TV time, and the fickle gamer demographic

Do you remember when G4 used to be synonymous with videogames? You'd never know it now, but it wasn't that long ago-- 2002 to be exact, that cable TV made the big push to attract gamers with non-stop programming that revolved around nothing but games. Trouble was, the channel just didn't develop the loyal following that Comcast envisioned.

Sure there were some cheesy moments, but there were also a couple of gems to be found in the line-up, such as Cinematech, Filter, and my personal favorite, Judgment Day. However, after a few years of less than desirable ratings, G4 merged with Tech TV, and became G4techTV -- the network that seemed to be about everything but videogames. From the looks of things, it would appear that the general population wasn't exactly blown away by what was being offered to them, via G4, and the network decided what it needed in order to survive was to mimic Spike TV.

After all this, one might be tempted into thinking that separating gamers from their joypads is a lost cause -- but there is hope. At the recent Hollywood and Games Summit, representatives from Direct TV, EA, and Xbox met with Geoff Keighley for a nice discussion of whether or not videogames will ever make for great non-interactive TV entertainment.

Most agreed that it's entirely possible, given the popularity of competitive gaming, and machinima. However, much work needs to be done in order to create the kind of programming that people will care enough about to follow on a regular basis. If they can somehow manage to pull this off, advertisers will follow, and maybe...just maybe, new doors will be opened that we had come to expect as being sealed off indefinitely. No matter where you fall on the sliding scale of games vs. TV, there is money to be made, and no shortage of people who think the impossible can be done. For now, we'll just have to sit back, and see what happens.

[Via Next Generation]