Law and Order takes on the sensitive subject of game addiction.

http://www.dorkly.com/video/4053/ridiculous-portrayal-of-gamers-on-law-amp-order-svu

(Giant Bomb won't let me embed the video and copyright trolls took the clip off Youtube. Bear with me)

I like some members of the Bomb Squad enjoy my fair share of Law and Order. It's always on and usually a fantastic way to kill an hour or multiple if USA's airing a marathon. I fired up my DVR and had the pleasure of watching one of the most hysterically bad depictions of gamers ever. This is Reefer Madness levels of sensationalism that hopefully no sane individual would take seriously. However, it's troubling to think that the older generations that didn't grow up around video games might see us as crazed junkies living in squalid apartments with little to no grasp on reality.

I'm wondering if other Bombers have other great examples of the mainstream media's utter stupidity in understanding gamers and gamer culture. The more ridiculous the better.

Haha. Yup, I already knew exactly what scene you were on about before I even watched the clip.

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

I love the part in that clip where Jeff itches his neck like a meth addict.

it's just an easy target, if they really cared to make it believable they do have a gamer on staff.

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

Jack Thompson. He got himself a pseudonym and decided to vent his frustrations through fictional TV. It's just so crazy it must be true!

EDIT: Oh god, that ''wait, pause the game'' line still leaves me bawling. And then I vomit.

Guys, lord 187x would never let them do anything too crazy.... right?

@Apathylad said:

LOL! there's a producer named Speed Weed, his parents must have hated him.

I tell myself every day I can quit any time I want. "pause the game!"

@falserelic said:

@Apathylad said:

LOL there's a producer named Speed Weed. His parents must have hated him

no way, that's the best name.

Seems pretty accurate to me. Ever Earth. 
 
Oh man. That site's showing me banner ads for Choco Taco, which is weird because I just had a Choco Taco  the other day for the first time in years. I bought it at the gas station, the internet shouldn't know about it, right? 
 
RIGHT?!

apparently you've never been to china...

SVU has never treated any subject, problem, addiction, or fetish with any level of respect.

The crew should do a quick look of "Lords of Galagar" ...that game looks incredible.

*twitch twitch* Hey, man... game on, right guys? *twitch* Gotta level my quest to 50 or my Sword of Cutting won't get the high score on the final boss... *twitch* Use the cheat code or you'll lose your powerups and all your extra lives on level 17 in Space Shootman 3D 3! *twiiiiiitch* - Every Gamer in Non-Gaming Media Ever.

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

More just TV in general.

I figured people here were overreacting.

Nope...

I found it hilarious, all the while knowing that it only reenforces a ridiculous stereotype.

@falserelic said:

@Apathylad said:

LOL there's a producer named Speed Weed. His parents must have hated him

no way, that's the best name.

SVU used to be such a great show. 2007 and onward is when it started getting lame. The cases used to be more investigation based and now they try and get too emotional and get too deep into the cops lives. Then in some episodes some of the character didn't even make an appearance. In general the writing got poor and it lost the mystery of earlier episodes.

@kashif1 said:

SVU has never treated any subject, problem, addiction, or fetish with any level of respect.

This. SVU's only consistent theme (other than rape, obviously) is a nearly inquisition-level desire to enforce "normalness" on people. Of course, there is exactly one line in every episode in which one character (usually the Jewish dude, iirc) makes a vague attempt to counter this theme, so that makes it okay.

This is super old. But it's not even the worst representation of gamer addiction. Any kid oriented show that eventually deals with video games usually puts on a farce far more shameful than this. And to be fair, the video game angle in this episode of law and order is only 5 minutes long and goes more into child negligence.

Also, I miss Christopher Imperioli

I think someone at SUV saw "Make Love Not Warcraft" a few too many times.

That is terrible.

@Video_Game_King said:

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

More just TV in general.

You are now the cause of me re-watching this pile of awfulness, and out of spite I'm going to take you all down with me!

@Yummylee:

Click2Flash acts as my shield! *haughty laughter*

@Yummylee said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

More just TV in general.

You are now the cause of me re-watching this pile of awfulness, and out of spite I'm going to take you all down with me!

They act like it is some super hard arcade game. Even the SVU clip was like that.

@Flacracker said:

@Yummylee said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

More just TV in general.

You are now the cause of me re-watching this pile of awfulness, and out of spite I'm going to take you all down with me!

