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With this latest installment, we've taken to discussing G4 TV. Specifically, it sucks. Why does it suck? How could it be better? What obstacles stand in the way of this betterment? Venture on, and I guarantee you all of things will be reflected, ruminated, and expounded upon with what I perceived as honest-to-God vigor on behalf of the writers. A note to other people who do something similar to what I'm doing here: my readers kick your readers' collective ass. If you want, we can fight about it as soon as the Internet provides some manner of virtual basketball-hoop-behind-the-school.

More importantly, it's Jesus insanity these days! While Christ was popular with dope-smoking hippie-types during the late 70s, he sort of faded from public prevalence during the 80s and 90s, going underground as they say. Now, thanks to Mel Gibson and his schlocky gore flick, It's all about Jesus again. He's on your television, your talk radio, and even possibly in your schools. I've heard he's even in our churches, but it's basically a Heaven timeshare presentation broken up into several hundred parts throughout the course of your lifetime.

The point is that I've hopped on the bandwagon. I thought about donating to charity or doing some volunteer work in the true spirit of Christ's teachings, but got drunk and rated Christian bumper stickers instead. Rock on!

Author

G4 as a last resort

Psiga

I'm almost afraid to give any good ideas related to gaming TV, lest G4 themselves come in and swipe/rape them.

I will gladly bitch about G4, though! This last E3, when IDSA decided to not open the show floor an hour early for the press like they did the year before, I was stuck standing off to the side for about an hour while waiting for the doors to open. A five-person G4 camera crew showed up a few minutes after I did, were also rejected by the E3 Bouncers, then parked right next to me for the duration of the wait. They all struck me as being arrogant and bothersome, let me tell you.

I overheard the camera guy asking if his jacket was too "bling," referring to the fact that it was wired with a dramatically elaborate fiber-optic light show on the back. One man seemed seriously perturbed by the concept that the show staff didn't know or care who they were. At one point, the monster-moppet Kate-Botello-knockoff host girl bitchily decided to use her not-acually-very-attractive feminine assets in an attempt to shmooze past the bouncers, but evidently they all managed to cast the proverbial saving throw. She came back all huffy about it.

From the tones they used while boasting, chiding, and giving each other orders, I got the first-hand impression that they were just as self-absorbed as everyone else has been saying. They all really fancied themselves, with their orangey uniforms and low-budget TV production gear.

I suppose if they could flush out the management and scare all of the little minions into ditching their show-pony attitudes, they might at least be able to provide a fertile soil for the following ideas (that I'd rather see on TechTV, or some new and better game-centric channel entirely):

Televised superplays of classic games (not just NES, you limey prejudiced bastard!). Theoretically, one could rack up enough content to run that shit all night long. Watching a superplay of Nights would definitely beat watching Nick at Night, ya know?

Mini-documentaries about game companies. How they came to be, who makes shit happen, what games have been made by them, what do the production and distribution office floors look like, and so forth. The challenge would be in resisting the temptation to whore out upcoming games, and really make this show focus on the history of the game industry.

An eccentric (but not mockingly wacky) spot that showcases strange hardware and cult-hit games. Wild variants of old consoles (dev kits and Hello Kitty Editions; that one Dreamcast model that was built in to a TV), playing ToeJam & Earl over the internet with a friend, emulating NES games on the GBA, masturbatory rambling about Radiant Silvergun, how to play PC games with console controllers...

Interviews with game music composers, with video peeks into their development studios. What software do they use? What kind of MIDI keyboard is hooked up? Is there an acoustic guitar nearby? What's their composition process? What, besides other music, inspires them? Then! If possible, a live performance by somebody. Anybody good, preferrably but not limited to the composer being interviewed. Falcom's JDK Band, Square's The Black Mages, Uematsu in front of a piano, Tommy Tallarico doing what he actually does best. Hell, even invite people like The Advantage to come perform. Any band that can do a respectful rendition of game music deserves a chance.

An in-depth review show (games and peripherals) with a shifting review staff. The audience would vote who writes the best reviews, and how they want their games to be grilled. This would prevent the management from just giving blowjobs to all of the game publishers.

A short-shot review show (games and peripherals) that gives capsule reviews like most news networks have sports recaps. I'm generally not one to suggest such a brutally simple way of doing things, but there are really more games than we have time for around here, and if a viewer finds one of the capsule reviews to be interesting, he or she will just look it up online anyway.

