GenieKnows Games Narrowing the field

It is interesting to see how Hollywood embraces technology and weaves it into story lines. I think the first time I remember a computer almost being a star in a movie was the 1983 War Games starring a young Matthew Broderick. I know there were other "computer" movie stars but none of the gaming variety.

I recently thought about War Games movie after I watched Season 01 Episode 07 of Life entitled Civil War. While the story was about a police investigation into an hate crime in Los Angeles involving the murder of two Iranian UCLA business students, a significant portion of the story dealt with hidden Excel spreadsheets only accessible upon reaching level 10 in Prince of Persia for XBox. Obviously the title of the game was selected because the students were Iranian.  It was fun to see the police techno-geek gamer lose out to the Farsi speaking and nimble controller handling young woman who was able to get to the important level 10. 

I know that Hollywod has created a fiction about the use of Prince of Persia to hide spreadsheets about illicit drug money but it shows that Hollywood is also fascinated by gaming. I suspect that there are many purists out there that might be upset by the way that Hollywood depicts gaming but I think that we should be prepared to accept Hollywood's input and hope that it spurs on others to create other more interesting stories about gaming.

If you have seen a tv show or a movie where gaming has been a central theme, add a comment so we can get a handle on how Hollywood has benefited from this modern technological phenomenom.