No One Watches Online Videogame TV

GameDailyBiz talks about disappointing statistics for anyone who enjoys online videogame related video or podcasts; Almost no one watches them. From the article: "didn't even recognize that I might have made a mistake until I ran across a recent Forrester Research marketing report. The report found that while 25% of online households have expressed interest in podcasting, only 2% had experimented with audio downloads but did not listen on a regular basis and a mere 1% of households actually download a podcast onto a player. For most new tech trends a 1% percent adoption rate might be admirable or even encouraging. However, podcasting is a nerd darling. On tech blogs and nerd-news centers podcasting been proudly crowned the Wave of the Future(TM). Currently, the search site PodNova is tracking more than 55,000 different podcasts. Yeah, 55,000 channels and apparently nothing's on."

Comments

Anyone else not do podcasts at all?

[AudioEfex]

I guess I don't get this podcast craze to begin with. I've heard a few here and there, and listing to some guy and his friends prattling along in the basement in front of the PC about any topic just doesn't fit into my life. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are some neat, informative podcasts out there. But the format just turns me off. Now, a blog I can scan, pick out relevant information, and it doesn't require me to read every word to find something interesting. But audio is a different beast, and I just don't have an hour to listen to some fan pontificate about anything (even subjects I care about). I think that's the core of what this article is talking about. I'm sure videogame podcasts magnify the problem, just like videogame "journalism" does. Let's face it, as much as I like reading reviews and news postings, most gaming sites are run by young men and women as hobbies. They are not professionals in the industry at all, and while they may have opinions (however well-formed), it's still just a bunch of guys sitting around a PC talking about how wicked hard beating that palladin or whatever in WOW is, and his strategy for beating it. I think that is the crux for me though, the audio part - if I played WOW I might be interested in a technique to kill a certain MOB, but having to listen to a podcast to do it is silly when I could just read the text in five seconds if he wrote it. But that's just my opinion. AE

Re:umm... yeah...

[BruceCage]

He's talking about the stupid headline, "No One Watches Online Videogame TV", which doesn't even fucking describe the article. It's not even the conclusion the article author himself makes. The article doesn't even have a real conclusion, except that he was wrong and he's probably wrong again.

Now the article isn't the holy grail, it's far from it. It takes a Forrester Research report worth $249.00, imho misuses it and throws in his own two cents. If the author had come to the conclusion made in the headline I would have been all over him, but he doesn't he actually brings up a couple of valid points. Such as:

For 99 percent of enthusiast press articles, print tells the story more quickly, more succinctly and more easily than video. Readers can browse, skip around or read the whole article. Plus, if the story links to a specific video, the readers once again have total control of their content.

Video broadcasts in their current form just aren't convenient and until they are comprehensive, navigable, and user controlled, online viewers will continue to find it much easier to skim web text.

I'm too bored to finish this post, but whatever.