MMOs up for an Emmy

 Posted by (Visited 5236 times)  Game talk
Jul 202007
 

Or more specifically, the South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft” is up for an Emmy.

Quite a lot of the humor in this episode didn’t work unless you had some sense of what a virtual world was — and not just what Hollywood thought it was (Lawnmower Man, Disclosure, I am thinking of you!) but what they actually work like.

So the fact that the episode is seen as being that worthy is some sort of cultural metric for general awareness and understanding of virtual worlds and MMOs — at least among the Academy voting membership.

  10 Responses to “MMOs up for an Emmy”

  1. That is awesome! I love that episode. I’m not a huge wow fan, but when I watched that I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard!

  2. *cough*

    I would rejoice if the Emmys were not such a horrid joke of an awards show. Last year, for example, Ellyn Burstyn was famously nominated for best supporting actress despite appearing on screen for a total of 14 -seconds-.

    And the Wire has never been nominated despite pretty clearly being the best written, best acted, and best directed on tv (possibly ever) while schmaltzy fluff like Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal get nominated instead.

    I agree, it’s nice that there’s enough cultural awareness out there to even touch something to do with an MMO, but an Emmy is a backhanded compliment, not an award for doing anything well.

    I note that one of South Park’s competitors for an Emmy is Spongebob Squarepants. Quite the honor! 😉

    –matt

  3. Disclosure has something to do with virtual worlds? I might actually have to see it despite years of disinterest.

    Oh well, I predict that the Simpson episode will win, not for being better but because there is a movie coming out and insiders will do anything to promote movies.

  4. Kent asked, Disclosure has something to do with virtual worlds?

    I read the book, not the movie, but… no. It doesn’t. Disclosure is about reverse sexual harassment. They just happened to throw a 3D Filesystem in there (think 3D mailbox, minus the scenery) as the company’s current product.

  5. I’m sort of the opposite of Adele in that I’m a WoW fan and generally dislike Southpark – but that episode was just hilarious. Probably a fair bit lost on non WoW players.

  6. And the Wire has never been nominated despite pretty clearly being the best written, best acted, and best directed on tv (possibly ever) while schmaltzy fluff like Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal get nominated instead.

    I’ve only seen The Wire a few times, but personally, I think Entourage, The Sopranos, Prison Break, and heck, even Deep Space Nine are some of the best-written, best-acted, and best-directed TV serieses.

    Heroes? Maybe, but to me that series feels a lot like The Lost Room and Six Feet Under. Not in terms of content… atmosphere.

    I would rejoice if the Emmys were not such a horrid joke of an awards show.

    What I find funny about the Emmy Awards is that I know quite a few Emmy Award winners. That just feels strange to me. It’s like Emmy Awards are packaged into conference goodie bags and everyone gets one when they get inside.

  7. [quote]And the Wire has never been nominated despite pretty clearly being the best written, best acted, and best directed on tv (possibly ever) while schmaltzy fluff like Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal get nominated instead.[/quote]
    Actually, it was nominated for an Emmy for “Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series” in 2005.

  8. I wonder how much this whole thing has cost Blizzard to this point.

  9. Kent asked, Disclosure has something to do with virtual worlds?

    Michael Chui wrote: I read the book, not the movie, but… no. It doesn’t. Disclosure is about reverse sexual harassment. They just happened to throw a 3D Filesystem in there (think 3D mailbox, minus the scenery) as the company’s current product.

    The movie featured the 3D environment as central to some of the plot. While Artemis (the media player) was the “big” product in the book, it shared attention-time with the 3D environment in the movie.

    The point though was that this was a fantastical 3D environment complete with walk-able pad and full-360 headgear that worked flawlessly. This was before MMOs too, before such things as Minority Report, when it finally seemed that Hollywood was recognizing that in order to get people immersed, they need to want to be there. There are better purposes than navigating Excel spreadsheets with headgear.

    Ironically, while not a 3D web movie, I felt Brainstorm was a better look into the future of 3D web, even if it was just based on headgear replaying people’s memories.

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