If you like RPG, surely you've seen The Gamers movies. Right?

[Wicht]

I haven't seen the first or third, but the 2nd Gamers movie, Dorkness Rising, is my favorite RPG movie ever - its got heart, genuine comedy, and plenty of tropes skewered good-naturedly. I would most certainly recommend it, especially to RPGers who've played for a number of years.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I heard of them? Yes. Watched them? Not a one.

 

[Umbran]

I watched the first. I didn't see much reason to watch others. It seemed kind of... one-trick pony, to me.

 

[fraxz]

These movies sound awesome, I'll have to look into it.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I am amazed how many avid role-playing gamers I run into that haven't even heard of The Gamers movies by Dead Gentlemen Productions and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment members.

...

Just surprised how few RPGers actually seem to know about these shows, and curious why that may be.

Going back to the starting question, why is this surprising? Gamers are not exactly a cohesive group, or even a diverse group that has a centralizing locus. A fan-made act-of-love movie about people who love the hobby is something I think people in the hobby would be more into watching than anyone else, but I don't see why they'd all rush to see it, even if they did know about it. The best analogy I can think of is the mockumentary Best In Show--I think dog-show devotes would be more prone to like the movie than your person off the street, but I also doubt every dog-show person has heard of or seen it.

 

[JeffB]

Heard of em.


No desire to watch 'em.

Cant say I ever enjoy much gaming humor. Whats New w/ Phil and Dixie is about it.

 

[rpgresearch]

I watched the first. I didn't see much reason to watch others. It seemed kind of... one-trick pony, to me.

The first one was college student prototype of a concept. There was a lot of room for improvement and elaboration. It also ended as an unresolved cliffhanger. The newer movies are far better production quality in all aspects. The subsequent movies have actually been a different group and different topics. The Gamers: The Series in the works picks up where the first one left off, which kind of ties in concepts from Humans & Households.

 

[rpgresearch]

Going back to the starting question, why is this surprising? Gamers are not exactly a cohesive group, or even a diverse group that has a centralizing locus. A fan-made act-of-love movie about people who love the hobby is something I think people in the hobby would be more into watching than anyone else, but I don't see why they'd all rush to see it, even if they did know about it. The best analogy I can think of is the mockumentary Best In Show--I think dog-show devotes would be more prone to like the movie than your person off the street, but I also doubt every dog-show person has heard of or seen it.

I think my main surprise is that in this day and age of memes and youtubers, it seemed surprising so many missed it. As I have mentioned to gamers, most have loved them and wondered also how they hadn't heard of them previously. Far more seemingly percentage-wise of MMORPG players that I run into seem to know about Felicia Day's "The Guild", than the perceived percentage of tabletop and LARP players know about the various The Gamers movies. I guess it is maybe just down to marketing? The Guild, after the first season had backing from Microsoft, while The Gamers have been community supported (though set some records).

You are right about the lack of centralization of tabletop (and live-action) role-playing gamers, they/we are a wonderfully diverse population world-wide, people that otherwise would never associate with each other brought together by this great common interest of a socially-oriented, usually cooperative, shared narrative gaming experience.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Well, using MMORPGs and The Guild as a comparison point, we can break this down into a rather rough hew analysis.

1) Is there a central property? Not, of course, one game to rule them all, but a hegemon. TT RPGs have D&D. MMORPGs have WoW. At the time that The Guild came out, WoW was the MMORPG, in a way that D&D hasn't been since the 80s heyday. Even if D&D (+ Pathfinder) is the biggest share of RPG-being-bought, there isn't a single edition that everyone plays and everyone will agree as a good referent.

2) Is there a central locus? I assume that there's a main forum/board/other main site that is a clearinghouse for WoW culturally tangential material where someone might link to The Guild and lots of people would check out. What's that for TTRPGs? Enworld? Dragonsfoot? TheRPGsite? RPG.net? Certainly not WotC. And that's just the RPG players who are surfing for RPG related material, which brings me to...

3) Is there an online presence? Yes on both counts, but almost by definition, all MMORPG players are online. Not that anyone is offline these days, but I'll hazard a guess that a majority of RPG players are not online looking for more RPG related stuff. I mean this board is a pretty big one, and how much traffic does it see in a given day?

This is all completely unscientific, and my epidemiology or study design profs would kick me for the lack of rigor, but those seem to be good prima facie explanations to me.

 

[aramis erak]

Didn't care for what little a friend nearly forced me to watch.