On Videogaming TV Shows And Vitriol

Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Sole Food' editorial discussing the vitriol directed against videogame-themed television programs, or, more specifically, the game-themed digital cable/satellite channel G4. The writer laments: "You'd think that people that enjoy the gaming lifestyle would be all over the only channel dedicated to their passion. Sadly, that's not the case", and goes on to suggest "there's been an enormous amount of improvement" in the channel, and comment: "my favorite thing about [G4] is that it will bring new people into the [videogaming] fold." Are there any game-related TV shows, either on G4 or elsewhere, that you think are being done just right?

Comments

Re:G4

[HTH NE1]

Then there's Portal. It's a kind of Soap Opera, using just characters from the various MMORPGs as it's actors. It's ok at times, boring at others.

I actually like Portal. I probably need exposure to more quality machinima, but I like how they use various MMORPGs to tell stories. The cheesiness of many of the stories are part of its charm, as well as their parodies of people and films, like Ringfellas:

"I thought it was four rings, each with their own power. One ring to rule--"
"No, you [bleep]! It's one ring, four powers! Who the [bleep] has four rings!"
"Well, everybody in the family, Joey."

And of course the dwarf, Shorty, who almost invariably only ever says, "You have my axe!"

"I cannot tell a lie. I want to chop down the cherry tree, but I have no axe."
"You have my axe!"

"I lost my axe."
"You have my axe!"

"I tied my shoelaces together!"
"You have my axe!"

Unfortunately it has too many airtimes in the week at too many inconsistent times of day for anyone except PVR owners to follow. I was happy for the weekend marathon.

And they're killing off some of the best characters, such as Bloody Dove and Moe Tuesday.

"Can you and me be buddies and go hunt little wolves together?"

G4...

[CySurflex]

Let me preface this by saying I work at G4, in the Web Development department. (And I'm a regular Slashdotter)

Here are some responses to some of the posts here:

I would probably nominate Portal as the worst show on TV, on any channel in existence. Anyone have a worse one?

I'd say Portal is an aquired taste - some people are fanatical fanboys of it, and some don't get it. There is a lot of good humor in it, it makes fun of itself and of the MMORPG game genre. If nothing else, it's unique and creative and there is nothing like it out there. Isn't that what people ask for when they say how bad modern TV is?

Excuse my ignorance, but does G4 play trailers? If not, they should, and they should do it "en masse". Rather than downloading these big motha trailers off the net, I'd much rather see em on my television, at television quality. Trailer after trailer... that's what they should air.

One of our shows, Cinematech is only trailers and game footage. Since this show doesn't have hosts, it's all about the editing of the footage - and the editor that works on this show is really talented.

There just isn't enough programming on the channel though to keep me interested. You can only watch the same Pringles commercial(are they their only sponsor?) over and over and over again

You must have watched the channel when we just launched. We had a very limited inventory of episodes to air from, and only a few sponsors have signed up. Things have changed significantly since then.

Besides, the information provided on the shows is borderline useless. If I wanted to know how to beat a certain game, I would think that it is just easier to look it up on the internet instead of waiting until 7:30 to see it on the tv.

Some of the shows are targetted more at the casual gamer, or even the wanna-be casual gamer. Being online over-exposes you to the hard-core gamer, but joe six-pack sitting at home playing Madden 2004 on his PS2 never heard of Slashdot or the Gamespys and the IGNs for that matter. And the proof for that is that our show CHEAT is one of the most popular shows, even though you can easily get cheats online.