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Games Entertainment

Is Video Game TV Closer That You Think? 160

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can-you-do-picture-in-picture-w/-your-ps2 dept.
Gamer Bitch X writes "Someone's trying to launch a gaming news channel (G4) and someone else is there to chat 'em up. From an interview at UGO where they ask if G4 were to feature a McLaughlin Group-style show, who would be your ideal panel and host?" CEO from G4: "Shigeru Miyamoto, Alexey Pajitnov, Chun Li, Will Wright and Max Payne , hosted by Bart Simpson (I still love him from my Fox Network days)." Okay, I take it back. If the above were true, I'd watch this in a heartbeat!" Riiight. I wouldn't mind seeing a few real shows about video games, but I'd want it hosted by Old Man Murray. It'd be nice just to quickly see video clips, but somehow I doubt that it could be done with integrity. I imagine a video game network being more like an infomercial channel, and well, yuck.
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Is Video Game TV Closer That You Think? More

Is Video Game TV Closer That You Think?

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  • If they need CG characters to host their shows... (Score:4, Funny)

    by IIOIOOIOO ( 517375 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:21AM (#2732032)
    I heard that Jar-Jar Binks is looking for work.

  • Can This Possibly Work? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AixGE ( 536006 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:22AM (#2732034) Homepage
    It seems like gaming companies have their hands full just trying to compete for market share of people actually playing games. Is it at all possible to make money talking about playing games?

    I know I may be in the minority here, but I feel pretty lame when I blow a whole night actually gaming. I can't imagine how lame it would be to blow a whole night just watching someone talk about gaming...

    • Re:Can This Possibly Work? (Score:5, Funny)

      by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:52AM (#2732192) Homepage

      I know I may be in the minority here, but I feel pretty lame when I blow a whole night actually gaming. I can't imagine how lame it would be to blow a whole night just watching someone talk about gaming...


      How about reading a slashdot story, that points to another story, that talks about someone talking about gaming?
      • Wait, wait... What about responding to a post that is responding to a post that is commenting about a Slashdot story that is talking about about talking about gaming on television?

        Ok, I think that's enough now. Besides, this is making me dizzy.

        You make a good point, but it's worth noting that I didn't spend all night writing my Slashdot comment, like I did the other night playing Quake3.

    • The one thing that I still find annoying is when people automatically react to the idea of Videogames as being an inferior form of entertainment. It is no more or less valid then watching TV or Movies. The only time you should feel lame about playing games all night is if you did not actually enjoy it.

      END COMMUNICATION
    • Is it at all possible to make money talking about playing games?

      What do you think NFL pre- and post-game shows, ESPN news, and the sports segments in news programs are? Playing sports is arguably better than computer/console games, due to the exercise, but that doesn't really extend to sports coverage. The only additional standing that sports coverage has is solely due to its age.

      Not that I'm likely to watch either sports or electronic game coverage.
    • Can you say, "Golf." ;)

  • starcade (Score:2, Redundant)

    by mliu ( 85608 )
    Anyone remember that show from back in the day? Starcade I think it was called? Can't help but think of that when I think of a tv show about video games. It was on back in the heyday of coin op arcade games (mid to late 80's), and the show was hosted by kids as I recall and they'd play arcade games. I loved that show......I was crushed when it was canceled. I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers it. Maybe it was the very first tv show about video games...

    Alright, enough pointless nostalgia for one day, just sitting here thinking about it hehe......

    • Re:starcade (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      from retrogames yesterday:

      Starcade Memories - Older visitors from the USA will no doubt recall Starcade [jmpc.com], the '80s game/trivia TV show about videogames! They featured most of early gaming's classics, and it brought back a few memories looking through their site. (Thanks Antos) - prophet

    • Re:starcade (Score:2, Informative)

      by mstormoen ( 308778 )
      This [jmpc.com] is a great link to relive the Starcade memories. Between Starcade and Silver Spoons [imdb.com] it's no wonder I have a housefull of classic [google.com] video games (including the top 25!).
  • So why isn't Steve Jobs there? He's always going off about how great the G4 is!
  • Someone has already launched a TV channel devoted to computer gaming.... on Sky Digital...

