Second Skin (2008) Movie Review

Online gaming. What’s it good for? Apparently lots if you’re into it, but not very much if you’re not. Juan Carlos Pineiro-Escoriaza, the director of “Second Skin”, goes spelunking in the world of massively multiplayer online role playing games (aka MMORPG) and surfaces 20 pounds heavier for it. (Just kidding, gamers! Don’t send angry emails!)

The documentary “Second Skin” is part day-in-the-life expose of online gamers and an introduction to the virtual world for those wondering what all the fuss is about. I was never much of an RPG’er, since it always demanded more time and attention than I could give it. As a result, my games of choice were always the “Call of Duty” of the world — fast-paced shooters where I could jump in at any second, play for a bit, and leave whenever I wanted without no one the wiser, or indeed, caring. That is not the case with MMORPG, where the gamer’s immersion in the virtual world is exactly the point – you don’t just play it to play it, you play it to live it.

Escoriaza’s documentary introduces us to the gamers, people from various sections of life, all of them with one thing in common – they live and breathe MMORPG, the dominant game title being the popular World of Warcraft. The documentary intercuts between sit-down interviews with random gamers and experts, but spends most of its narrative following the lives of a few chosen individuals: Anthony, Matt, Andy, and Chris, a quartet of friends in Indiana; Dan, a former gaming addict trying to get his life back together; and Heather and Kevin, a couple that met online and decided to take their relationship into the real world.

Dan’s story is obviously ripe with dramatic potential, and indeed there are plenty to be found there, although I was most interested in the Indiana quartet. Of the group, there is Andy, who is married with twins on the way, and who seems to have convinced himself (wrongly, we can’t help but instantly notice) that his long-suffering wife will continue to support his WoW addiction long after the babies arrive. There is Anthony, who seems poised to move beyond the quartet’s circles; and Chris and Matt, who seems happy, if not dependent on the gaming world for the connections they’ve established in the real world. In this one Indiana group, you can see a lot of the dynamics that make up the lives of most online gamers: the ones hopelessly addicted to it, the ones that enjoy it but could probably move on if needed, and the ones that have nothing else to fall back on.

While it explores the lives of these disparate individuals, “Second Skin” also works as a straightforward newsy introduction to the highly lucrative world of MMORPG gaming. Not just the people who make it (and rakes in the bucks), but also the peripheral cottage industry that have risen as a result. Among these, the most intriguing are the “gold farmers”, occupational players who have created a business out of “farming” virtual gold in the gaming world in order to sell them to players for real money. Want to earn that cool looking sword, but don’t have the time (or the skills) to earn the virtual gold coins necessary to trade up for it (aka “buy it”) within the game? Don’t worry, the gold farmers will do all the work for you and then transfer the virtual gold over to you for a nice payment. The process is supposed to be illegal and punishable by a ban, but we are led to believe that enforcement is all but non-existent by the gaming companies.

There are a lot of fascinating questions to be asked about these gold farmers, such as: How much are the workers/players paid, and are they really good at the game, or is it all about the hours put in? How do they feel about the people that buy their virtual gold? In essence, the buyers have so much money they are willing to buy things that have absolutely zero value in the real world. Instead of asking these questions, though, the filmmakers decide to waste a good 20 or so minutes of the documentary on Heather and Kevin, our dating gamers. If the point was to prove just how utterly mundane and uninteresting their lives are outside of the gaming world (Look, they’re just as boring and dull as the rest of us non-gamers!), then it was mission accomplished.

“Second skin” doesn’t really work as an advertisement for novices to start slaying dragons if they weren’t already doing it. The documentary offers plenty of pitfalls, but also balances out the darker aspects of their expose with the positives of online gaming. For every sad story about lives wasted in front of a computer monitor, there is one where lasting friendships are created. For every relationship split apart, another blossoms. Like everything else that is worth obsessing over, MMORPG’ing is not a black and white issue, and “Second Skin” makes that point well. Unfortunately if you already have a negative image of MMORPG gamers, the movie won’t change your mind. If anything, it might re-enforce them, which I’m sure was not the filmmaker’s intentions, but there you have it.

As one of the subjects of “Second Skin” points out, is MMORPG gaming really any different than football fanaticism? Or the dad who spends all day tinkering away in his garage at the expense of his family? Perhaps not, but as the story of Dan in Philadelphia brings home, it’s all a matter of degrees, and how much is too much. And like any addict, would you really be able to recognize your own addiction?

Juan Carlos Pineiro-Escoriaza (director) / Victor Pineiro-Escoriaza (screenplay)