Sunday, November 23, 2014

Rest in Pieces, G4. IN PIECES



By the time you read this, G4 will be listed as a ‘was’ on Wikipedia rather than an ‘is’. I know what everyone is thinking: one more respectful obituary to the network. G4 has tanked due to some bad decisions in programing in the last few years. What a terrible tragedy has struck gaming. Right? 

Wrong. 
 
Good. Riddance. G4 was never a gamer’s network, G4 was the first video game-themed network. Just  being the first, or having decent ratings doesn’t make you the best. In fact, it simply means someone else can just go do it better than you did on the next attempt. And years from now, G4 will only be known as that network you watched when there was porn on Cinemax. That is, if anyone bothers to remember it or recalls watching it in a crystal meth-induced haze. This isn’t EGM, this isn’t a staple of gaming culture that has been retired. I still have my EGM issues, yet I never even bothered to DVR an episode of Code Monkeys. 

This is more like a blessing. I admit, when Ziff-Davis owned it and had it branded as ZD-TV, it was a great idea with endless possibilities. You remember that right? When it was PC-based with shows like The Screensavers? Made you wonder just what a more video game themed network could do…especially when it featured less of Adam Sessler and less of that is always better. 

In fact, let’s start with the first problem: Your face of the network. Yeah, I know Sessler wasn’t there for when the network really started to tank, but if he was the glue to keep the wheels from falling off, he was more Elmer’s School Glue than he was Crazy Glue. Look, I’m sure he’s a great guy, and he works awful hard at what he does, but he just wasn’t a good face of the network, and falling flat on his face when he had to give opinions on something without a teleprompter only indicated where the gaming industry was headed. I’m sorry, but when someone refers to the Super Nintendo as the SNES, and no, not by abbreviations, I mean by saying it in a word that rhymes with mess, you’ve lost credibility in my book. What’s next? NOFX is pronounced NAH-FYX. 

That killed him. 

Then comes Morgan Webb, X-play’s cohost and Sessler’s sidekick. If you got sick of her in 2004 going on and on during a game review for things that didn’t matter in that mouse-ish voice, you’d be happy to know that was the big difference between her and Sessler—Webb actually evolved to competent. Mediocre, but still competent. When I flipped channels to her towards the end of her tenure at G4, I actually could stand her commentary, even use it as background noise. But with Webb came the next problem. T and A. 

I think it was with the Spike TV video game awards where they really decided to broadcast as much skin, cleavage, and hot women as possible, but in a way to totally remind us that we spend time in our basements and haven’t lost our virginity at 25. I remember in 2003 (G4s infancy) when Jenna Jameson proudly proclaimed she was going to take her clothes off for no reason at all. Just a way to appease a male crowd. G4 must have taken the manufactured mens’ cheers and ran with it. Webb was the first ‘hot video game cohost’ and should have stopped there, but instead we got slapped with dozens upon dozens of them in true corporate media America fashion.

Now to be fair, if you’re going to bring the hottest girl gamers to butcher reviews and news, G4 probably had to be a fun place to work, but the programming was lousy as a result. If you focused on all this talent being developed (which several of those females had the capability to do) at least then we’d know you were trying. But you didn’t. No one knew what they were talking about when it came to game reviews, the interviews were poorly developed, and the conversations/small talk segments during shows like Attack of the Show depicted people I wouldn’t want to hang out with.
Simple blueprint, NBC media: Just do ESPN with video games. Epic fail. 

A review from X-play, G4’s review-focused show seemed to at least get its scores right, even if they didn’t really know exactly how to identify a game’s problems/merits half the time. Focusing on a stupid voice over in Dynasty Warriors 4,000 (or whatever game they were on) for the entire review was pretty dumb and I can list other questionable deviations from the formula, but I’ve repressed the worst.  

Attack of the Show didn’t fare much better. Rather than brief us on what’s happening, give us GOOD interviews with developers, journalists, etc. We’re slapped with Kevin Pereira who, again, I’m sure is a great guy, but he just wasn’t likable on camera. The guy, like most of G4’s talent, tried way too hard to A: show gamers he was one of them and B: be cooler than everyone else. I could go on about G4’s news segments, but I think I’ve ranted enough. It’s a wonder the network was able to keep people hooked (answer: because what else are gamers going to watch? What are kids going to watch when anything video game related is good to them?).

But then came the original programming. And I honestly can’t remember anything besides Code Monkeys. An underrated show that unfortunately couldn’t evolve to keep its viewers past the 3rd season. That’s less on G4 and more on the producers, but with the lack of anything outside of dumb reality/game playing segments (who really wants to watch two people play video games with a stupid stipulation?) more shows like that could have padded out your evening/late night blocks.
Even ESPN did 30 for 30 which were great flicks/documentaries depicting moments in sports. Anytime G4 tried this, they again fell flat on their face (OH LOOK WE GOT MIYAMOTO FOR AN INTERVIEW!!!). 

So let’s review

Strike 1: Adam Sessler. 

Strike 2: All the T and A. 

Strike 3: Lack original programming outside of the standard review show/talk show. 

And finally, the fourth strke: You didn’t hire me. 

Could I have turned your network around? Oh absolutely I could have. Could I have saved G4? I would have done a better job than what NBC had before—if anyone would have listened. Unfortunately, G4 pre-empted just how the gaming industry was going to go to the shitter. The Call of Duty, widely accepted Final Fantasy-market tested, shadow of innovation industry that I supported as a kid. I guess considering this is where we are now, G4 catered to the masses. It knew the audience that video games were going to come to. But it didn’t need to be this way. 

Farewell, G4 and good riddance. I can’t say I feel any sort of nostalgic pain or sadness you are off the air besides the sorrow for people losing their jobs. Your network was a joke, your anchors were horrible, you refused my services, and now you see the result. EGM you were not. A staple of the industry you were not. You were just a pimple that we dealt with and would stare at occasionally, noticing it getting larger, smaller, not going away. Unfortunately, everyone thought your antics was what went through our heads playing video games…and it wasn’t. 

You had your chance to have a great video game based network. You failed. Given the way broadcasting is going, we probably won’t see another attempt. It is more relieving to see this abysmal attempt at reaching nerds being taken off life support. Clear out the warehouse, turn in your badges and demolish the studios. You’re done and I couldn’t be happier. 

Now beat it.