Second Skin

[darkblue]

Originally Posted by Pikn

Anyone know of a proxy site/server which allows hulu to countries other than the US? I've looked around without any luck =(

Should be able to watch it here instead.

Watch Second Skin - Through 8/13 Only! - SnagFilms

[Dabamf]

Originally Posted by darkblue

Should be able to watch it here instead.

Watch Second Skin - Through 8/13 Only! - SnagFilms

Beat me to it by 4 minutes. Yea that site works for non-US people.

[ValkyrieIsAboutToDie]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

Ted Castronova

Guy was far and away the highlight of the movie. He had some incredibly profound thoughts on MMOs -- I'd pay to watch an hour of him speaking about the genre.

But sweet baby Jesus, they undercut that guy's wisdom with some of the most socially inept trainwreck stupidity I've seen in a long time. Woolley's mom is clearly in no position to be "helping" people. All seemed well for the first five minutes she was on screen but then suddenly every other word that came out of her mouth was confused, finger-pointing bullshit that she's made up in her warped mind. My favorite point was when Philly guy was bashing her because she referred to him as "The Gamer" to other people at the halfway house. And you think to yourself, "Nahhh, just an addict exaggerating" -- then not ten minutes later she actually refers to another halfway house resident as "the other gamer" or something along those lines. Didn't even know the person's name. Disgusting.

Also, I wanted to reach through my monitor and smack the piss out of chubby Asian guy. What a smug cockwallet.

Watch this movie if you want to see the very darkest side of MMO addiction and little to none of the positives (unless you consider the relationship between Mr. Creepy-Awkward and Mrs. Clingy-Obsessive to be positive... ::shiver:: )

[Campari]

Originally Posted by Rica86

They spent way too much time on that woman that lost her son then they should have, she shouldn't of even been in the movie.

Agree 100%, she contributed absolutely nothing to the film but beyond that she's completely retarded and is in no way qualified to treat people with addiction problems.

The film did seem a little disjointed at times. Normally in documentaries like this you empathize with one or more of the characters, but I really didn't find myself giving a shit about any of these people. This was more a documentary about the relationships of ugly people in virtual worlds as opposed to addressing the phenomenon of online games and the lives of people who play them.

[roger]

this was a good doc, nothing must of us didn't know already tho. the syndicate was cool, remind me abit of this huge guild that been playing planetside at starts and had tons of members and were giving prices and such. forgot the name =/.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Rica86

Well since scott was in the doc and has posted in the thread, I assume you were told what they were trying to go for with the doc, care to fill me in? Because I don't get it.

Sure thing. It was "We're doing a doc about MMOs, the people who play them, and the relationships that form between people" which are topics that I'm all over.

I was also surprised (and obviously a little disappointed) at how the hardest core people ended up implied as the average case. I may have missed it, but I didn't see much of an indicator that this level of hardcore wasn't the typical use case for an MMO.

At the same time, I can see how "I have a job/go to school, I play a couple hours every few nights - It's like a TV replacement for me, with people" doesn't make for a particularly compelling story.

The Expert interviews were about 30-90 minutes each - There wasn't a lot of indication that this was the direction it was going to be headed.

If it's like anything else I've seen, I have to imagine that they did some fair amount of shaping the direction throughout editing and assembling.

Originally Posted by Rica86

Edit: Also I wish they would of spent more time than they did on the people with disabilities, that can get out of thier shells and etc, feel better about themselves due to the games. They gave that like 5 minutes which was a shame

I could not agree more. It's more than just physical disabilities that make for good stories here. There's a lot of other positive material to draw from.

[Sutekh]

It was painful for me to watch the first 20 minutes of it, I couldnt watch anything after that.

[Smocca]

A lot of things pissed me off about this movie. It doesn't seem like it was written "for the non-gamer" as much as it was written "by the non-gamer". What I mean is that it would assert or imply a bunch of horrible misconceptions people have and do nothing to dispel or support them.

There's a part where it gets really into it and starts going on with the guy who fucked up his life "because of the game" (he lost his business, his relationship, and he pissed in bottles etc). Woolley talks for a second afterward and says some bullshit about that being the "corporate strategy" (the next scene states that Blizzard grossed $1.2 billion that year). Give me a fucking break. As if people like that guy are why WoW has made so much money.

Which brings me to the next thing. They don't take even 5 minutes to go over the average gamer's life or habits. What conclusion is a viewer going to draw when you talk about how big these games are and then show them ONLY the most extreme of cases. I can imagine my poor mother seeing this and then calling me to beg that I no longer play any video games. Christ.

It seems like they were going for some sort of a balance there at some points by showing fairly positive relationships and those few guys in wheelchairs who used Second Life to do things they were never able to do themselves. Except that once again they are taking only the most extreme cases. As if there is no middle ground between fucking your life up through games or the world being so inaccessible to you normally that games are opening doors to places you've never had access to.

If they had made it clear early on that they were going to look at the exreme and only the extreme cases then I wouldn't be as peeved. Instead they intentionally juxtapose things to try and create a very false impression that these are the typical MMO players.

[Zarcath]

I'm still waiting for "The Real World: WoW edition" where a group of gamers have to live in a house and form a raiding guild. Drama ensues.

People who fuck up their life on MMOs could equally fuck it up on any other sort of medium. Movies, TV, Ping Pong. Ultimately it's their choice. If you want to quit your job and piss in bottles, who's to stop you?

Of course, if you have a wife and kid then your priorities should be seeing to their needs. Though it's not their fault or the games if you never learned the right life lessons.

I wouldn't trade my time with EQ for anything else, it got me to see some harsh realities. I'm really glad I was able to get that "out of the way" while I was young. I can't imagine doing 24-48 hour+ raids in WoW.

[Bobleclair]

they all look obese and depressed

[dechire]

"its such a miracle each time a baby is born" No its actually not. This whole addiction nonsense really pisses me off. What happend to personal fucking responsibility? Seriously, its not heroin, its not meth hell its not even 3 years of daily coke use, sure it fucks with your pleasure centers but its still a fucking choice. If EQ killed you the world gene pool is better off. There i said it.

[Salshun]

Originally Posted by Bobleclair

they all look obese and depressed

Whole lot of epic win with those guys. The "how we are in EQ" lovey videos were just painful to watch. Portraying that guy as this "online pimp" made me cringe.

Also, that Dan guy's nephew, the one with the fucked up grill? How does that guy get that fine as shit girl he's with? Shit isn't fair.

[Aulirophile]

Seeing the leader of the syndicate was kind of cool. I still remember all the PvP vids of they made of world PvP when the ranking system first went in. Seriously thought about trying to get in to it at one point, yearly fees and all it seems like an awesome bunch of people.

[cyanbane]

I thought the guy from Philly (Dan?) was lame at the beginning of the movie and just looking for an outlet to place the blame on (kinda like his back being messed up while kicking that ball a good 20 yards), but as the movie progressed I actually thought he ended up being the best part of the movie and ended up really liking him in the end. He was the one person at the beginning of the movie who I least thought would figure out that it is all up to the willpower of the person behind the keyboard, and thats it. Nothing anyone can say or do is really going to help. Just like any other addiction.

All and all I thought it was great. It didn't present anything in a good or bad light, it just presented it.

[HiroYagyu]

15:31

Is that where the gold farmers eat?