Originally published on Kupeesh!
Truth is stranger than fiction...
That's what I kept thinking as I was watching "Free to Play," a new documentary film released
by Valve this week. A company better
known for producing games like Half Life
and selling them though its Steam
portal than making movies. In fact, Steam is how I became aware of the film.
Free to Play chronicles
the emotional journey of 3 "professional" gamers competing in the DOTA2 International Tournament held in
Cologne, Germany during Gamescon
2011.
DOTA2, for the
uninitiated, is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game where teams of 5
players can slug it out in what is basically an online RPG (think World of Warcraft) without all the
boring parts. And yes, DOTA2 is a Valve title so of course the movie is a vehicle for shameless self
promotion.
That's not really the point though...
The film paints a canvass of the "professional"
gaming scene and its slow rise to legitimacy as a sport. As such, I'd fully expected to abandon the
film somewhere between the opening credits and the 10th time someone expressed
their undying love for Valve and DOTA2.
Which in my estimation should have happened somewhere around the 7
minute mark.
That didn't happen...
Instead, I found a thoughtful treatment on the topic of what
it means to be a "professional" gamer. The film tries to draw a strong equivalence
of competitive gaming to professional sports.
Even as an avid gamer I struggle with that "professional" tag
and in the end so did many of the players. Free to
Play showed the glory but wasn't afraid to address the pain and raise the
question of whether or not all the sacrifice was worth it. In the end it was still just a game leaving
many of the gamers profiled in the film questioning their choices.
That kind of honesty was unexpected.
I went into Free to
Play thinking I'd get the equivalent of Warren Miller's Snowriders but got something more akin
to Bowling for Columbine.
Valve took the high road for a change...
Well done.
No comments:
Post a Comment