I want to suggest this, even though I know it's just playing on a certain minty-gaijin stereotype, and probably wouldn't be successful enough to actually fund: A show all about import games and trends, taking place in Akihabara. It'd be kinda like how TechTV's Extended Play would do shows at Metreon, except at Akihabara you'd actually be able to see people using the relevant products.

Finally, take a tip from the Koreans, and have a show where hardcore game players give visual examples of advanced gaming techniques. I really don't give a frumpy fuck about watching some random people play a LAN game; I do care about watching the best players show me how to execute tricky maneuvers like they do. I don't want Willy Wheaton to go 'ooh' and 'woah' in the background; I do want peer commentary on the example maneuvers being displayed by the current player. I want to learn how to gib a llama the way the Food Network teaches me how to fire up a turkey.

So there!

Alas, almost all of that shit requires a sense of care and obsession toward detail that I don't think any network can really afford right now. Bastardizations on great themes would ensue, and I would rather have nothing at all than something half-assed. The challenge for them is to create TV content that's actually more compelling than the video games themselves; compelling enough to spend a half hour watching games we could be playing. The idea of all-nighter superplays puts a twinkle in my eye, though...and aside from royalties toward the superplayer, I think that's the easiest one to do accurately [to my vision].

..Huh, I just discovered that G4's Judgment Day is actually good enough that it plays on MTV Canada. So at least someone's exceeding the G4 reputation.

The impression I get of the G4 hosts is of a bunch of would-be actors who couldn't make it as extras on Baywatch or get a gig as "coffee house patron" on Friends and decided, for the sake of making ends meet, hosting a dorky video game whatever-the-fuck was better than sucking producers' dicks or waitering at the IHOP. I also suspect every one of them presumes that their current post is a stepping stone to starring alongside Depp in a matter of years.

That is to say, I really doubt you could get the current hosts to "[ditch] their show-pony attitudes" since you can't cajole people into giving a shit about something that they don't. For the sake of pretending to be impartial, I'll assume perhaps one or two of them has at least a passing interest, but I'm of the mind you'd need a whole new staff. Which, really, isn't an issue - there's tons of true gamers out there who would be willing to do the work for peanuts, and frankly I'd prefer to get my gaming goods from a fellow scrawny, pasty nerds.

Hell, I love the Dark Tipper on TechTV's Screen Savers: he's an awkward geek with just enough social ability to appear on television. Like me, except for the part about having social ability or a job.

Moving along, all excellent ideas. I'd like to see a show like your Akihabara deal as hosted by Tim Rogers. It would make next to no sense, be predominantly about Tim rather than video games, and get its broadcaster sued when Dr. Pepper is explicitly associated with passing kidney stones.

I like this sticker. It suggests the only thing separating Heaven from Hell is a chest-high partition that does nothing to prevent the aural and olfactory terrors of Abaddon from wafting into the Heaven section. As the final entry on my list of Things to Accomplish is "be a fat nuisance even in death", it makes Hell seem sort of appealing. Let's see how well that nicey-nice Mormon family feels its years of selfless servitude and obeisance are paying off with the stench of my charred flesh and shrieks of pain ruining family board game night.

Author

God I'm so smart

DeusJester

Concerning G4: Fuck 'em! Let them do whatever the hell they want. A two hour expose on the Hottest New Game!: True Crime will draw in their target audience and hold them there, no problem. I've actually got no trouble with something completely catering to the mainstream to the point of self-parody; shit, I don't have to watch it, do I?

It's a lot like MTV. If you actually watch TRL to figure out what you're supposed to be listening to, then G4 should be right up your alley - you're a walking stereotype, and you're probably under the age of 16, so that's fine, in a way. Anybody with a clue will head somewhere else, and chances are the onset of the 16th year or so will have you doing likewise, but there's more where you came from. Why should G4 know what it's talking about when it doesn't have to?

I think G4 is something we're basically going to have to accept. Gaming isn't a tenth as small as it used to be, and when you're looking at a massive demographic, a large percentage of it is either a) not passionate, or b) mildly retarded. In content terms, this adds up to the same thing: Dumb, Dumb, and still more Dumb. The dumber the better, because God knows these kids don't watch this shit to think for themselves.

I dunno. I'm skeptical. Gaming has, indeed, become a substantially more popular in the past decade, but I question whether the intersection between gamers and hip, fresh-faced teens who know how to cut loose and motherfucking party is a large enough group to support a cable channel.

