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Can Digital TV Games Make It In The States?
Thanks to GameZone for their interview with Colin Anderson of developers Denki, as they discuss "if interactive TV can succeed in the gaming world", following Denki's continued UK releases of games played on set-top TV-receiving boxes, with titles including Denki Blocks and an updated Super Breakout. Denki's Anderson suggests: "It's not that digital TV games haven't been successful in North America, it's simply that they haven't been available up until recently... the US [is] around 12-18 months behind Europe", and also points out the different target audience for the format: "The interactive television audience tends to be 50-55% female with the most popular age ranges being under 12 and over 30. It's a real challenge from a designer's point of view to build a product that appeals equally across such a wide demographic." Would you play games on your digital TV box?
My experience with interactive TV began and ended when I threw a brick through the screen when I found out that "Dharma and Greg" had been renewed for a second season.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
As the article mentions, we've had digital interactive tv for some time now in the UK. I've played a few of the games myself, but they really appear as nothing more than a passing gimmick.
A few of the quiz games are interesting and sometimes the programme tie-ins are fun but as for playing proper games; the "platform" just doesn't allow for reliable real-time interaction. There's like a 1/2 second delay on button presses for gawd's sake.
Anyway, the picture quality in Digital televsion doesn't match a good analogue signal (though maybe your HDTVs over there will allow something better?)
It seems a bit like the N-gage. Games on cellphones are handy only if you don't have a gameboy sp. If my cell phone has a bundled game, I might play it once in a while if I forget my gameboy, but I wouldn't buy something like the N-gage just to play games. Similar with this. If my cable box had games and I didn't have a console I might waste some time on those games, but with a dedicated console, who needs it.
Idle N-gage point - when I was flying Delta this week coming back from Florida they announced that all cellphones and all cellphone games had to remain off for the entire flight. Another nail in the N-gage coffin...
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
I'd use this as a method to pass those long add breaks in the middle of programs. But unless the games become slightly more advanced, they wont find a market in the serious gamer. Most of the people playing would be the non gamer who's bored infront of the TV
To NULL or not to NULL.
iTunes has been successful because: 1) It lets users feel like they own their entertainment. 2) It is flexible. 3) It is simple. On-demand gaming will not take off until it satisfies the same criteria.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
I used to play them sometimes but as others have mentioned they are really slow, and on ntl box's likely to crash it. The thing that stopped me going back was though they introduced charges, to unlock level 2 you must ring this number, its just not worth what they are charging to unlock the levels when you have a pc and can get similar games for free.
Ever remember WebTV Plus? It existed in 1998, and it offered "interactive tv". You could access games, quiz shows, weather, and more. It even programmed your VCR for you.
UltimateTV offered the same, so did AOL TV; and so does DirecTV Interactive and Dish Interactive.
It's not that we're behind, quite the converse, we have had "interactive tv". It's just that no one ever saw it as more than a cheap gimmic. It turns out, most people *don't* want to play along with their favorite quiz show, and they *can* use the internet to lookup weather or movies or buy that item they saw on the shopping network.
"Interactive TV" has been vaunted as the future of television ever since the '70s. But we got it wrong. People watch TV because they don't *want* to interact with the content. Interactive games work better on a PC or a gaming console with a real controller and a real game disc (the STBs have at most 32MB of ram and no other storage).
Nuh uh. Many companies and investors including Microsoft, Comcast, have lost tons of cash trying to get Interactive TV going in the US. Because Euro networks were foolish enough to actually launch interactive TV doesn't put 'em ahead of us. Cellphones are another story, the Americas are far behind Europe and Asia on wireless networks, which is about far more than the narrow market for phone games. Remember VM Lab's Nuon? Tempest on a DVD player, woo-hoo! TV is a passive medium/device cannot compete w/game consoles or computers. People ain't gonna pay for it.
A couple of years ago, we had a terminal from our cable provider in Quebec, Canada, called Videoway. It was revolutionary because it used a normal analog cable (not a digital signal) to send you TV guides, games, news and other info. The games were pretty lame, mostly because the hardare was slow. But the main gripe with the system was how you played the game. You needed to use the remote. Sure, the remote was more or less designed so you could play games, but using a numerical keypad to play games felt weird, especially since you held the remote with both hands, one on the keypad, and one at the bottom where there were other buttons that could be used in the game. (buttons that normally had other functions when watching TV). It felt VERY awkward, especially in action games like Burger Time, Qbert or Styx.
One big feature though was interactive television. In essence, you had the choice between 4 different choices and when prompted to make a choice, you pressed on one of the "F" key. Underneath, the unit in fact changed the channel for you and played another part of the show. This became apparent when you browsed with a normal TV the higher channels and you heard the same TV show playing over 10 channels, each reflecting the choices you made. What was nice though is that the unit remembered your choice and kept a score that was at the end translated to a channel where you were told if you won or lost in the game. One really nice game was Black Jack 21, and the other was Roulette. Watching a hockey game was fun for a while because when the star of the team was on ice, you had the option to follow only him. But it got old real fast.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to get across here is that these companies are trying to do something that has already been tried before. And guess what? Interactive TV failed misserably here, even though it's always superior to everything else that seems to come out these days. As for games over digital cable, well a remote really feels weird to play games. Unless they come up with a custom controller, I'm pretty sure it won't become popular.
What's with the rancor that show generates? (Seriously.) I enjoyed it, I know it's not a piece of art that will stand for the ages but it's hardly any worse then any of the other tripe that's on TV every season. What's unique about D&G that makes it come up so frequently in this context? (Again, I mean this question seriously.)
Watching "Dharma and Greg" was like watching a train wreck, except train wrecks overall are funnier. It made "Caroline in the City" seem like "M*A*S*H*" in comparison.
For that matter, the train being wrecked was ABC. Sub-UPN-quality sitcoms like this helped sink that network.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Americast, GTE's move into cable back in 96 or 97 had digital TV that came with games. The games were text-based and multiplayer. They were in the vain of trivia games you find at some sports bars where they are interconnected with other sports bars via satallite.
On Americast you could play these games on the network, against other people. I found myself playing at peoples houses when we would get together. It was at least as fun as playing at a sports bar.
The price was included in the digital cable tier. I don't think we'll see cable boxes replacing consoles or PCs for gaming anytime soon, but, these games are more akin to the games you find on cell phones which will have some success.
Remember Ms Pac-Man and Tetris are the all-time most popular games, those can be played on cell phones now.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me