    It is more than a little sucky though...
    • also look at other techie television stations like tech tv. i love the station to death, but come on. they have at most 6 hours of programming that they repeat all week long. one of their shows is already dedicated to gaming and they cover most of the mainstream gameing market in their time slot. it seems to me that a gaming television channel would run out of content too quick and then to produce content there would be a lot of sub standard shows.
  • I heard that Cnet radio in boston on 890AM. Sounds like streaming MP3 to me (complete with California traffic reports...). Its kinda like an infomercial, Its kinda stupid but you can't help but listen....

  • this could work... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by psyklopz ( 412711 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:25AM (#2732053)
    ...but only of done right.

    Of course you need to have your corporate sponsored shows showing off the latest and greatest.

    But it would have to be balanced. There would have to be shows dedicated to the grassroots [rpgtoolkit.com] community [zzt.org]. Maybe shows about the history of gaming (like an A&E 'Biography' but showing the 'Biography' of different games)

    If there were a variety of shows like that, the channel might actually be worth watching.
    • This certainly could work. GamesMaster was an Okay program, which brought a little of the humour and attitude of a bunch of guys playing sad sports games to the small screen. A program like that would be good.

      A gushy Movies, Games and Videos style show at least lets you see decent moving screenshots of upcoming games quickly.

      An 'adam and joe' (do they get that in the US?) style show would also be cool - how easy would it be to do a decent games program with a couple of little £2000 sony cameras, and a modest games budget - oh - and a stack of talent.

      And a special 5 minute filler program before midnight each night could review crappy old Atari VCS 2600 games and spout about their cultural significance.
    • It could work if it were better than the printed game media, which are little better than infomercials, spewing forth little more than multi-page advertisements disguised as "reviews" and pointless hyped descriptions of vaporwear.

      The biggest problem I see would be finding enough programming to fill up all the available space. Something would have to fill up the space, or you'd end up with the same 6hr of programming all week long, maybe some videogame/anime network might have better luck.
    • Like you said, in the right hands it could be an interesting concept. What I *don't* want to see is another hideous "j34h d00dz check out this phat new title... its off tha hook!" show targetted at the 12 yr old demographic.

      The original gamers are all grown up now. We are not teenagers. We have money to spend. Can we please have some intelligent coverage of upcoming titles/issues etc without the cheesy plastic MTV wannabe veneer.
  • For Sports they could play Quake 3 tournament demos. With commentary and replays. I'd watch every week!

    And they could have a reality-style tv show of Quake 3 Team Arena where the loosing team has to vote a member off!

    • Re:Sports! (Score:2, Funny)

      by yatest5 ( 455123 )
      For Sports they could play Quake 3 tournament demos. With commentary and replays. I'd watch every week!

      You know when sometimes you get in from the pub late, and catch late-night tv, and all the ads are for like sex chat lines and sex contacts. Just *imagine* what the ads would be like during a quake tournament broadcast!

  • Idea: Televise game competitions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ryu2 ( 89645 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:25AM (#2732059) Homepage Journal
    In Korea, all the major computer gaming competitions, Starcraft, Diablo II, Quake3 , etc are televised, live, with commentary, etc. Just like sports like baseball, football, etc.

    Why not have such progamming for a "video game" channel?
  • Please do this right. Don't bring on some loser to fill in the geek stereotype. (like that kid from TechTV that ruined the screen savers..)

    What am I talking about, it will probably be some glossed over garbage that gives every game an 8/10 so as not to turn away potential advertisers ...
  • Or even land well. Maybe a channel devoted to computer and computing, with a show about gaming. Topics would be things like updates about release dates, notices about patches, etc. Even then, it would be hard to do more than 30 minutes once a week to cover a good bit of gaming news. Maybe extend it to an hour if you through in interviews with designers, artists, etc. But since most of get our updates through the Web, I really don't know what would be accomplished by this.

    EFGearman
    --
    • There is a show about gaming, on a computer related TV station called TechTV [techtv.com]. The show on TechTV is called Extended Play [techtv.com].

      -motardo

      • This merely appears to reinforce what I said. It appears to a half-hour show, and it appears that TechTV has a very limited set of programs, as Extended Play is repeated at least ten times.

        I'm not saying it's a bad show, I'm just saying that speciality networks by their very nature will have limited programming.

        I will have to see if my local cable package includes this, so that I can see if my predictions above are true about this show.

