Free to Play (2014)

Really Surprised!

Let's be realistic.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

With the newest eSports tournament having a prize pool of 18 million dollars, I thought it would be a good time to try out this documentary. Coming in, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had seen some graphics clips and it looked like it would center around how people experience gaming and how free to play games have changed the gaming scene. Nope. There was a few mentions to gaming's rapid development but that was it. In most, the film centered around 3 players going into the tournament. Each player was from a different nation (Ukraine, Singapore, USA) and we were able to see how each culture feels about gamers. Chinese managers also gave a good perspective on Chinese gaming culture. Don't be afraid to go into this film if you can't play DoTA or any game. There are some tournament clips but they aren't the center of the movie. In fact, the film does a great job of explaining the basic premise of DoTA and then getting onto the real meat- gaming. This film probably won't change someone's mind about gaming. If they hate it, they will probably hate it still after the film. But if you are curious about how people are actually getting paid to win at computer games, this is the right film for you.

The plot neatly follows through the classics of a competition documentary, highlighting more than one individuals with stories worth telling. They are competing in the movie's competition which is relatively new to the rest of the world due to it being a niche market at the moment. I really like how the documentary nicely captures the views from people from different nationalities. This brings enough legitimacy to the thing being focused about, the world of competitive gaming in general and the game DOTA2 in particular. What I think is quite lacking is instead the on-screen footage of how the teams win their games and the spirit of competition within the game. For the rest is really an eye opener since the movie reveals facts of different treatments gamers receive in different countries.

Telling the lives of 3 of the best players in "The International", a great e-sports tournament. Sadly that makes this film only about DoTA 2, not covering other games with its incredible and different gaming scenes. Anyways, is a great storytelling about how they make themselves gamers in a world that scarcely sees games as a competitive area or a sport as is treated chess or poker. A great insight of the risks and even the importance of determination by the player, nice made film.It would be a way better film if it treated the three big types of F2P games: free "hardcore" games (as is DoTA 2), social games (Facebook and the similar) and free casual games (as iOS/Android) Feels even kind of propagandish for the game as "the best F2P game", but its true that doesn't lies about the different outcomes of the three gamers and its problems.6 of 10

Through the whole movie I was impressed, by all meanings I thought doing things people they really love is what you really have to do. This movie is based on three professional gamers their life, their fate for taking the path to play on!Made by Valve this is truly impressive they just gone into our head heart whatever to make entire audience feel that this feeling where you become so passionate about, whole movie I felt something that is hard to explain by words. It's just your life and you decide how to live it.And there's our guys who chose way of gaming, how they struggle to get accepted by their family and people, how they try hard to get money for living, how they go over the win or lose. This is the documentary that we're gonna talk about boom-start of E-Sports, as said in movie they (Professional players, Dendi, hyhy, Fear as main) will be the ones who we will be talking about. When gamer becomes a father, when gamer becomes a mother and then everyone takes it little bit serious or more calm that will be the golden age of gaming!As for the production making of this film was truly amazing. They had this beautiful old videos about their life and photos everything being greatly edited and also cinematic gameplays coming in when some hero gets killed or kills other which I found truly amazing it is documentary you don't show every game and they made it so great at all the parts where you get emotionally pumped up. Also the music I don't really know who did this but it was amazing perfectly made exactly for the moments exactly for the feeling you are gonna take.This was best documentary on almost every documentation ever made.