Looking back from 2026, it’s almost impossible to believe that video games were once treated as a flippant, dead-end hobby reserved for burnouts and social outcasts. In a world where game streamers can potentially earn millions and the video game industry itself has generated a remarkable $180 billion in revenue annually since 2022 (factoring in the ubiquity of mobile games), it’s ridiculous to think of that there was a time when games themselves were a hotly contested cultural issue for a variety of reasons — from the fear of inspiring a sedentary, lethargic lifestyle to concerns that they would compel people to do real-life harm in a discussion that echoed the Dungeons and Dragons controversy at the height of the Satanic Panic.
It’s true that video games and the virtual escapist potential they represent has become completely normalized in mainstream society, which makes it so funny (and occasionally interesting) to go back and revisit certain relics from when gaming was considered “niche” and incomprehensible. There are evocative, thought-provoking high points like the original Tron or David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, which show us brilliantly realized virtual worlds or interrogate the very idea of simulated reality… and then there’s 2006’s Stay Alive, a film that just grazes up against some prescient and thoughtful ideas across the span of its mind-numbing and yet stupidly entertaining 86 minutes.
