Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Kyle Mitchell Free to Play is a documentary focusing on the competitive scene of the popular video game, Defense of the Ancients, or commonly referred to as DOTA. It highlights some of the personal experiences behind well- known players in the scene, as well as provide details about their backgrounds and how they came to be professional gamers. The film mainly goes over one tournament in specific, The International. The tournament was record breaking at the time of its creation, with over $1,500,000 in prize money. It was held in 2011 in Cologne, Germany and had 16 different teams compete.The film went over the lives and beginnings of the three players, Benedict "Hyhy" Lim, Danil "Dendi" Ishutin and Clinton "Fear" Loomis. They were each on different teams, Scythe Gaming, Natus Vincere, and Online Kingdom respectively. The three players all had different ways that they found their teams and ended up competing, and they all had very different backgrounds.One of the ways that the film communicates these ideas is to have players come on camera and have a one-on-one conversation with the camera, explaining their actions and providing background on their thoughts. That method of exposition lets us connect to the characters far more than simply introducing them as part of the story. We are able to really relate to these people because their lives can seem so similar to ours on some of the most basic levels. They go through almost everything everyone else does, they have families, school, etc. They also just happen to be really interested in gaming. It really goes into detail about how they treat gaming as a whole, and how their families reacted to their devotion to DOTA. It gives us insight as to how these players discovered the gaming world, and what they plan to do with their new interests.The film also covered the events of the tournament itself, from start to finish. We saw the advancement of the players in the tournament, as well as all of the worries that they had, communicated to us via the players speaking to the camera directly. The film makes us feel almost as if we are in the tournament. The speed quickened and slowed with certain events that were high and low points, it gave us occasional pauses to think about what was happening, as well as provide a window of opportunity for the players to speak their minds.The target audience of this film was most likely to people who play these games normally, and would like to get into the competitive scene of any sort of video game in general. It also could be for people who do not know much about gaming culture and wish to understand more of it. Either way, this film did exactly that, and very effectively. Even if you did not understand much at all about DOTA or any other game like it, the film was also able to accurately describe the terms within these games that may have been confusing to people not familiar with the gaming culture. Every time a new term was introduced, they would show the word and the definition on the screen, and give enough time to read and absorb it.Overall the film did an amazing job of bringing us into the world of the competitive gamer, from describing the average backgrounds that these people came from, to the process of entering the competitive scene, and so on. I highly recommend anyone interested in gaming culture even in the slightest to go see it for themselves. The film itself is easy to access, as well. It's available for free on YouTube in full HD, so go watch it. You won't regret it.

Lucas Dant Amazing production from valve, a great documentary showing how games are changing life's of several people out there.The movies fallow's 3 guys, showing all that games and the E-sports market could do for their life's.A heart touching, beautiful and emotional movie that can be watched by nerds or even the grandpas...At first, me as a gamer was expecting a OK movie, but the value put in the production was so big, that i really got caught unprepared for this.And this movie really show things that the population is'nt ready for it yet the new market of athletes with brains, skills, determination and strategy.Games are there, constructing a new legion of fans that i'll be proud of being part

munkhuu_tolife 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.

jotanrockz After watching this documentary, I can't help but find myself realizing that this movie was about so much more than the game it is based on. Following the life and struggle of these three exceptional players and people caught me off guard and often had me feeling sentimental. Valve did an excellent job of telling their stories without over promoting their company/game. I found that they chose the perfect three people to base this documentary on. On one end you see the success of Danil, the struggle of Benedict, and the drive of Clinton. Three completely different people with completely different lives and different stories. The one thing in common was the struggle and the pressure they all lived. Once again Valve did an excellent job of really highlighting how great these three truly are. I recommend this to any viewer who just wants to watch a great documentary.This is more than just a game.