Condemned to Repeat It?: Video Game Documentaries

Taking a look into the future may sometimes seem bleak, so why not look into the past for some learnin’? It can be fun AND cause seizures! Once video games infiltrate all parts of our lives, what do we have left to do? Make documentaries about them. The trailer above is for 8 Bit: A Documentary About Art and Video Games, which premieres on October 7 at the MoMA (check for artist list and times) in New York.

Then there’s the documentary formerly known as Play about video game music mentioned a while ago. It’s still in production, but their site has uncut footage up for your viewing. If you set aside the misguided fanboy love for (now producer) Tommy Tallarico, the material seems diverse and will probably make for a good doc, and hopefully not a Tallarico promo video. [“Before him, the music was just an afterthought to the game.” — As if Haruomi Hosono and Nobuo Uematsu never existed: that’s just plain IGNANT.]

Still, it seems that everyone’s making a documentary on one aspect of video game culture or another. There’s the Street Fighter doc, Bang the Machine, the insider history of Atari, Once Upon Atari, and even a PBS Special. The Discovery Channel has two, which you can watch after the jump, along with Gamer Br, a documentary about Brazilian gamers, in its entirety.

The History of Video Games

How Things are Made: Video Games

Gamer Br — Part 1

Gamer Br — Part 2

Gamer Br — Part 3

Gamer Br — Part 4

Gamer Br — Part 5