There's no point in having a dedicated gaming channel when any gamer whose savvy enough to want to watch it has a video game website of preference anyways. Their game coverage was average at best anyways.
I wonder if they had gone back to covering video games they would have lasted longer. Initially it was a cool channel about video games in the early 2000s, then that wasn't successful for them, so they became a worse version of Spike TV, but then ironically video games got mainstream popularity, but they never went back to focusing on them.
A couple months back MMA news sites had reports that the UFC was in talks to buy G4 and turn it into a UFC channel, but that never happened and they ended up going on Fuel TV. A lot of people didn't believe the rumors at the time, but now they are looking a little more realistic.
When that network no longer served the niche it originally did and just threw on crap like COPS and cheaters it was doomed to die the slow and miserable death it did. ZDtv might not have had millions of viewers, but it had original programming that served an audience no other network did. The executives who thought that putting on old programming from what i'd call "idiot tv" that could have been seen on 20 other network would get people to watch deserve to never work in those positions again.
I remember when I used to watch this channel and they had a good linup of content, but unfortunately the dedication was never there to truly build the network. I wish everyone the best, but real shit that channel was on life support for years and quite frankly, what they're branding it to probably won't fare any better.
G4 died because the audience they targeted in the beginning wasn't large enough for their ambitions. I loved a couple of their segments, but in reality, none of it was that interesting. The reason Giant-bomb is as famous as they are is because they understand that "gamers" don't want to sit and listen to script-read opinions on games. The crew throws in their personalities, which causes bantering, joking around, and on occasion random fun that they record on video. G4 never achieved (with a few exceptions) that "human" feeling and thus slowly fell to the bottom where COPS and Cheaters found great/cheap marathon opportunities.
I think what we really need is to have something along the same lines as "Mythbusters" for gamers instead of an entire channel. Something that encourages outside the box thinking and is not simply "CNN" for gamers.
I never liked X-Play (never been a Sessler fan honestly) but I used to like AOTS back when it was Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn. Chris Hardwick and Blair Herter were pretty cool too.
Yeah, I never actually had G4 until it had already become Ninja Warrior and Cops. I will say, Ninja Warrior is pretty fucking awesome, but it's sad that something supposed to be about games (which I hear are pretty popular these days) die due to abandoning what the it was created for.
When there was TechTV, I watched that a lot. Then when G4 took merged with them, I know longer got the channel so I was pissed that I wouldn't be able to watch the shows i used to. Then again none of those shows are around anymore or even the people, so i could care less either way.
I remember discovering it it back around 2003-4? Shit was awesome. The shows were actually fun to watch. Good X-Play episodes, Filter, Cheat, G4TV.com, Cinematech, Sweat, Players, JUDGMENT DAY, Arena, Portal, Blister. Entertaining shows.
Wow, I just had all the memories flood back to me. I miss the old G4 back when it really WAS just video games. I could have watched that channel all day, every day.... besides Sweat and Players. It was great when Tech TV merged with it too, but now I just don't really care about that channel anymore so I'm fine that it's gone.
Also, I think this thread should be nominated for best thread title or something.
G4 died because the audience they targeted in the beginning wasn't large enough for their ambitions. I loved a couple of their segments, but in reality, none of it was that interesting. The reason Giant-bomb is as famous as they are is because they understand that "gamers" don't want to sit and listen to script-read opinions on games. The crew throws in their personalities, which causes bantering, joking around, and on occasion random fun that they record on video. G4 never achieved (with a few exceptions) that "human" feeling and thus slowly fell to the bottom where COPS and Cheaters found great/cheap marathon opportunities.
I think what we really need is to have something along the same lines as "Mythbusters" for gamers instead of an entire channel. Something that encourages outside the box thinking and is not simply "CNN" for gamers.
RIP G4!
Giant Bomb also doesn't have to sell commercial air time like a TV network does. Giant Bomb can afford to appeal directly to their niche. They don't have to get millions of people to watch the site all day, nor does it cost millions to produce content.
I understand why people think the network failed because it abandoned its initial target audience, but the fact of the matter is, that audience just wasn't large enough to sustain an entire network. So no wonder they started airing whatever they could get their hands on. Ultimately that led to hours of Cops and Cheaters as they were probably dirt cheap to acquire.
Not going to lie. When I was 13, I was lived g4. Cinematech, icons, arena, g4tv.com, cheat (Diane mizota!), electric playground, blister, C play were all decent shows for my teenaged video game obsessed mind. I used to post on their forums too. Once Kevin and Sessler left it was pretty apparent the network was on heavy duty life support. RIP
Morgan Webb, call me! I can help you through this bb!
I have DirectTV so it's been dead to me for a while. I figured the writing was on the wall when SpikeTV started simulcasting the E3 conventions. I loved the network back in the day, but then the merger with TechTV happened and it just didn't seem to gel after that. Plus, how do you sell a TV network to a demographic that gets most of its news off the internet? It's ironic that a TV network about technology was doomed by technology. This applies to both TechTV and G4. Ah well, everything ends eventually.
It's about time for someone to finally do something about the terrible state of the network. But I'm not gonna lie, I will miss (already do) what it used to be. Having not gotten deep into games until late middle school, everything on Cinematech, X-Play, Icons, Filter, and the Screen Savers was all new information to me.
I think G4TechTV was how I played catch-up since I couldn't afford to buy many games, and didn't have a SNES or any pre-Dreamcast Sega systems.
Apparently the Canadian G4 still plays some of those old shows, and I really want to see for myself for nostalgia's sake.
Died years ago... Shame 'Attack of the show' and 'X play' can't be revived, though I doubt artificial respiration will return so quickly if aforementioned revival takes occurance, which could, unfortunately, kill it for good.
like jeff i have directv so havent seen in years and dont really care. but kumail nanjiani is hosting attack of the show this week so i wish i could see that. attack of the show was fun late afternoon/early evening entertainment for a while and i have fun revisiting the youtube clips of shit i saw years ago.
There were only like two shows on the entire network that even had a remote connection to games in the five or so years that I've had G4 on my plan. 95% of the time it was Cops, Cheaters and Campus P.D. It was like the cesspool of reality television. So good riddance. It's too bad things turned out that way, though. I just think that conceptually they were a little ahead of their time, and the audience for that kind of stuff wasn't quite there. Hence the horrible downward spiral.
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