24 Hours with G4
Nathan Smart writes "A writer for satire site The Game Rag watches 24 hours of G4TV and lives to tell about it." From the article: "'Cheat' had to evolve into a broader format, which coincidentally no longer involves actual cheating, and became a show about walkthroughs and tips. So right off the bat there's an immediate problem, and it ties back into that internet-thing I said earlier. There is nothing, seriously nothing, you can get from this show that you couldn't find with a simple trip to your local neighborhood Gamefaqs.com. Nothing. And Strike two is the disgustingly cheerful host, Kristin Holt. My assumption is that G4 wanted to hire some attractive women, as that falls under the category of 'things nerds like to look at', but Miss Holt, in my professional opinion, has NEVER SEEN A VIDEO GAME IN HER LIFE." He's already posted the second part of his outing, and G4 has a response to his project on their website.
Be careful when searching the net for pics, or you may end up with this on your monitor.
For one thing, it kept none of the humor (ie it was witty and brainy) that made Tech TV great. Guys I know its hard to understand here but most gamers actually HAVE a brain. Hell most of us are over the age of 21.
Second the reruns SUCK. I flip it on and just about every show on there IS a rerun. At least Tech TV managed to make 12 hours of original content. G4 even after buying Tech TV still hasnt gone past 4 hours of new shows.
Third hot girls who dont have a clue about anything technical is NOT attractive. Likewise there are a whole legion of girl gamers out there too, start bringing them into to it too instead of thinking gaming = guys.
The list could go on, but I think the biggest killer is the fact that, quite frankly there wasnt enough content to keep the TV shows about games going in the 80's-90's why do you think that just because its a few years later there would be enough for a whole fucking channel! There isnt, not unless you get technical which you guys seem to be afraid to do.
In the end though I think the current turnaround for G4 is the most telling... more and more its becoming less about gaming and more about guys, and well we have a non-digital cable channel for all of that (Spike) so why the hell would we watch yours when Spike actually has some decent original shows once in a while.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I too mourned the death of TechTV, but I no longer miss it.
I now watch DL.TV and TWIT.TV, which gives me about 80% of what I got from TechTV.
True, it was convenient to have everything gathered on one cable channel (if you ignored all of the useless repeats), but I'd argue that the natural environment for TechTV's content is the web. Plus, now, using a good RSS feed reader, you can roll your own TechTV. Can't you do that with TIVO and Freevo now?
Now, all we need is for Joshua "Yoshi" DeHerrera to start up a modding video podcast then all will truly be right with the world, with all TechTV goodness gathered on the web, in nicely downloadable / streamable gobbits.