Gamers don't make game movies bad

There's yet another article, this one by The New Statesman, about movies based on games; I'm just about through with this same story being trotted out ad nauseum. That somehow the quality of these films is always blamed on gamers, and not on the avarice of the studios that produce them is a mystery to me. This article, by one rabble-rousing Mr. John Lyttle, begins with the byline "Forget acting – cinema-going gamers just want violence." Incorrect:
some cinema-going gamers just want violence, and by the looks of the box-office receipts for the vast majority of these films, this group of cinema-going gamers is small. Smaller yet considering that he (incorrectly) trumpets
"there are more gamers now than movie-goers."

Just because someone plays videogames, what makes him think they are incapable of appreciating other forms of art/entertainment that don't mimic games? I wonder if any gamers read books or like fine art? He baits, "This ought to be where the better informed raise the statistical fact that most video games revolve around construction and co-operation, and point out how regular practice improves hand/eye co-ordination in teenagers." Correct, and to paraphrase Steven Johnson, saying that videogames improve hand/eye coordination might be true, but that's like saying reading Shakespeare improves your spelling. You're missing the point.

Videogames aren't movies, and you probably couldn't find a more vociferous anti-game-to-movie group than gamers themselves. One need only look to Uwe Boll, a common cause for contempt amongst gamers, for creating such attrocious movies and for propagating this concept: that we, as gamers, are to blame for these movies.

[Via Cathode Tan]