        EFGearman
        --
  • Guys, come on, seriously... a video game channel? A channel about video games? Look, if you're going to vegetate in front of the TV, do it PLAYING the video game OR watching TV. It just sounds absurd to watch a TV show about playing video games... that's like watching a fireplace or fishtank on TV, who would ever do such a thing? (sarcasm)

    On a serious note, I just can't see how something like this wouldn't become just one big infomercial. Maybe Comedy Central could follow BattleBots with some video game competition show, but I fail to see how an entire channel could come up with programming that would not only attract viewers but also attract advertisers. Of course, I'm no creative genius, so go figure.
    • It is a little weird, but I kinda think it's absurd to have 3 hours of pre-game commentary before a football game.
    • that's like watching a...fishtank on TV, who would ever do such a thing?

      Well, my cat, actually. I bought one of those tapes on a whim, and she loves it. And now that I think about it, her other favorite TV-related activity is attacking console game characters as they move about the screen. Therefore, this video game channel might be popular with a percentage of the feline population.

      Unfortunately, most cats don't seem to have much in the way of disposable income, so as you said, getting advertising dollars might be tough.

  • Such a channel already exists in France (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pelops ( 454213 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:30AM (#2732085)

    Well nothing new here, such a channel now exists on satellite for more than 6 years

    The channel started as C: and was proposing download through the satellite, and were proposing some anime series, like Evangelion, Lodoss and some series like Red Dwarf. There were no real show on games itself.

    What happened after was that Infogrammes came into the company and transformed into a real game news channel, now called Gameone. They still shows some anime, shows some clip of videogames with either game music or some chosen. Most of those clips are pretty good. They are also shows now which talks about some Internet Website games, etc... But the focus is also on anime, Comics, Movies. Well far more than just videogames, and more related to the videogames culture and what is close to it.

    By the way, Anime is far more known in France and for a much longer time than it is in the us and the exposure is way bigger

    Pelops

  • Not that greedy Pajitnov (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:30AM (#2732088) Homepage Journal

    At one time, Alexey Pajitnov, one of the inventors of Tetris, thought he owned the rights to all video games based on falling blocks [slashdot.org]. The consensus now seems to be that he and the company [tetris.com] he started with Henk Rogers owns only the word "TETRIS" [everything2.com]. Better use Vadim Gerasimov [mit.edu] (the guy who wrote the first PC version of Tetris [mit.edu]) instead.

  • I agree about a Video game channel turning into a giant infomercial. Look at Speedvision, for those who think there's too much motorsports coverage on 'regular' TV (networks, ESPN, whatever) - there's not enough to keep the infomercials away from there.

    TechTV has a decent show about gaming called Extended Play. Sometimes they do other than game stuff, but it's always related.

    Anyway, I think a few more shows would be good, but a whole channel? It'd just be re-run after re-run of the same 'news' show you just saw, or a ton of infomercials or both.

    Just my thoughts...

  • I think it's a good idea. I just hope they do it right. Has anyone noticed how often CNET broadcasts blatantly wrong information??? nomayo geekrated.com
  • If they can't even make one show about video games fly, how do you think an entire channel will work?

  • Is it just me or...? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:35AM (#2732115)
    When I am deciding whether to buy a game or not, I'd rather try it out myself rather than relying on any 'video game' medium. From those that I read, most of these *always* give games good (better than average) ratings, questioning where their 'average' is. Once in a while they will ding a game very badly as not to look too biased (Diakiana or whatever that Romero project was), but games that, after trying them out in some fashion, I found lacking seem to get 8 out of 10s or similar ratings. For example, I remember several sites praising the tech in Red Faction (it's ability to modify the environment) but after playing the demo, I was very unimpressed.

    If anything, having more critical reviews of games becomes necessary as game demo sizes continue to rise and/or more companies simply release movies of the gameplay without any interactivity. This is even worse when considering console games, some which you can try at the store, but typically you have to go on third-person experience. And with game prices easily edging $40-$50 a pop, I want to make sure I get the value for my money.

    So I very much doubt a Video Game TV network would be anything 'great'. As the editoral on the writeup suggests, it could easily become simply informercials, with the game companies telling the network that, sure, they'll give out free copies of the game for review but only if the review garishes high marks from the staff.

    I'd much rather see what the response is on USENET and other sites (Anyone know of a /.-like site for gamers?) and use any demos or similar to judge a game for purchase rather than relying on any single commercial reviewer.