They act like it is some super hard arcade game. Even the SVU clip was like that.

Are any of you interested in starting an Internet video where we look at the games they're playing, how they're playing them (mashing every goddamn button on the controller and thinking that something is happening), and then actually trying to play the game like that to show how goddamn stupid it is? One of the more egregious examples I can recall is when somebody did that for Final Fantasy VIII. Sadly, I can't remember the show.

This episode of CSI is hilarious/awesome.

"Sara and Greg meet Brass at a crime scene, the death of a very obese video gamer, who was wearing a diaper when he died, so he wouldn't be away from his video games."

Someone alerted Ice-T to this and he didn't care. Frankly, neither should you.

@Mesoian said:

This is super old. But it's not even the worst representation of gamer addiction. Any kid oriented show that eventually deals with video games usually puts on a farce far more shameful than this. And to be fair, the video game angle in this episode of law and order is only 5 minutes long and goes more into child negligence.

Also, I miss Christopher Imperioli

Yeah, the episode is old and the game-addiction aspect is the B-plot. But it's still hilariously bad.

I think I have seen that episode before. The guy who played the mayor in TV show Spin City played a Jack Thompson like character. One thing that always bugs me about those shows is that when ever the cops are asking questions to people. The people can't stop what they are doing or put down what they are holding to talk for five minutes. Is Ice-T still in Law and Order: SVU? I haven't seen that show in a long time.

@Zleunamme: Yea that episode was on the other day actually. They were ragging on like GTA or something.

Holy shit. I remember watching this episode quite some time ago.

Didn't make me cringe as much as it does now.

Ya, all these types of shows seem to think video games are evil. There was an episode of NCIS like that. I think it was about a kid that played wow and used it to get people on a boat or something and killed them with a sword or something. 
 
I don't remember. It was dumb- I only briefly saw it because my mom watches that stuff.

I started watching Law & Order on Netflix after reading this thread and now I can't stop. They should show someone addicted to Law & Order all cracked out like they do w/ video games ^_^

This reminds me of the episode of Scrubs where Turk kept trying to play, what I think was Halo, but the controller was never on, and playing two-player meant having one gun on the screen. I love Scrubs, but that's probably one of the worst and laziest things I've seen on a tv show.

@Yummylee said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

More just TV in general.

You are now the cause of me re-watching this pile of awfulness, and out of spite I'm going to take you all down with me!

Hey, Someone want to tell the guy playing, or the guy who does the graphics, or hell even the producer that you cant die in Prince of Persia?

What about Breaking Bads use of RAGE 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCNSF7lsoSY  

What the fuck is this shit?

@Dagbiker said:

@Yummylee said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@cmblasko said:

Yeah, someone on the SVU writing staff HATES video games. There are multiple instances of this kind of thing throughout the show's history.

More just TV in general.

You are now the cause of me re-watching this pile of awfulness, and out of spite I'm going to take you all down with me!

Hey, Someone want to tell the guy playing, or the guy who does the graphics, or hell even the producer that you cant die in Prince of Persia?

Maybe they need to tighten up the graphics on level 3

@Yummylee: What, you've never made it to level 10 in Prince of Persia?

It's not like there weren't thousands of actual Princess-saving simulators to choose from. But I guess this was a marketing thing too?

At least on House, he'd play actual games on actual systems.

Forget how they portray gamers! I want that game! How epic was that!

I could really go for a pizza now

@AndrewB said:

@Yummylee: What, you've never made it to level 10 in Prince of Persia?

It's not like there weren't thousands of actual Princess-saving simulators to choose from. But I guess this was a marketing thing too?

At least on House, he'd play actual games on actual systems.

You are forgetting about that virtual reality monkey shooting "game" they played. And then every episode after they just reused footage of that "game" except with them using a 360 controller.

I just want to point out what I did in a previous thread like this. I don't remember the source, but I recall hearing that TV writers are fully aware of what they're doing with video games and it's a running joke and unspoken 1-upping competition and not preaching that games are evil or ignorance of the subject.

TV shows doing stuff like that so they don't have to pay for licensing, no?

That is not what "copyright trolls" means.

I generally find media representation of gamers and how they address video game related issues to be hilarious.

@konig_kei: Guy in my high school was named Dick Peters

@YI_Orange: That's comforting to know, if true. I don't imagine many TV show writing staffs nowadays having less than a handful of gamers on them.