. Go watch it.
Lee @ Jan 7th 2007 1:43PM
I think I saw part one - they talked about this Palestinian game company that makes an anti-israei FPS that is partially funded by their gov't. Jack Thompson also made an appearance and they did a whole fps-makes-kids-kill bit. Next time they were going to talk about WoW and the like.
Overall it was ok. Nice seeing games in hi-def.
Spastic @ Jan 7th 2007 2:04PM
It seemed like they were trying to stay fairly unbiased by presenting a lot of different viewpoints, but I still think they gave Jack Thompson and the Palestinian company too much time. At least right after the Jack Thompson bit they had a guy come on and basically say "old people just don't get it".
What I thought was funny was how the Palestinians were so offended by Americans taking great pleasure in killing Arabs. I'm having a hard time thinking of a recent game that focused on killing Arabs. If anything it's Mexicans that should be offended, since that's the bad guy in all the recent Tom Clancy games. The game they kept showing as an example of this Arab hatred was Counterstrike, which last time I played it was full of people playing the terrorists with glee and yelling out "Jihad!" every time they killed a CT.
Overall a pretty good documentary though, I also liked the Starcraft part the best.
fanan89 @ Jan 8th 2007 12:45PM
How can I send info to Joystiq?
Ryan @ Jan 7th 2007 3:07PM
Yeah, Jack Thompson really needs to just be taken out of that show. It's supposed to be a show about videogames and their influence not about mentally unstable politicians.
sploy @ Jan 7th 2007 8:13PM
The difference is that counter strike wasn't funded by the white house in order to promote hatred of Arabs... it was privately developed. Counter strike doesn't represent official US foreign policy, whereas a Palestinian government funded game designed to promote hatred of Israelis is ridiculous.
Besides, they've fervently hated each other for years, why do they think they need to waste money on it... it's ironic that the only people who think that games can influence thought are religious extremists (I'm lookin' at you Jack).
Olduvai_Joe @ Jan 7th 2007 3:48PM
So when is this on Discovery regular?
Mr. Khan @ Jan 8th 2007 4:32PM
That anti-Israeli FPS is for PC, right?
Even then, i couldn't imagine any of them having it
If Palestine became an independent nation, it would be one of the poorest nations in that region, so i couldn't imagine a video game getting wide distribution
HD TV (the space denoting HD television programming) is still pointless, i say,
HD Movies and HD Games make sense, but TV shows, not so much...
mywhitenoise @ Jan 7th 2007 4:21PM
I saw this last night. Too bad Comcast only has about 8 HD Channels (I don't count HBO and all the premium channels). I was thinking about switching to Satellite, but I hear tons of bad stories about them. As for Surewest, my dad wont make the switch (even though we use them for online, and mobile).
xiLLeNtz @ Jan 8th 2007 2:18AM
lol i must see this but dont have discovery hd ! aaahhh > < how can i watch?
DC @ Jan 8th 2007 10:37AM
What I thought was ironic about the whole Syrian thing was that first they talked about how all the games being sold were pirate copies, then the Syrian gamers start bitching about how the games aren't fun because they're all about killing Arabs...
The whole second half was shite, in my opinion. I didn't think the 'FPSers turn kids into killers' segment was the least bit unbiased. Just more mainstream sensationalist tripe.
kam-RA @ Jan 8th 2007 8:35PM
I too watched the show. It is very well done. I loved that a lot of the CS matches shown were between Team 3D & Col (Complexity). I didn't like how much exposure JT received, but since he's the mouthpiece of gaming dissent (read: Mouth of Sauron), it makes sense for him to represent that point of view. Anyway... I still feel like there's a slight disconnect between the mass media and actual gamers... but this show has bridged that gap a bit. The Syrian game looks like @$$, but since it's one of their 1st games, that's to be expected. What's most interesting is how video games have become a vital propaganda tool for every side of modern combat conflicts. Luckily, even though I love CS headshots with gushing blood, I still can't stand the sight of lots of real-life blood.