I'd think that appealing to the mid-grade gamers would attract the largest audience. By which I mean the types like us: those who know our shit but balance our hobby with such activities as showering. Speaking for this entire group of people I've conjured in my mind's eye using only myself as a basis, I think the best bet would be informative but entertaining shows with that punk-esque "we and the audience are one and the same" ethic. The "hardcore" set would watch it because, frankly, they're fucking insane. Those of a more casual persuasion would enjoy the sense of community and the chance to learn a few new things. In doing so, the station would reach out to the full spectrum of gamers rather than attempting to invent an audience from scratch.

That's what my idealistic half would like to think. Now we'll delve into the potentially more powerful corporate logic that likely trumps my petty ideals.

Author

Corporate logic

Exodus

Unfortunately for the humor and drive of this thread, I actually have The Answer to the G4 question.

I was talking to Tommy Tallarico a couple of months ago at the Edge 2003 game thing, and the subject of G4's shittiness came up (he works for them, you know). He said, essentially, that to the execs, show quality didn't matter yet.

When one is running a cable company, the most important thing to do is convince advertisers that you have a market to fill. You don't need to show them shows they like - just that there's a demand and an ability on the part of the station to fill that demand. Both of these exist, I think.

Now, before they focus on programming, they need to get into more homes. Right now they're in 12 million homes or something. MTV is in 70 million. Once G4 gets into 30 million homes, their budget will increase, because of increased advertising rates (given the larger number of people they can reach). Only THEN will they be worrying about the quality of their shows. The G4 of today is a placeholder for the G4 of tomorrow. Now, this is not to say that the G4 of tomorrow won't also suck, but it does seem to indicate that currently, they don't want to/can't afford to try too hard.

It's one thing to say "I could make better shows for free", because yeah, I've written for a cable show before, and I know to bejeesus that I could do that. It's another thing to actually break into their circle.

Raina Lee of 1up zine knows a lot of the cats that work there now (Justin Keeling is there, for instance. I don't know if those two know each other though). Anyway, she said a while back that they've got an ex-MTV exec doing a lot of the promotions/scouting now, and her big thing when she showed up was "Where are all of the beautiful people of the game industry? We've got to interview them!"

So maybe they're doomed anyway.

Trying to rope in millions of viewers before bothering with appealing content strikes me as putting the cart before the horse, but I'd imagine my addlepated, Humanities-educated logic is no match for the brilliant marketing mind, so what would I know.

Then again, if they can somehow wed video game culture with a bunch of exceptionally attractive nitwits getting tanked and fucking in a hottub, I'm sure the ratings will be peachy. Piss all over me and my starry-eyed idealism.

This sticker casts Christ as another hard workin' blue-collar Joe, just like you. Although unlike the NASCAR-lovin' beer-swiggin' general "you" this refers to, Jesus probably didn't sit around scratching his nuts watching professional wrestling or smack his bitch wife for not having dinner on the table when he got back from a hard day riding around in a bulldozer scratching his nuts. I'll give it 4 out of 5 unspecified, undefined rating units as it allows conservative piles of lard to get the proselytizing out of their systems via their bumpers rather than sobering up and preaching from door to door. Which I think would probably be bad for the economy.

Author

Disposable entertainment

Aderack

It is curious, the way these things work.

If you look at movies (which seem to be the median form of artistic expression in our current culture), the way the business used to work is that you made cheap, exploitative movies in order to make a few bucks and build some skill so that, in time, you could move into the studios and make good cinema. Well, hypothetically.

Now, it's almost the opposite. It seems the most vapid, insulting concepts get all of the studio dollars -- enough to fund a mission to Mars or feed a third-world country for five years -- while the best movies tend to be the smallest and least expensive; the indie flicks, at times made for under a million dollars.

On the other hand, these movies -- inexpensive yet often far more valuable -- get almost zero distribution. With my glossy optimism, I don't figure it's so much that people don't want to see movies that are good for them, as it is that they're not given the option. People take what's shoved down their throats, most often, and as long as it doesn't put them off too much, and they're not informed about what else they might be missing, they tend to shrug and accept it.

It seems to me, given the choice, most people would take something substantial over candied crap. Not only that, but they would feel more attached and interested. They would be more willing to put forth money and time for something that they felt was theirs on some human level, than they would for a gaudy compromise. Notice how many people listen to Led Zepplin today. Now notice how many listen to Vanilla Ice for any reason beyond camp value.

