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The UK is getting a dedicated gaming channel - My thoughts

By FLStyle August 27, 2010 15 Comments

Details

It's called Ginx (I don't know what this means)
It's by the people who did/still do the UK gaming programme "Gameface" on the Bravo channel which wasn't unwatchable
It launches this November
It's being billed to do for games what MTV did for music (presumably when it was actually about music and not reality TV) which the guy in charge would know about as he's the former head of MTV Europe

Revenue

Gaming ads are on TV more than ever so they should be able to make a bit of money, music albums, film trailers, even sports, all fine. Hopefully it won't drift into Disney channel adverts, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. I don't know what sort of subscription services they could implement, it seems a lot easier to do that sort of thing for websites. On the other hand you could go the porn route late night. I really hope they don't do that.

Shows

Anything that doesn't follow awful gaming shows of the past I'm happy with. Yes I'm talking to you Gamezville, with your tournaments starring kids who don't know how to play the games they're on and the apparently constantly high Game's Guru who would answer emails on cheats and gaming history.

Gamezvile's "Games Guru"

There was only one good UK gaming show and that was Gamesmaster. Reruns of that show would be great, but I would like show good original content. The problem lies in the fact that even with their studios and producers and money I don't believe for a second that they could do anything on Giant Bomb's level. But Gameface gives me hope that they can repeat that level of success and intregrity. I remember once seeing a decent five-minute seqment comparing the pros and cons of Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. It was pretty obvious stuff, DA:O's story and characters and more developed but Mass Effect 2's gameplay and overall experience is superior (in their opinion, not mine, I love all things Dragon Age and haven't gotten around to trying Mass Effect 1 and 2) but they were far from ignorant.

Will the UK mainstreamers "get it"?

And by mainstreamers I mean people who don't visit this site or any IGNs and Kotakus, people who walk around swearing in public as much as they do on Modern Warfare 2. I wouldn't want them to have any influence on a starting gaming TV channel, but you know that it won't survive without them. So put some FPS content in there and they should be satisfied. If they can give me some RPG time in HD I can make the compromise.

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