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Is Video Game TV Closer That You Think?
Gamer Bitch X writes "Someone's trying to launch a gaming news channel (G4) and someone else is there to chat 'em up.
From an interview at UGO where they ask if G4 were to feature a McLaughlin Group-style show, who would be your ideal panel and host?"
CEO from G4: "Shigeru Miyamoto, Alexey Pajitnov, Chun Li, Will Wright and Max Payne , hosted by Bart Simpson (I still love him from my Fox Network days)."
Okay, I take it back. If the above were true, I'd watch this in a heartbeat!"
Riiight. I wouldn't mind seeing a few real shows about video games,
but I'd want it hosted by Old Man Murray.
It'd be nice just to quickly see video clips, but somehow I doubt that it could be
done with integrity. I imagine a video game network being more like
an infomercial channel, and well, yuck.
I heard that Jar-Jar Binks is looking for work.
I know I may be in the minority here, but I feel pretty lame when I blow a whole night actually gaming. I can't imagine how lame it would be to blow a whole night just watching someone talk about gaming...
Get busy living or get busy dying. Carpe diem.
...but only of done right.
Of course you need to have your corporate sponsored shows showing off the latest and greatest.
But it would have to be balanced. There would have to be shows dedicated to the grassroots community. Maybe shows about the history of gaming (like an A&E 'Biography' but showing the 'Biography' of different games)
If there were a variety of shows like that, the channel might actually be worth watching.
In Korea, all the major computer gaming competitions, Starcraft, Diablo II, Quake3 , etc are televised, live, with commentary, etc. Just like sports like baseball, football, etc.
Why not have such progamming for a "video game" channel?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Well nothing new here, such a channel now exists on satellite for more than 6 years
The channel started as C: and was proposing download through the satellite, and were proposing some anime series, like Evangelion, Lodoss and some series like Red Dwarf. There were no real show on games itself.
What happened after was that Infogrammes came into the company and transformed into a real game news channel, now called Gameone. They still shows some anime, shows some clip of videogames with either game music or some chosen. Most of those clips are pretty good. They are also shows now which talks about some Internet Website games, etc... But the focus is also on anime, Comics, Movies. Well far more than just videogames, and more related to the videogames culture and what is close to it.
By the way, Anime is far more known in France and for a much longer time than it is in the us and the exposure is way bigger
Pelops
At one time, Alexey Pajitnov, one of the inventors of Tetris, thought he owned the rights to all video games based on falling blocks. The consensus now seems to be that he and the company he started with Henk Rogers owns only the word "TETRIS". Better use Vadim Gerasimov (the guy who wrote the first PC version of Tetris) instead.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If anything, having more critical reviews of games becomes necessary as game demo sizes continue to rise and/or more companies simply release movies of the gameplay without any interactivity. This is even worse when considering console games, some which you can try at the store, but typically you have to go on third-person experience. And with game prices easily edging $40-$50 a pop, I want to make sure I get the value for my money.
So I very much doubt a Video Game TV network would be anything 'great'. As the editoral on the writeup suggests, it could easily become simply informercials, with the game companies telling the network that, sure, they'll give out free copies of the game for review but only if the review garishes high marks from the staff.
I'd much rather see what the response is on USENET and other sites (Anyone know of a /.-like site for gamers?) and use any demos or similar to judge a game for purchase rather than relying on any single commercial reviewer.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Campers' Corner: Hosts K111j0y and 14m3r talk about the best way to grief-play in Multiplayer FPS's like Q3A, UT, CS, etc... They discuss the best aiming proxies, server mods, and latency attacks to use. Actual gaming advice will be a little bit on the thin side, however.
EverGeeks: "Verily, after I chugged my mountain dew and played gems for another forty-five minutes did the dread dragon Nagafen spawn. Heroicly, I thusly rushed in to slay the beast, along with my brethren, sixty-five other level 50+ druids. EQ R0XX0RS!"
Real Life vs. Gaming: Of course real gamers can't afford to eat and buy all the games they want to play at the same time, especially if they play consoles and can't leech warez copies of the games from IRC and Morpheus. This show is more in the way of financial advice like: "If you crush up gravel and put it in the bathtub with water, you can get your clothes almost as clean if you washed them with soap." and "Of course you can eat meat that's a little green if you cook it thouroughly enough. A little mold never hurt anybody. Watch out for bulging cans you find in the dumpster, tho. Botulism can kill you if you're not lucky."
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If anybody remembers the dot-bomb that was Pseudo (streaming network), they had a gaming channel called the All Games Network, headed by Scot Rubin. When Pseudo changed their format, Rubin left the company.
He is now part of this new project, along with several people from the old AGN.
There are two choices for 30 minute shows on gaming today, one is Extended Play on TechTV, and the other is Electric Playground on Discovery Science. (Thank you TiVo for finding that one for me!) They're both okay, hell, Electric Playground has a chick from the Real World New Orleans on it (Julie, the girl who got kicked out of BYU for those who follow MTV), but these two shows are only an hour a week, hardly enough time to get in reviews of about maybe 4 or 5 different games.
I want to give G4 a chance, mainly because I used to watch AGN for years back in college, and it was sad to see them go. They're going to start small, repeating the same 4 or 6 hours over and over again (that way I won't have any conflicts on my TiVo Season Passes, heh heh) so let's not bash someone for trying, eh?
Who knows, they might have a Linux show and then you'd all be praising them for helping bring your baby to the masses.
I think I'm just enough of a geek to enjoy this channel. I'd like to see serious game reviews, nothing like the crap on Gamespot TV.
Some behind-the-scenes stuff would be nice, see the games thoughout development stages. A show with strategies for newer games would be very cool, hosted by a different person each week. How about a retro-show where a "classic" games are discussed; it could showcase games that introduced revolutionary ideas. How about broadcasting PC or console game competitions with some intelligent commentary on the strategies being used?
Just for kicks, what kind of daily schedule could you push for a channel devoted to gaming? I think we could come up with some interesting shows if the industry of software producers as well as console producers were willing to work with them. So, I have spent two minutes thinking and thus propose a daily schedule for these channels. (Note all times are in Eastern Standard Time)
6am - 10am - Cartoons for the kiddies. And not just pokemon. Let's bring back those old Pac-man cartoons. And Transformers, I'd love to see the original Transformers series again.
10am - 12pm - Anime, movie, etc.
12pm - 1pm Rebroadcast of last night's Gaming News Show
1pm - 2pm Rebroadcast of last night's Console Gaming show
2pm - 3pm Rebroadcast of last night's PC Gaming Show
3pm - 4pm Retro Gaming Show
4pm - 4:30pm Benjamin J. Heckendorn's world.
4:30pm - 5pm Gaming Music Show
5pm - 6pm Gaming News Show
6pm - 7pm Meet the Developers
7pm - 8pm Console Gaming Show
8pm - 9pm PC Gaming Show
9pm - 11pm Tournament!!!
11pm - 12am Arcade Gaming Show
12am - 2am Movie, anime, etc...
2am - 3am Meet the Developers rebroadcast
3am - 6am Infomercials (Yeah I know, but they pay the bills, right?)
I'd be interested in a show like Meet the Developers or something, it'd be interesting. But like I said, they would need a lot of support from game and console manufacturers, without the bickering that goes on between the console people.
Of course, I could be smoking crack.
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I stumbled across this video game review show on TBS Superstation the other night, basically two guys sitting in a living room playing and talking video games. It was on so late I'd need a Tivo to catch another episode. Here's more info about the show.
The crux of the idea is that it is possible to make games look stunning for television. Sure, the xbox can generate some pretty graphics. But, that is a cheap consumer device rendering in real time. Why not record telemetry from "live" games, and render Final-Fantasy-quality versions offline for later televised viewing? Survivor has made it clear that you can successfully air a show long after it is taped, as long as the outcome is kept a secret.
Imagine the beautiful imagery a powerful rendering farm could generate for the televised version of the game. Offline rendering also affords the opportunity to select camera angles and lay on interesting commentary, etc. Shows like Survivor and Junkyard Wars are much better due to the quality editing which helps to highlight (manufacture) story lines and competitive tension. You also don't need to air every second of the game. Editing could make a tedious multi-hour marathon session into an engaging 30-minute TV show.
Create a multiplayer game, ala Quake, where players can compete in different interesting arenas, but the basic controls are always the same. Players compete in a series of online tournaments to qualify for the big televised championship. The "home version" used for these online qualifiers renders at normal xbox/PC/etc levels of detail, of course.
The top 10 online players are invited to the televised competition every week/month/quarter (they may even play it from their living rooms). They compete inside a new, never before seen, arena. Every move, shot, hit, collision, etc is recorded (this is the telemetry). This telemetry is fed into a high-end rendering farm. An editing team selects camera angles and creates scenes. They overlay music and commentary, perhaps even add audio from the players' mics. The show could be ready to air within a very short time (days or less) if desired.
Shortly after this new arena airs on TV in all its render-farm glory, it is released as a "home version". This new arena is then used for the online qualifiers to select the next round of competitors for the TV show.
This is probably way too much detail, but it's an idea that I've been kicking around for awhile.