It puzzles me, therefore, that media outlets take the approach that they do: spend lots of money developing content that nobody wants, and expect to make a profit. It's not Napster which stabbed the music business in the eye; it's the whole mechanism itself which imploded, once their potential audience was given the slightest leeway to make decisions for itself.

If G4 puts out crap now, how do they ever expect to find an audience which respects them? When do they intend to make the switch to quality? How do they plan to implement this inner revolution?

And further: we know it doesn't take much money to make good programming. (I mean. Nobody at Insert Credit gets paid for this...) It'll probably take less money than they're already spending for their freshly-scrubbed faces and slick production. So what's their deal? Why the crap? Why are they wasting money, energy, and time with this nonsense when they could do something interesting?

I guess Brandon got it. They're not making content that anyone's actually expected to watch; they're making content that looks good to the corporations that they're courting for the funding. It's a televised approximation of the Phantom console.

What a pointless enterprise. It's like Disney's recent intent to switch from "content provider" (as the term goes) to random corporation. First they ditch the animation -- which is the whole reason for Disney to exist as an entity -- now they're determined to become a middle-man money funnel, and to cease contributing to this world.

We don't need any more scams. You either do what you set out to do, or you don't do it. Don't let's pretend, and say you'll suddenly turn over a new leaf when the money comes. That's bullshit. Aren't these the kind of people whom we normally would try to avoid in our everyday lives?

I'm not going to delve into the notion of corporations essentially deciding popular culture for the entire globe and becoming content conduits rather than providers, which this post touches on. There's been entire books written on the matter by people far more erudite than I. (Haven't read Jihad vs. McWorld? You really should.) I will, however, admit that you give the general populous far more credit than I do.

I've personally known people who are all too happy to hop from one vapid piece of eye/ear candy to the next. Why is Vanilla Ice relegated to the bargain bins? His record fulfilled a specific purpose: provide people a bit of brainless entertainment until they move on. At which point the mainstream audience and the record label drop the "artist" like a hot rock, some new pop star comes along, and everybody's happy. Sure, a healthy number of people will realize how ridiculous the entire system is and move on to genuinely good music, but most are happy just to get comfortable in the bandwagon and eat up whatever flash-in-the-pan sensation comes next.

Was great access to great music the reason Napster struck such a blow to the music biz? To an extent, I'll concede. But I think most people realized they could just download and burn the one essential track off of the latest bullshit pop CD and save themselves 12 bucks in the process.

So, yeah, maybe this marketing logic does, in fact, trump my layman's thinking. As long as corporations believe gaming is hip enough and so long as G4 continues to sell the right image, the money will likely come pouring in. Like hiphop and rock before it, gaming will be gifted a corporate-dictated cachet of cool, the masses will hop on board, and the G4 execs can rightfully laugh in our pompous faces. Let's hear it for doom and gloom!

Yet another piece of urban vernacular is thoroughly coopted by terminally unhip, whitebread pansies. Weren't sure if the term "homeboy" was still acceptable to use in public? Here's your answer. I was going to come up with a witty analogy, like "using the word homeboy is about as cool as knitting a tiny afghan so your Spock action figure won't be cold at night", but realized "homeboy is so uncool it could be on a Christian bumper sticker" gets the point across much better, and more succinctly to boot. 3 out of 5 for ruining my good time.

Author

The MTV model

Username

You see, there is a problem with us theorizing about what G4 should do, as for the most part we are the "hardcore" (I hate that word, BTW, but I'll stick with it for simplicity's sake). Let's say they progressed to the point where they actually had content worth caring about, which they'll need to hook anyone. The hardcore will sit through an hour long show of stuff they don't like in order to see, say, the exclusive first look at the next Metal Gear game, ignoring those of us who would just pirate it online or who are very patient. The mainstream gamers, though, need to have the rest of the program be interesting enough for them to stick around.

That's the problem. You assume the hardcore stick around, so you don't have to account for them. They have "the sickness", and they'll always be there. You can afford to take them for granted, to a degree. The ones you have to divert your attention to are the more casual gamers, the ones who make Madden the god of gaming, and who bought millions of copies of Enter the Matrix and Tomb Raider because of what they represented, rather than what they were. Hence, even if they were to do the right thing, we'd still hate them. It's sort of like IGN...

