cnurgi said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U9wnFKq9Fc&t=9s
I understand these are fictional characters. My point is, they're not characters I enjoy watching. Which is the point of fictional characters.
A great deal is made in this website about the value of gaming not only as a hobby but, as the webby award festivities call it, a lifestyle (yes, I went and voted). I play pen and paper RPGs as well as computer games. I've gone to conventions, play with friends, and play on web forums, so I think I've seen a fairly broad cross section of the kind of people who play. And I haven't met any people like the ones depicted in the show.
Everyone I ever played with rolled their eyes at media representations of gamers as man-children, awkward, reclusive, immature, etc; how can we expect mainstream media to show a more accurate representation of the kind of people pursuing this hobby if we ourselves tune in to watch the same depictions within the culture itself?
It's been 4 episodes now (plus pilot) and nothing is made of the behavior of the players. As far as the show is concerned, these are typical gamers.
For contrast, imagine if the show was about people at a gay bar, and they were all in fetish attire, raving, and being flamboyant. It would be considered an insulting and outdated (in the sense that society has pretty much moved on from these stereotypes, not that they were ever true) view of the gay scene.
I like the show. The effort and care is obvious, the costumes and fantasy locations are fantastic and they've applied some very impressive special effects. But I can't enjoy it, because I can't empathize with the characters. They're not realistic people to me. I look at them and I see a mocking stereotype that has been holding back the hobby from being taken seriously.
By being taken seriously, I mean getting rid of the childish connotations the medium suffers from. Game designers being considered toy makers, and the like. A football fan (not a football player) devotes about as much time as a gamer does to following his team, buying paraphernalia and the like, but no one thinks a grown man spending his Sunday afternoons watching football, waving foam fingers and flags with friends is something out of the ordinary.
And it's a pity, because I think the show has a lot of promise given the expertise of everyone involved. And as anyone who has played a game can tell, the constant infighting in most adventuring parties provides a lot of fodder for a comedy show. There isn't any need to make fun of the players themselves, or having 'normal people' come in and bully them, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.