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MTV Does Games This Week
MTV is taking another crack at a 'Gamer's Week' this week, and they're already showing they've learned since last year. Offering programming that's about 100x more respectful than anything at G4 (thank you Stephen Totilo), Gamer's Week 2.0 (really obnoxious Flash) will offer up many segments all week long on the next-gen consoles, upcoming and popular released games, and even some games industry esoterica. From the GameSetWatch article: "Tuesday, 11/14 — The spotlight falls on video game classics on Sucker Free as it features special Pro-Gamers, like Triforce from Empire Arcadia, the first fully realized urban gaming clan seeking prize money in organized competitions and arcade hustling, Dana Platt from 'VOA: Valkyries of Arcadia' and David 'Walshy' Walsh from Kianeto gaming clothing, and a look back at Tetris, Grand Theft Auto 3, Pacman and Super Mario Bros."
From the TV ads most of the games they will be playing is Halo2
What is this? TV Guide? Game journalism is bad. TV journalism is worse. TV game journalism is horrible.
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"100x more respectful than anything at G4"
Anything times zero... is still zero!!!!
So when will they get back to playing music again? (as opposed to the "c-is-silent" noise)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
What, MTV, aka Music Television, is showing games . . . ?
MTV doesn't even show music, but they're showing games?
Well, I guess if they show games, the background music will cause them to play more music in an hour then they have so far this year . . .
"So when will they get back to playing music again? (as opposed to the "c-is-silent" noise)"
This "noise" they call music! They need to go back to playing Benny Goodman and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Now THAT is real music! Those young whippersnappers have no idea what they are missing!
Where were you when the voynix came?
.. with their 'video mods', a series that had video game characters bopping along to various songs. The one I saw featured top-heavy bloodsucker Bloodrayne and her friends rocking out to Everybody's Fool. Which was, funnily enough, shown about the time Bloodrayne 2 was being released.
I suspect this will suffer from the same 'puff piece syndrome' that most MTV movie specials, in fact most movie specials on all channels, have. Which is that the shows are in fact little more than a series of tedious interviews with the movies producers, offering virtually no insight into the movie or the production of the movie itself.
I'm honestly surprised it has taken MTV this long to start covering games. And it's not like they can't occasionally deal with "softer" issues smartly. MTV in the 90s had a very good show on movies that ran on Fridays. It profiled whatever big release there was but did a great job of profiling independent/smaller/foreign releases that didn't hit minor markets (stuff like Reservoir Dogs or Johnny Suede come to mind). It usually did a better job than most critic segments on TV.
Where else would gaming reporting "fit"? I can't think of any currently existing network where it makes sense for them to report on games. Maybe one of the news networks could have a gaming piece on its weekend entertainment shows but that audience is very old. I would imagine the same can be said about New York Times readers but that didn't stop their E3 Blog. I'm sure The Rocky Mountain News skews older too but they have occasional great gaming coverage.
You'd think newspapers would be all over this. With one or two staff members you can deliver a lot of content and with a big news name behind you, it's easier to get a scoop. Newspaper circulation is falling and younger readers aren't arriving... in print. Overall circulation (counting the internet) is up, and including smart, original/exclusive game coverage can add to that. You're adding fuel to the fire, capturing readership outside of your market that usually doesn't read your paper, and capturing a younger audience.
The only media that regularly covers games and treats them equally to film and music are magazines. Aside from strictly gaming mags, men's magazines (Maxim, Playboy) and entertainment magazines also report on games. Occasionally you see something insightful in Time or Newsweek. If was Nintendo, I'd be buying some ad space in Redbook and Seventeen. Can you imagine this Ladies Home Journal cover in 2012?
With it sitting next to a People cover with a very airbrushed Cliffy B smiling and talking about his love of cats.
OK. On the other hand maybe let's just stick to what we have now.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
So this special is 100% more respectful than what's shown on G4, yet still manages to be about 110% less respectable than late-night Cinemax or professional wrestling.
Seriously, am I the only one who feels like I should lock the door and draw the blinds when I'm watching television shows about video games? There's something about this sort of 'telejournalism' that just seems to echo and amplify the perceived social failures of its audience, and as a result, feels like the dirty little secret you have to hide from your friends.
Not a fan, I'd rather be caught watching porn.
Xfire (being an MTVN property now) has a bunch of events set up for this, too:
http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_gamersweek06/
That green slime had it coming.
Simply put: what is an urban gaming clan?
Man, I miss the original MTV with Martha Quinn... :-) Of course, I was a freshman in college during its first year, so its timing was absolutely perfect as far as I was concerned!
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
"Sucker Free?" Is that some sort of area where lollipops are prohibited? Not that MTV has ever been particularly good at naming shows. "Yo, MTV Raps" and "Headbanger's Ball" spring immediately to mind. Bah, I'm getting old.
Anyway, I play games fairly regularly. That said, I'm not so sure gaming deserves respect. To me it's a hobby, and putting a camera on it doesn't legitimize it as a profession any more than it would legitimize armpit farts (although I'm sure a certain portion of the population would be convinced merely because it was on TV). Sure, some people are exceptionally good at pushing buttons, but.. they're still just pushing buttons. The reason Monday Night Football hasn't been replaced by Monday Night Madden isn't because the latter isn't popular, but because a whole team of people working together, maintaining physical and mental discipline (or trying to) for hours on end is ultimately far more engaging, entertaining, and exciting.
IMO, video games are like golf: Fun to play; mind-numbing to watch. There may turn out to be an audience, but it definately won't be the old people who like to watch golf, and it seems that younger people -- especially in the nerd demographic -- are steering away from (live) TV in general, and probably wouldn't be watching MTV in particular.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I can't help but be reminded of http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/06/06
I really dislike the cultural appropriation of games - video games are for nerds, dammit. Hearing Li'l Wayne talk about how dope he is at GTA or whatever makes me die a little inside.
Also, Empire Arcadia, the "urban gaming clan" is just that: a bunch of guys from NYC who play a lot of games. Featuring, among others, Justin Wong, Sanford Kelly, and Ricky Ortiz, some of the best Street Fighter players in the world.
MTV and Games? = Basshunter? awesome