TV Execs' Attempts To Lure Gamers Not Always Best

Thanks to MSNBC for its article discussing the mixed fortunes of TV bosses trying to get videogamers to watch shows about games. The piece starts with the question: "Golf players watch golf, but will video game players watch games?", and points out the failures (UPN's previously mentioned CG sitcom Game Over, an "esoteric take on gaming culture [which] didn't last long. Amid dismal ratings, UPN yanked the show off the air earlier this month.") alongside more long-running shows such as TechTV's X-Play (the writer notes "...enough inside jokes to please the hardcore gamers, but listen closely enough and you may detect an almost mocking tone.")

Comments

It depends on the gamer

[drinkypoo]

Some gamers would rather play games than watch TV, myself included. We had cable TV for a while (you got $15 off if you had CATV and cable modem internet, the latter of which I adore) but we just never watched it in spite of having a 7' TV hooked up to it. In the end, we cancelled our cable, because it was a waste of $35/mo (after discount.)

If you want me to watch a show, you're going to have to give it to me free on the internet, and support it with ads or something. Stick commercials in the middle of the stream which must be played, and tell your advertisers I'm watching them (I'll probably be playing a bit of tetris at the time, but they don't need to know that.) It's not like I pay attention to the average commercial anyway.

Television is going to be with us for a long time, but eventually it'll be eclipsed by video on demand, delivered over the internet, or by your ISP in the case of the cable companies. Video-enabled set top boxes with built in DOCSIS cable modems are being developed left and right...

An unsurprising result

[wowbagger]

This is an unsurpising result if you think it through.

I would assert the success of a TV show about an activity is inversely propotional to the ease of engaging in that activity at a moment's notice.

Consider travel shows - I can hardly travel 600 miles to visit San Antonio at the drop of a hat. So if there is a show on about what there is to do in San Antonio, I may watch it to see what I might do when I have the time to go there.

Consider fishing shows - going fishing takes a degree of prep time and travel time. I might not have the time to go fishing today, but I might have the time to watch a show about it to fix my Jones'in for fishing.

Consider golf shows - if I am a golfer and I come across a golf show, I might look out the window and say "I'll bet I could get a quick nine in before dinner", but then again, I might not.

Now, in light of those examples, consider a video game show. I am ALREADY in front of the TV - you know, where I would have to be to play a video game. Now, which am I more likely to do if I am a hard-core gamer - watch a TV show about gaming, or switch on my console AND ACTUALLY PLAY A GAME?

In short, who is likely to watch a show about video game play? Just how lazy do you have to be to watch (passively) a show about an activity that is itself fairly passive?

And as far as watching to pick up tips and tricks - there is a better solution for that for most gamers. I'll give you a hint - you're soaking in it!

Is Game Over the best they could do?

[EddieBurkett]

I never watched Game Over, so I can't comment on the quality of the show, but the premise is straight out of some hairbrained marketing type's head. Take all the cliches about games, put them in one show, and the gamers will watch. That shows they don't understand what makes games so fun. The show itself may or may not have been clever, but the premise was never going to get the attention of gamers, and it certainly wasn't going to get the attention of anyone else. The problem is that gaming is such a diverse field. You have RPG's and RTS's and FPS's, etc., that no one show can (or should) encapsulate all that. The article is right: people play games because they are interactive, and tv can never be that. But the eyes of the gamers are not completely gone. Its mentioned in the article that sometimes people are so into a game they keep playing, sacrificing tv time. As the digital time shifting of programming becomes more widespread, people will start watching tv again, but after they finish their game, instead of foregoing it altogether.