    • www.joystick101.org it runs the SW that K5 does, and the community isn't quite there yet, but its what you're looking for.
    • http://www.shacknews.com [shacknews.com]

      That's the got the comment community /. does - for gamers.
    • My current bugbear at the moment is the GBA magazine in the UK (sorry, can't remember the title.) The reviews seem fairly honest and prepared to say what sucks about a game and why, but then the ratings are confusingly high for everything.

      A typical example for a bad game will read something like "This game is poor, very poor. The graphics are blocky and jerky, the collision detection is awful and the hashed-up plot does nothing to encourage you to work around those problems. Stick with $SOME_OTHER_TITLE_IN_THE_GNERE instead. 70%"

      Excuse me? 70%? 70% is "Competent, but not earth-shattering. Worth a look if you like this kind of game." "Poor, very poor" should be getting 10-20%.

      Are they afraid of offending the advertisers? Have Nintendo wielded a big club saying that *no* sub-70% scores are permitted for fear of making the whole platform look bad? Or are the reviewers just "poor, very poor" at maths?

      /me awaits Advance Wars and Golden Sun on import for Christmas...

      Tim.
  • Don't forget about Jeff Minter.

    Eh, might as well just make it the Jeff Minter Channel (J-MTV? JMET? YAK?). Of course, 14 hours of it would be just electronica with light synth shows and the rest would be ovine related things and game reviews where the ratings are in sheep with "Goaty" at the top and "Pants" at the bottom

    (A few years ago an online game rag (don't recall which) had a little "Vid Gamers as The Simpsons". I don't remember all the slots, but Jeff was definitely Otto. (Jack Tramiel was Dr. Nick too, I think.))

    • I got more play out of Yaks Progress (the c64compilation disk), than probably any other game or collection of games since.

      Games these days are like "play for 3 days and then forget about them" for the most part, at least to me.

      Minter's stuff amused me for months at a time. Of course it could have just been that it was the best I had back then, but there seemed to be something more.

      I never could get into that Anticipal game though. I kept flying into walls sideways, and I was too young to get most of the jokes in that game. :)
  • All this was said about MTV during its beginning, now look at it. IMHO, they suck but they are a strong cultural force in general and in the music industry like it or not. A video game channel would start out the same way, showing the same things over and over until a broad enough audience was generated. If you look at all the stupid stations you can get on broadband I don't think its much of a stretch for a vieo game channel.

    Just my 2 cents.
    • The MTV model is precisely why this SHOULDN'T be done... A television channel will only promote those games represented by the producers willing to pay the most for ad space, and all the best games will go unnoticed, much like today's music industry. Additionally, if game developers are handled by their producers the way "artists"(most of the popular ones aren't) are handled by record companies, we'll certainly see a decline in the quality of games out there, since anything experimental is viewed as being too risky for the funding company. We'll also see more of this [penny-arcade.com](penny-arcade.com)
  • then this is going to be one horrid TV channel, but at least it will give high school kids somewhere else to work than McDonald's. Fortunately, game web sites have been dropping like flies.

  • Shows we won't be likely to see: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:41AM (#2732137)
    Campers' Corner: Hosts K111j0y and 14m3r talk about the best way to grief-play in Multiplayer FPS's like Q3A, UT, CS, etc... They discuss the best aiming proxies, server mods, and latency attacks to use. Actual gaming advice will be a little bit on the thin side, however.

    EverGeeks: "Verily, after I chugged my mountain dew and played gems for another forty-five minutes did the dread dragon Nagafen spawn. Heroicly, I thusly rushed in to slay the beast, along with my brethren, sixty-five other level 50+ druids. EQ R0XX0RS!"

    Real Life vs. Gaming: Of course real gamers can't afford to eat and buy all the games they want to play at the same time, especially if they play consoles and can't leech warez copies of the games from IRC and Morpheus. This show is more in the way of financial advice like: "If you crush up gravel and put it in the bathtub with water, you can get your clothes almost as clean if you washed them with soap." and "Of course you can eat meat that's a little green if you cook it thouroughly enough. A little mold never hurt anybody. Watch out for bulging cans you find in the dumpster, tho. Botulism can kill you if you're not lucky."

  • NBC Germany does Giga Games (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hi,

    NBC Germany airs a show called Giga Games from 10pm to midnight (every night!). It think it's fairly successful. I watch it from time to time. If you wanna see what a game looks like, it comes in handy...

    The web-site is: giga.de [giga.de].

    - Jan
  • This will definetly turn into an infomercial for the gaming companies...can't you just imagine that guy with the colorful sweater (he's in every infomercial ever made) hocking copies of the new version of Quake, and offering to throw in a month's supply of caffeine pills...but only if you order right now!
  • You could have "Behind The Game" with interviews with characters like Ranger and Bitterman from Quake3, talking about their problems with depression over the years and their difficult addictions to pain pills. They could vent about all the different problems they had with the other bots. How he dealt with his failed relationship with Lara Croft, etc...

  • All Games Network involved (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Blackwulf ( 34848 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:45AM (#2732158) Homepage
    If anybody remembers the dot-bomb that was Pseudo (streaming network), they had a gaming channel called the All Games Network, headed by Scot Rubin. When Pseudo changed their format, Rubin left the company.

    He is now part of this new project, along with several people from the old AGN.

    There are two choices for 30 minute shows on gaming today, one is Extended Play on TechTV, and the other is Electric Playground on Discovery Science. (Thank you TiVo for finding that one for me!) They're both okay, hell, Electric Playground has a chick from the Real World New Orleans on it (Julie, the girl who got kicked out of BYU for those who follow MTV), but these two shows are only an hour a week, hardly enough time to get in reviews of about maybe 4 or 5 different games.

    I want to give G4 a chance, mainly because I used to watch AGN for years back in college, and it was sad to see them go. They're going to start small, repeating the same 4 or 6 hours over and over again (that way I won't have any conflicts on my TiVo Season Passes, heh heh) so let's not bash someone for trying, eh?

    Who knows, they might have a Linux show and then you'd all be praising them for helping bring your baby to the masses.
  • I saw the G4 site from the previous story today. CNet couldn't even keep a regular show on SciFi for very long. SciFi doesn't show SciFi 24 hours a day--now it's dipalatory goo and psychic guessmakers overnight. There is even less material available for video/computer games to fill the same time slots, plus you need advertisers.

    Another problem occurs when the people who buy the majority of the games are not the people who play them. They give them to their kids when asked nicely. They won't watch the channel nor see the ads.

    I believe such a channel should be interactive. Here's a concept: have the show windowed with the game. When the wiz-kid in Akron stats inching into the lead of whatever competition they're running, the show highlights his screen and name for the show, etc. Problem is, that sounds expensive.

    It would be ironic if the channel had to be funded by those 1-hour infomercials for 1-900-chatme1 overnight.
  • Am the only one to notice that it should be "than" instead of "that"

    Closer Than you think

    not "closer that you think"
  • A game, in a very general term, is nothing more than an interactive story. Would you watch a TV channel about books? There's only so many reviews you can do, plus updates, and competitions on TV.

    Now put that up against the big shows during prime time?

    No way......

  • This could be good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aoty ( 533561 ) <aoty&yahoo,com> on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:51AM (#2732184)
    I think I'm just enough of a geek to enjoy this channel. I'd like to see serious game reviews, nothing like the crap on Gamespot TV.
    Some behind-the-scenes stuff would be nice, see the games thoughout development stages. A show with strategies for newer games would be very cool, hosted by a different person each week. How about a retro-show where a "classic" games are discussed; it could showcase games that introduced revolutionary ideas. How about broadcasting PC or console game competitions with some intelligent commentary on the strategies being used?
  • Over here in the UK we've got the Game Network [game-network.net] on Sky Digital. It's pretty lame, but it exists. I suppose it would be possible to do more than just show video captures set to music, but for now that's about all they show. Occasionally there are interviews and talking heads bleating about the latest games. I think they're still showing the same E3 wrapup these days.

  • Let's theorize a daily schedule (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Geeky Frignit ( 232507 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @10:54AM (#2732202) Homepage
    Just for kicks, what kind of daily schedule could you push for a channel devoted to gaming? I think we could come up with some interesting shows if the industry of software producers as well as console producers were willing to work with them. So, I have spent two minutes thinking and thus propose a daily schedule for these channels. (Note all times are in Eastern Standard Time)

    6am - 10am - Cartoons for the kiddies. And not just pokemon. Let's bring back those old Pac-man cartoons. And Transformers, I'd love to see the original Transformers series again.
    10am - 12pm - Anime, movie, etc.
    12pm - 1pm Rebroadcast of last night's Gaming News Show
    1pm - 2pm Rebroadcast of last night's Console Gaming show
    2pm - 3pm Rebroadcast of last night's PC Gaming Show
    3pm - 4pm Retro Gaming Show
    4pm - 4:30pm Benjamin J. Heckendorn [classicgaming.com]'s world.
    4:30pm - 5pm Gaming Music Show
    5pm - 6pm Gaming News Show
    6pm - 7pm Meet the Developers
    7pm - 8pm Console Gaming Show
    8pm - 9pm PC Gaming Show
    9pm - 11pm Tournament!!!
    11pm - 12am Arcade Gaming Show
    12am - 2am Movie, anime, etc...
    2am - 3am Meet the Developers rebroadcast
    3am - 6am Infomercials (Yeah I know, but they pay the bills, right?)

    I'd be interested in a show like Meet the Developers or something, it'd be interesting. But like I said, they would need a lot of support from game and console manufacturers, without the bickering that goes on between the console people.

    Of course, I could be smoking crack.

    • They would probably rebroadcast the 3-hr primetime schedule immediately afterwards, to hit the West Coast time zone, like I believe TLC does. And at least 12 hours would be "Paid Programming". The Retro Gaming show should be on later. The kids coming home from school would have no idea what they were talking about, and the people that do (hopefully) are at work.
    • Don't forget the weekend schedule ... need to throw in a couple afternoon movies ... some low-budge movies like "Quakers" and "Escape from Castel Bastille" would do.

  • Companies that won't advertise on gEEk TV (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Anything related to women (ie: douche tools/cosmetics/yogurt ...etc)

    Anything related to personal hygiene (ie: tooth paste/soap/shampoo ...etc)

    Anything related to dating/sex (ie: condoms/nice restaurants/fashionable clothing)

  • Dave & Steve's Video Game Explosion (Score:4, Informative)

    by Kurt Gray ( 935 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @11:00AM (#2732226) Homepage Journal
    I stumbled across this video game review show [superstation.com] on TBS Superstation the other night, basically two guys sitting in a living room playing and talking video games. It was on so late I'd need a Tivo to catch another episode. Here's more info [burlybear.com] about the show.

  • Televised gaming (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chundercanada ( 520279 ) on Thursday December 20, 2001 @11:00AM (#2732228)
    I've long thought there was a way to make televised gaming appeal to a wide audience, and make some gaming company a lot of cash along the way...

    The crux of the idea is that it is possible to make games look stunning for television. Sure, the xbox can generate some pretty graphics. But, that is a cheap consumer device rendering in real time. Why not record telemetry from "live" games, and render Final-Fantasy-quality versions offline for later televised viewing? Survivor has made it clear that you can successfully air a show long after it is taped, as long as the outcome is kept a secret.

    Imagine the beautiful imagery a powerful rendering farm could generate for the televised version of the game. Offline rendering also affords the opportunity to select camera angles and lay on interesting commentary, etc. Shows like Survivor and Junkyard Wars are much better due to the quality editing which helps to highlight (manufacture) story lines and competitive tension. You also don't need to air every second of the game. Editing could make a tedious multi-hour marathon session into an engaging 30-minute TV show.

    Create a multiplayer game, ala Quake, where players can compete in different interesting arenas, but the basic controls are always the same. Players compete in a series of online tournaments to qualify for the big televised championship. The "home version" used for these online qualifiers renders at normal xbox/PC/etc levels of detail, of course.

    The top 10 online players are invited to the televised competition every week/month/quarter (they may even play it from their living rooms). They compete inside a new, never before seen, arena. Every move, shot, hit, collision, etc is recorded (this is the telemetry). This telemetry is fed into a high-end rendering farm. An editing team selects camera angles and creates scenes. They overlay music and commentary, perhaps even add audio from the players' mics. The show could be ready to air within a very short time (days or less) if desired.

    Shortly after this new arena airs on TV in all its render-farm glory, it is released as a "home version". This new arena is then used for the online qualifiers to select the next round of competitors for the TV show.

    This is probably way too much detail, but it's an idea that I've been kicking around for awhile.

    • Re:Televised gaming (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Batlord ( 33242 )
      This is a damn good idea. A few other thoughts:
      • More gameplay dynamics than just fragging (shifting alliances, traps, etc.)
      • Custom & Distinct Skins for each character so that it's easy for the audience to tell them apart.
      • Get players to return for more than one "episode" so that viewers get a sense of character.

  • Unreality television? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I foresee "reality TV" style shows where they cull the best action and try to weave some coherent plotlines from online gaming worlds. I don't know what the legal issues would be surrounding broadcasting somebody's gaming activity--is that some kind of intellectual property? or is it public action?--but I'm sure the suits would find a way around that. I'm not sure I'd watch it, at least unless the games get really good, but it could eventually become a hit.

    Just a thought.
  • A few possible programming ideas based on current hits: ER: big-city trauma ward frequented by pale geeks complaining of blisters on their thumbs, and carpal tunnel syndrom... Friends: A 20-something male shares his new york loft with his PS2, X-Box, and PC... Temptation Island: weekly a lucky gamer is given the choice between an advanced copy of a top-flite upcoming game or a date with a celebrity....episode 1: Final Fantasy 10 vs. Natalie Portman

  • I can't wait... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TheDudeG4 ( 545238 )
    Being a gamer (10+ years and counting), with Gaming Industry press experience (5+ years and counting), I think it's about time that Gaming had a channel on TV. Almost everything you are saying about G4 was said about MTV. Some of it came true, some of it didn't, but that didn't stop MTV from becoming one of the most successful cable channels of all time. G4 has real gamers that work there. Real gamers who are focused on making G4 something genuinely cool for hard core gamers. Real gamers like Tom Russo, the Editor in Cheif if Next Gen (RIP). Real gamers like Jim Downs from Allgames (RIP). There are 14 movie channels, 6 news channels, 4 sports channels, but none about gaming...that makes no sense to me. Gaming is the #1 entertainment industry in america right now...thats something that deserves lip service on TV. I'm all for the skepticisim. I think you should watch the network and decide for yourself. Don't condem this thing without even taking it for a test drive. Thats like not buying a car because you *think* it doesnt handle well. I wonder where Linux would be if everyone doomed it before it was released? In february when we announce our programming you can see if there are shows that interest you or not. Until then you are just bashing an idea without any facts.
  • This article is confusing- are they saying there are no video game shows already or something? There are already several shows out, perhaps the best being Electric Playground (www.elecplay.com).

    Entertaining and they have a good number of interviews and such too.
    • Well dunno how I missed that...must be too close to Christmas or something :)

      Well that's not gonna keep me from making half assed comments!

      Don't think there's enough content out there for a whole videogame channel- heck look at TechTV- they can hardly fill the days and their channel should include the videogame industry- I mean it's the freaking Dave Chalk's channel as far as I can tell!
  • Stevie Case

    'nuff said

  • great idea! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Magius_AR ( 198796 )
    A tv channel about GAMING would suck. We have those, channels that devote large chunks of time to reviewing games or discussing upcoming prospects. They're OK, but hardly a showstopper

    Now a tv channel about people PLAYING games (aka in tournaments, etc) has yet to exist, and frankly I think its a great idea. More people spend time watching games then you think. I'm sure many gamers would agree with me that on more than one occasion they've watched over someone's shoulder as they played a game, or wished they were around for what they heard was a hell of a match (hell, I'm glad they added Replays to Starcraft).

    Sometimes watching the game can be just as fun (if not more) than playing it. I would love to watch multiplayer games of Starcraft or GTA or other fun LAN party type games get televised. I wouldn't devote my life to watching the channel, but now and then I wouldn't mind sitting down to watch a match.

    It's really no different than sitting down to watch a sports match. People are so quick to diss "watching a game" as being stupid and boring, but then they turn around and watch a 3 hour game of football or basketball or something. Its fun to see competition, in any form. Games also add an added realm of imagination and ingenuity in many situations. Also, the vast supply of games out there ensures a new supply of variety in the future, provided they're smart in the way they pick what to televise.

    Magius_AR

  • My TV is primarily a monitor for my video game systems. In fact, it's an older 25" Trinitron studio video monitor, with two composite, an s-video input, and a CGA input (what will those wacky guys at sony think up next? actually, a lot of old high-end sony equipment speaks CGA), but no tuner. It has an amp in it for speakers, too, but I just run all the sound into my receiver.

    The sad fact is, I just don't watch that much television. My brother's DSS box is hooked up to my system, but I mostly watch TV when my girlfriend is here (With her, you dolts!) or something like that. Otherwise, I use the television as a display for my multitude of video game systems.

    Even so, I know I'm not exactly representative of all gamers. Such a channel might succeed, as long as it was part of your basic cable package. The programming will only be interesting to gamers, and I'm sure a number of them would sign up for it to check it out, but when it was discovered that it was less than they fantasized, they'd drop it.

    Incidentally, perfect programming for such a network would include lots of sexual innuendo and as-naked-as-possible-given-restrictions chicks, new game reviews, tournament footage of course, some anime, preferrably only classics which are expensive to air I'm sure, and lots of snack and pizza commercials. Sure, the naked chick thing is going to turn off female gamers, but just like comic books, overweight or underweight guys... they're your bread and butter.

    In short: It'll sink like a rock. Try and get some more gaming-related shows out there before trying to start an entire network. Lease the shows, don't sell the rights, and when you have a critical mass of popular gaming shows, move them to your own network. Otherwise, you are nearly guaranteed to flail.

  • Sounds like another gimp-assed subset of ZDTV.

    Shall we dance, Mr. Irrelevance?

    Why I'd love to, Ms. Bankruptcy.
  • What a great novel idea! Getting to see the games in action on a television screen! As opposed to 90% of the TV commercials out there which look something like...

    25 seconds: "Guy in Crash Bandicoot suit doing funny things" or "Weird Guy Who's Supposed to Be Cool 'Cuz He's Got a Lot of Piercings Doing Weird Artsy Things"
    3 seconds: Approximately 458 different scenes of game footage all crammed into one fast-cutting montage
    2 seconds: Playstation logo

    What the Xbox commercials might lack in cleverness, they make up for by actually showing you the freakin' game. I wish everybody would do this.
  • I saw a video game tips network while vacationing in Italy this summer. It was all in English, and the production values were similar to MTV, which is funny because you can't say "Be sure and kill all the skeletons! They're worth a ton of experience!" and sound remotely cool.

    I myself produced and hosted a show called Entertainment Forum on my college public access channel for almost 2 years. It was a video game review show, we played about 3 games per hour. We had a blue screen on the set so it looked like we were sitting inside the video game world, very cool.

    It was a fairly popular show, we had some loyal viewers and some people who channel-surfed into us because of our Ultimate Capitalist vs. Communists showdown (NES Ice Hockey-I was the Soviets and lost in triple overtime to those damn Americans!) The most popular episode-when we played Samba de Amigo on the air and showed geeks shaking maracas with the actual game bluescreened into the background. Damn that was fun, I miss college.
  • there used to be a show on nickoldean that would let kids king of the monsters video game as a prize. that was the shit. another point less post by mr steve
  • They should have a news crawler on the bottom like on CNN or FoxNews. Only instead of "FDA Approves New Anthrax Drug... More Pro-Taliban Casualties in Afghanistan..." etc., they could carry a list of active warez FTP sites.
  • I could even put up with a channel that was basically infomercials if they used it to occasionally broadcast and hype some tournaments.

    Think about a good Q3TA CTF tourney, where the Gaming Channel put a few spectator cameramen into the game to follow the action, with a show director swapping between various views and a commentator or two discussing strategy and pointing out good moves. Interviews with some of the clans playing, discussing strategy on various terra maps and certain timed plays they hoped to execute.

    I could get INTO watching that!

  • it could work... (Score:2, Informative)

    by krs-one ( 470715 )
    How many of you watch TechTV? I think its a badass channel, esepcially The Screen Savers. While its geared more towards Windows than Linux/Open Source, Leo does bring it up on occasion. TechTV has really taken off. I think it provides a balance of everything. They have the Screen Savers (which shows cool things for your computer and how to fix windows annoyances), then Fresh Gear which shows badass new technological stuff coming out on the market (although we'd have to be as rich as Bill Gates to afford it). Then there are the news shows that just broadcast news in the tech industry.

    If this G4 gaming channel came on as strong as TechTV did, I think it would totally rock. If they had something, for example, that featured a badass gamer every week (or day) that would give hints, as he was playing whatever game, newbies and experienced players alike would flock to the channel. I know I would, and I consider myself an experienced UT'er.

    To me, watching/playing in online games is more fun and more adrenaline rushing than sports. Sports can be enjoyable, and if kept in moderation, fun at times :), but gaming is a lot more fun.

    If you don't have this new channel yet, I suggest you go here [g4media.com] and try to get it in your community.

    -Vic
  • ...be having this discussion.

    Extended Play [techtv.com]

    --Blair

    P.S. Now accepting donations for the Kate Botello Cosmetic Surgery Fund. (If there's any money left over, we'll get Adam a voice synthesizer chip that works...)

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