Video Game Documentaries

Video Games
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I started watching the documentary about Smash Bros on youtube earlier today. It got me thinking about other documentaries related to video games that are worth watching. What are your recommendations? Here are some of mine

  • Special When Lit (Pinball Documentary)
  • The King Of Kong
  • Wizard Mode
  • Man Vs Snake
  • The King of Arcades
  • The Lost Arcade
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Indie Game: The Movie is fantastic. It features Jonathan Blow and Phil Fish and was my first introduction into gaming documentaries.

I’m not sure what the rules are for links but Hold Back to Block is a great channel if you’re ever curious about the fighting game community.

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You made me realise that aside from Indie Game The Movie and a handful of Noclip videos (I particularly enjoyed the Supergiant Hades launch one), I really haven’t watched any! The nightmare of Halo 2’s behind the scenes development on the special edition probably sticks with me more than anything else.

I shall definitely have to check out your recommendations, though! I’m a complete sucker for interviews and behind the scenes, so I should already be all over this.

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Thanks for sharing! I’m actually a big fan of fighting games and the community. I briefly saw the video from the link and that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for.

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I’m not familiar with the Noclip channel. Thanks for recommending it. It looks like a good channel to subscribe to.

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The GVMERS YouTube channel is awesome for this.

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The Ecstasy of Order
Branching Paths
New Game: documentary movie

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Speaking of recent ones, i found Playing Hard interesting (it’s about the making of For Honor). Available on Netflix, at least in my country.

On E-Sports and the lives of young players there’s Free to play by Valve, free and available on pretty much everything.

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I just searched for Playing Hard and I found it on Netflix. I’ll probably watch it this week! Free to play also sounds interesting and will also add it to my watchlist.:v:

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I love Indie Game: The Movie, but I think the Double Fine Adventure is the best game dev documentary ever made. I know the whole series is a commitment, but I can’t recommend it highly enough…

(Happy to see some love for Ecstasy of Order, too. The writer is an acquaintance of mine.)

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The Gaming Historian has some great videos on YouTube. Usually short documentaries 10-15 mins, but his 1 hour on The Story of Tetris is one of the best.

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For anyone interested in speed running, Summoning Salt provides fascinating and detailed documentaries ranging from 30 minutes to an hour on a wide variety of games and the ways in which speed-running them has evolved over the years. I am not a speed runner myself but still very well done especially in regards to production value.

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I haven’t actually watched it yet but I have been meaning to watch Atari: Game Over. It’s about the video game crash of 1983 and framed around the mass burial of E.T. game cartridges (which if you haven’t heard of the E.T. Atari game it’s considered one of the worst games ever). I admit I have a guilty pleasure for hearing about really terrible games and general drama in the industry.

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@LauraMFrench if you are interested in terrible games and mini documentaries surrounding them, Matt McMuscles on YouTube has a series called Wha Happun that delves into not only terrible video games but also video game movies and the decisions that led to them being as bad as they are. Pretty interesting and most of the videos are relatively short as well.

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Thank you for the suggestion! I also really enjoy Larry Bundy Jr’s Fact Hunt series on YouTube. As much as I also like just watching playthroughs and commentary on really bad games, it’s even more interesting to hear the backstories and scandals behind them. I’ll definitely check out Matt McMuscles’ series!

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Yeah, terrible games and their origin and history can be really entertaining. I actually saw that documentary you just mentioned and really enjoyed it.

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This sounds really interesting and I’m about to look it up. Thanks for the recommendation!

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I’ve been watching Wha Happun, it’s really interesting and also funny!

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OK, I have a bunch for you that you can watch on YouTube:

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I really enjoyed a series of short docs called Diggin’ in the Carts about Japanese video game music artists. It’s well worth a watch (and listen). I’ve probably posted about it in the past, somewhere in the forums, it’s quite good.

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