Video game comedy

Some time ago I wrote a series of posts on hilarious and absurd situations that routinely occur in Skyrim (eg here, here, and here), and I suggested that a group of actors should systematically act scenes like those out and post them on YouTube.

Turns out that this has in fact been done, as I discovered when I came across the very amusing YouTube channel Viva la Dirt League. They have several shows where they do exactly this, and I particularly like Epic NPC Man, which pokes fun at games like Skyrim and fantasy mmorpgs, from the perspective of a self-aware NPC. And in a friendly way I might add; they’re clearly avid gamers themselves. The videos are short, basically one scene each, but plentiful — they’ve been hard at work finding and using typical gaming situations. (As an aside, one has to wonder if it’s getting harder to come up with new material, as they use up one novel idea after another. Let’s just hope nothing will badly impede their output for a long while still. It’s conceivable that it’s the other way around, at least for now, that it gets easier the more experience in doing this they get.)

More generally, I really like the idea behind this. It is such a strange thing in a way. First, video games imitate reality, but imperfectly, and then the games are played, observed and brought back into reality, stressing those very imperfections and peculiarities, for lolz. Video games are already fun, but now they’re providing the raw material for additional fun.

Cannot help wondering what those people who know nothing about video games, say an audience from a few centuries ago, would think watching these acted out on a stage. I think some might have enjoyed it, if nothing else the true connoisseurs of the absurd, but they would almost certainly be bewildered. And importantly, it would be practically impossible to come up with these in any kind of consistent manner without using video games as raw material. Isn’t that interesting, having these games play an instrumental part in creating what is basically a new genre (or at least sub-genre) of comedy.

It might also be a transitional genre, bound to vanish (or be radically transformed) as games become ever more realistic, so enjoy it while you can.