Documentary about Gamers becomes cult net hit :: Wessex Scene Online

Documentary about Gamers becomes cult net hit

30th June 2003

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A documentary made by Simon Bysshe, a student at Winchester School of Art, has proved so popular that it overwhelmed the University server.

A note about the film was posted to the ES Reality gaming site along with a link that let people download the 70Mb file. Soon after, a short write-up and link was put on the popular Slashdot news website.

The film was downloaded so many times that it clogged the server hosting it at the Universityof Southampton. The massive number of downloads meant that students couldn’t access the Universityof Southamptonhomepage which is hosted on the same server.

Simon made the film, “Modern Day Gamer” as part of his coursework and it explores the growing phenomenon of online gaming, giving a small group of players a chance to talk about their hobby.

The film was made as Simon and a small group of his friends gathered together for a weekend of gaming. The group played Diablo II, Aliens versus Predator, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Total Annihilation.

Since the game went online on the 4th June, over 25,000 people have downloaded it. Simon estimates that during the busiest hour, film fans took up more than 50 gigabytes of bandwidth. Its popularity came somewhat as a surprise to Simon. "I did have ambitions for it but really had no idea that it would click with so many people," he said.

Small parties of gamers have become more common as the hobby has grown in popularity as they let friends that often only meet online meet face to face.

"Gaming is a huge thing," said Mr Bysshe. “Thousands of people play games all around the UKand the world and it's gone largely unnoticed," Simon told the Wessex Scene online.

Mr Bysshe's next project is also about gamers and will involve him following and filming the UK's 4K gaming clan as they travel to and compete in tournaments.

You can download Simon’s documentary here: http://www.esreality.com/documentary