The original post: /r/television by /u/AporiaParadox on 2025-03-14 13:33:36.
Video games are a relatively new medium in the grand scheme of things, as such for decades TV shows were written/produced by people who had never played a video game before, and like many people of their generation held quite negative attitudes about those darn Nintendos those kids are wasting their time with, and this could be seen in the shows they made. Cop shows in particular are infamous for having many episodes that push the “video games lead to violent crime” narrative.
As time went on people that actually grew up playing games starting getting involved in TV production so things became less negative. But these people often didn’t play games anymore and thus their understanding of games was quite outdated (think of how many portrayals of “modern” games would still use old concepts like levels and lives, as well as 8-bit sound effects, or how many just reference old games and not much else). Things have gotten better in recent years though.
So with that in mind, what were the worst portrayals of video games on TV and which were the best/most accurate? What fictional TV show game would you actually want to play?