The key to the channel suceeding, though, is content, which I don't believe it has much of. It needs to land exclusives. It needs to have something that only they can deliver. Interviews, videos, news, whatever, it needs to get the inside track on one of these and exploit it. This is where money comes in. Many people have played Resident Evil 4, but no one can talk about it until Game Informer has their exclusive unveiling. I assume some sort of monetary transaction or "favor" led to this. Once G4 hits their magic 30 million potential viewers, they have to push that fact, and perhaps a few dollors, to nab these exclusives. If not, then they'll probably never succeed, at least not to any significant degree.

I see, in this post, two mentalities that are at odds. I will pompously coin them the "MTV model" and the "content model", pat myself and my fat stupid back as though I've come up with some brand new, ingenious terminology, and then continue with my response.

The MTV model, we've mentioned: providing vapid, glitzy content that sells an image and attracts advertising dollars. This type of coverage has built in "cool factor" and the kids will watch it specifically because it's considered cool and, hey, they want to be cool, too! No teenager wants to be the one dork who didn't totally see that one chick totally get with that one dude last night on the Real World oh my fucking god. Since what's "cool" flits around quicker than a stock figure, churning out one focus-tested bit of programming after another is essential.

The content model, on the other hand, typically means developing good, er, content to attract a core group of like interests. From there, you've got a steady fan base and decent cash trickling in. From there, the sky's the limit and the gutter's the worst case scenario.

Author

The MTV model

Sklabah

Interesting. Now that I think about it, MTV did try to break the mold with that I'm a Gamer special. They delved into the lives of these kids rather than the games themselves...AND gamers gave it flack 'cuz there wasn't enough "game" involved.

We are a finicky lot, to be sure.

Here's one of the benefits a "lifestyle" channel such as MTV brings to the table: when something is picking up enough steam to show up on the mainstream radar, they're more than happy to promote it. Especially in a positive light because, presumably, this arising subculture could blow up into a phenomenon. A station like MTV is in the business of associating itself with anything "pop", after all.

Then again, whether your formerly underground hobby being morphed into a pop culture tenet is for the best is certainly contestable.

...but has he ever, in a cocaine-fueled rage, reminded her that he fucking made her and he can fucking ruin her? I think not. Which makes God sound like less of a badass than a bevy of generic producer-types, striking me as a bit sacrilegious. 1 out of 5.

Author

My serve

Psiga

Just as an aside, I think there may be a few contrasting definitions of what a "hardcore gamer" is. I'm not sure there's a dependable mathematical model to figure shit like that out, but I can tell you that when I think "hardcore" I don't think of the l337 h4x0r who totally pwnz j00. The few times I use slang like that, it's usually in a fit of bittersweet, counter-culturalistic irony.

When I think "hardcore," it's more along the lines of people who immerse themselves in more than just the playing of the game. People like us tend to play games, talk about games, read about games, write about games, watch shows about games, listen to game music, and collect game-related things. There are also bang-the-machine "hardcore" gamers who tend to only be interested in fighting games, or SNK systems, or multiplayer FPSers, or DDR-style games -- and while I do think it's good to appeal to them, I think of "hardcore" more broadly than that.

I don't really get into the FPS genre, but my attention is easily grabbed whenever John Carmack starts talking tech, or there's an under-the-hood look at something like Half Life 2. I've never played DDR, but I'd still be fascinated by the stories of how it was created, how different cultures have accepted it, and what sorts of odd variations of the theme have cropped up. I don't get into MMORPGs, but still fondly remember flipping out when I first saw Ragnarok Online a couple years ago in Kentia Hall, and I still get that 'Oooh, shiny...!' feeling whenever I look at new shots of Nevrax's tres-frickin'-chic Ryzom.

I've got MOD, SPC, and PSF decoders patched into Winamp. I've got my Super StarFox Weekend jacket. I've done QA, Beta, and Alpha testing. I've figured out how to get my geeky white ass into the E3 since before I was of legal age to do so. I love games; the making of them, the playing of them, the coverage of them, and the potential they have as consumers and developers alike grow up around them.

Maybe I shouldn't, but I do consider myself among the "hardcore." Games -- more than just the playing of games -- are a part of my every day life.

Since the G4 topic has essentially run its course, and I'm really just waiting for Drew to lock the fucking thread, this, my friends, is just a segue into DeusJester's topic suggestion.

DeusJester wrote: "How does gaming factor into your life?"

Drew? Your serve.

This is where "Suggest a Topic" pays off. I was all worried I'd have to go ahead and think so we'd have something to discuss, but y'all have done my work for me. Bravo! Now get your lily ass on over to the boards, pansie.

Closing comments: