G4TV

Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

Want a blast from the past? How about all the way back to the late 2010's when a bold play was made to push gaming into the mainstream (and profit from that) through the creation of a whole gaming related media channel called 'G4TV'. Yeah, this was before the domination of Youtube, the rise of Streaming services, the establishment of 'Machinima' and other video game-centric ventures. G4TV was a pioneer is it's regard, and I was just about young enough to know of it's existence and yet never watch it because I live, and have always lived, in England. (Get me out of here!) But why am I bringing up this relic from a long lost age now, I hear you ask. Well, it would seem that young Victor Frankenstein is at it again, because out of nowhere the other day the Twitter-scape was struck across the bow by the sudden announcement that G4TV would be returning, somehow in someform with some people. (Cue the Gif.)

Now I try to be positive on this blog where possible, (unless talking about one of my trigger topics, or people, of which there are many) so I'll douse my own sass with a little bit of healthy acknowledgement. In many ways the short reign of this channel did pave the way for the world we see today where gaming is practically adjacent to the main stream and there are *less* prejudices around the topic. So for that fact alone I think it's only fair to scrounge up some level of hype for this grand return, even if it's extremely questionable how much we really need a highly produced show talking about video games. We already have billions of hours of gaming related free-form content on Youtube, 24 hour streams of any game you can ask for over at Twitch and an gaming industry that seems entirely capable of marketing itself even when E3 gets axed off for the year. So as far as the old adage of 'spot a gap in the market' goes, the folks over at new G4TV are going to have their work cut out for them.

Like I said, I never grew up with G4TV as such, though I do remember catching the old gaming related show that I can only assume was put together by their network, so I'm not entirely oblivious to their programming schedule. They used to have a plethora of varied content that attempted to appeal to every demographic they could think of in a profitable sense, so one wasn't subjected to constant godawful opinion pieces like you reading this are. There were some competition shows, shows that focused on relaying cheat codes (remember when those were a thing?) shows with audience interaction and even various genre-split shows that catered to different sectors of news. Now the only thing which ever really appealed to me was the news on upcoming games, which was how I learnt about the very first RPG that made me fall in love with the genre; Fallout 3. That's right, I learnt about Fallout 3 by seeing it on the TV. That's so absolutely wild to think about in today's day and age that I can't rightly process it.

So it was a show of it's time, like all 2000's trash, but you can see how much of what they used to cover is irrelevant today. Gaming competitions no longer need to be held in whatever dingy warehouse that the G4TV team can scrape together on their shoe-string budget, now they are big events hosted by the game publishers and treated like an actual sport. (To most degrees) Guru discussions and cheat code shows were already mildly redundant when they aired, but now the Internet it pretty much part of our bloodstream, I'd argue it's our cybernetic attachment that's yet to be integrated into the human race, so I don't need some dude on TV teaching me how to beat 'Mike Tyson's Punch Out' anymore. Gaming news is the most tragic one, because literally everyone and their mother does that now thanks to Youtube, Twitter, Blog sites, and literally everything. Even morons like me are doing it. (That being said I will remind you that I am not a news outlet and should never be looked on as such. Please take nothing I say with any credence ever.)

I feel like there's another big thing that the old G4TV did which wouldn't work today... hmm, I can't quite put my finger on- oh right! The medium of television is dead. (How could I forget?) Back in the days of the original run, the art of monetising game fandom could be seen on no other medium than TV, for that ruled the roost of the day; but that would be laughable to consider by today's standards. More and more people are forsaking the very prospect of preplanned watch schedules which they have no influence in deciding, and thus prefer to focus their efforts on various streaming sites where they can plan what they watch, when they watch, and even get around having to watch endless ads. This is the world that we are now living in, and if this revived G4TV wants to survive, it better ditch the 'TV' post haste and join the present now. You'd think that'd be the first thing that a teaser for it's return would advertise, but nope. They've failed to announce anything in that regard leaving us high and dry in just about every aspect.

One big question that I think everyone has about this revival, specifically those actually involved with the first G4TV, is how much resources are actually going to be attributed to it. I say this because the original was notoriously mistreated by NBC and given practically nothing to work off of, which resulted in this really crummy quality standard. Of course, back in it's heyday this could be seen as a little endearing, but that's literally the state that 90% of the gaming community operates out of in today's day so I'd say we're all a little 'endeared out.' In my mind, the only way a new G4TV could set the stage for a return would be if came hard with quality that drew the eye and got people excited once again. This goes especially true given that soon this new G4TV revival will have competition in the platform Venn, which aims to pretty much do everything that G4TV did except "Aimed at the streaming generation." Whatever that means. They can no longer have victory by default, this is something they'll have to work for.

And yet with this whole new world all around as today, the G4 folk saw fit to grant the world with naught but a teaser and a prospective launch of next year, what gives? Well, in my mind the folk in charge have their sights firmly placed in the idea of creating a mystery to drum up interest, something which has been mastered by the gaming world and thus in itself shows that there is some critical thinking going into all of this. A simple teaser without any real details (but, crucially, with a release date to latch onto) allows for speculation and romanticism to run rampant before we get our first trailer and everyone remembers "Oh yeah, this sucked". Does that small marketing victory make me think more of the concept itself? No, I still think it's a waste of our precious time in this world, but at least I can say that it's not an entirely stupid plan to revive an antiquated product that has no place in today's ecosystem. (Now it's just a mostly stupid plan)

So in conclusion, G4TV is back and it's playing it's cards very close to it's chest. So close, in fact, that none of the personalities who were involved with the original seem to have any idea what this new iteration might hold. Is there space in the world for a dedicated gaming show? Maybe, so long as they don't get in the way of the staples that gaming has established for itself. (If this airs during E3, they gotta know that I ain't gonna watch their crappy show when I can see the games directly.) But, despite myself, I'll admit that there might be a future for this, provided that the people involved aren't total idiots. Am I excited? No. But I am intrigued, and that may be all it takes to get enough people in the door to give G4TV that hail-Mary first show. (No pressure guys.) But at the end of the day if they're gone by this time next year, I think it's safe to say absolutely nothing of value will be lost.