In the beginning there was Games Master, and it was good. Screened on Channel 4, it provided young and old gamers with reviews, entertained them with match ups and tournaments and helped them out with hints, tips and cheats requested for video games. Hosted by the almighty Dominik Diamond for 6 of its 7 series and Dexter Fletcher for series 3, it symbolises the first full acknowledgement of gaming as a hobby in mainstream entertainment, as early as 1992. Patrick Moore also showed face on this show, as the Games Master himself - a futuristic machine with a brain (hard drive?) full of games knowledge to share.
Games Master was broadcast for 6 years and was very popular, but sadly, like all great things, it had to end. Dominik Diamond had designs to turn the program in to a more adult oriented hardcore gaming show, airing later at night to reach the more mainstream gaming audience. Unfortunately the heads of Channel 4 failed to see the potential and draw of such a program as a gaming show for adults. In the end, what sealed the demise of Games Master was a change of leadership in Channel 4. There’s no certainty as to why the show was cancelled, the ratings were as high as they had ever been and there were no signs of interest dropping. Perhaps it was just another case of an old man seeing gaming as a child’s hobby and not worthy of television coverage. But the seeds were sown and soon other shows began cropping up to take advantage of this expensive new hobby gaining traction on the high street.
So the creation of the games television format was complete, but the work was not done. In 1998, the same year that Games Master was pronounced dead, a whole TV channel devoted to video gaming appeared on Sky television called G@ME Network. G@me Network was available all over Europe and the UK, sporting programmes such as Game Guru, Live Wire, Reloaded and Evolution (and NOTHING else) throughout its lifespan.
These programs were largely relatable to segments of Games Master. Game Guru was a tips, cheats and tricks programme in which stuck gamers would ask questions of the Game Guru’s. Live Wire was a news, reviews and previews show hosted by Gareth Williams, Chris Jeffery and Stuart Headlam often with special guests from the gaming industry. Reloaded was a live show in which the Game Gurus would challenge the public to online games on the Xbox, Playstation 2 and PC. Later on when LiveWire was discontinued, due to copyright problems with its name, Reloaded played host to some of its features. Finally, Evolution was a strange format of programme in which a naked man in a towel named “Duck Recon” and Game Guru’s “Guru Larry” presented news, previews, interviews and reviews. This show was pre-recorded, and was shot over a PC monitor.
Regardless of having such a small variety of programmes it was relatively popular. Later, when interest began to dwindle, it played host to Psychic Interactive and a late night “tease” show called Babestation, alongside various phone-in quiz shows. Eventually, in early 2006, G@me Network was sold and became Babestation, a channel dedicated to the program of the same name. It died a good example to show that even a hobby dedicated channel needs variety and innovation to hold its viewers attentions.
During the time of G@ME Network, the suits at Sky were experimenting with video games broadcasting with GamezVille on SkyOne. GamezVille was first aired in 2003 and was presented, at first, by Darren Malcolm and Jamie Atiko. The program was damaged by being an incredibly long 60 minute show, which lead to reviews and segments being stretched beyond natural lengths and saw games featured that didn’t need to be covered. The upside to this is that in trying to find games to squeeze in and fill their open schedule, little known innovative titles and talented studios.
The show had high hopes, and had about as many segments as G@ME Network had programmes. This includes one programme called “The Gamez Guru” which was naturally taken exception to by the owners of G@ME Network and had its name changed to “The Guru”. Other segments were Face Off, a part of the show where two members of the public would FACE OFF to settle a dispute via the medium of video game, and a Reviews segment where members of the studio audience would be interviewed on their thoughts about whatever video game was under scrutiny and asked to mark it out of five ”G’s”.
GamezVille was met with harsh criticism over its poor choice of target audience and its length alongside its frequency (five times a week!). It was accused of completely undershooting the average age of gamers at the time, as it targeted the teenage audience with a “hip” and cool sort of forced vibe. One Jolt TV review had this to say about the programme:
“Gamezville is appalling, and does no favours whatsoever to the games industry.”
Regardless of the programme’s lack of popularity Sky kept it running for 192 episodes before calling it a day. It could be that there was a mass of GamezVille fans whose views were never communicated to the public, but it’s more likely that it filled a spot that would take more trouble and money to fill over again than it did to keep a low-cost games TV show running.
One year before GamezVille was first aired a channel called G4TV showed its face on American TV over Satellite and Cable. G4TV was an attempt to reel the MTV demographic into games TV, by being based around gaming, while simultaneously having a hip and cool style and feel. Originally the channel launched with 10 shows, all centred around gaming. Examples of these shows include Cinematech; A showcase for high-end digital art, Arena; a viewer selected top-ten countdown and Judgement Day; a reviews shown now known as “Reviews on the Run”
In 2005 a change of leadership led to a dramatic change of format for G4TV from a devoted games channel to a general lifestyle channel which occasionally featured games. This was met with complaints from long time fans who wanted their games TV channel back, but these complaints went unheeded for a time. In 2008 G4 launched the G4 Rewind, a block which showed older episodes from the time when the channel had been all about the games, possibly as a bow to fan pressure.
More recently G4TV has been reinvigorating its gaming roots with the re-envisioning of the website to give games the spotlight again. In addition to this the G4 blog “The Feed” was redesigned as well and had a new online video game discussion series called Nightcap debut in 2009. It was recently announced that G4 would be the exclusive broadcaster of Marvel Anime, scheduled to air in 2011.
While all this was going on over Sky and Cable, terrestrial TV was devoid of games television. This was soon to be remedied by Robert Florence and Ryan MacLeod with Video Gaiden. Originally known as the internet series Consolevania, when it transferred to BBC2 it was renamed Video Gaiden, possibly as a reference to its brief nature next to most television shows (Gaiden roughly translates to “Side Story”). Video Gaiden was shown in ten minute stints starting at 11:10pm in 2006, with the occasional half hour special.
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Centred around comedy almost as much as it was around videogames, Video Gaiden was an interesting addition to the genre of games TV programming. Episodes would include full reviews by either Rab or Ryan alongside shorter dual retrospectives on games recent and long past. Video Gaiden also featured sketches parodying the video game community and/or the reaction of the public to the video game community. It also features the “Video Gaiden Top 100” as a listing of the top 100 games of all time by the reckoning of Video Gaiden, naming Rez (a musical 3rd person shooter) as the greatest game of all time.
After 3 series, shown mostly after 12 at night, Video Gaiden was cancelled due to lack of interest.
Video Game shows have been prevalent on the internet, however, where it is far easier to gain the attention of an audience. Viewers can choose to watch whenever they choose rather than the shows being scheduled and anyone can produce a games show thanks to the medium of YouTube and other video hosting services. Alongside the torrents of amateur games reviews and features there have been more professional forays into the medium. Sites like Gamespot and GamesTrailers have features many video games shows, but more recently the medium has been taken on to the console format by way of Playstation Network and Xbox Live.
Made in response to the bulging e-mail and gamertag message boxes, Sent U A Message began in 2009 and was recently nominated for a Games Media Award. Sent U A Message (often shortened to SUAM) has been running now for 3 series and although there have been other shows on the Xbox Live dashboard there’s no reason to believe it’s going to stop. With a name inspired by what the dashboard tells them everytime a questioning gamers sends them a query, Sent U A Message is a show devoted to answering the most commonly asked questions gamers have about Xbox Live, or games coming soon to Xbox. The show is most commonly hosted by Xbox EMEA Editor Dan Maher and Xbox Live Producer Andy Farrant, with Community Manager Graeme Boyd or Gamespot Section Editor Jane Douglas sometimes stepping in to replace one of them. This has shown to be a popular show, with so many questions being thrown in that both a twitter and facebook account were made for the show in addition to the initial gamertag. Hopefully this will start a trend of console based broadcasting for video games shows.
Now we come to the future of games broadcasting, with the announcement of Ginx TV as a new dedicated video games channel. Will Ginx TV be the platform upon which games TV is returned to its rightful position; akin to the success of Games Master? I can only hope that the owners and producers of Ginx TV will keep in mind the pitfalls and troubles of other channels that have tried and failed. So far there have been 5 shows announced for Ginx TV which is already more than Game Network ever had.
I feel that Ginx TV will have to step up with varied and enjoyable content persistently and diligently in order to capture the hearts of the masses. Will they be up to the task?
What’s YOUR take?
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