Boards
New gaming TV show pitch
I think it's fair to say gaming and TV have on the whole been uneasy bedfellows, with awkward memories of slack-jawed kids stammering into a screen while the likes of Dominic Diamond and Violet Berlin stand behind them wondering exactly which direction their career's going in. New shows seem to be relegated to Challenge by default but with the Charlie Brooker one-offs showing some promise, do you think a regular TV slot could find some success?
With a lot of the original crowd getting older, perhaps the more in-your-face stuff like GamesMaster and Bits would come across a bit cringey these days, but then I thought the Brooker shows were a little too reverent and run the risk of becoming a little dry. But some of the more prominent YouTubers are now bona fide celebrities and in some cases are really beginning to hit their stride - why not commission them to do some TV-exclusive work and stick the results together in a half-hour show? For example you could give the likes of Jim Sterling, Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation), Anita Sarkeesian, Leigh Alexander, Matthewmatosis, Angry Joe or Spoony the floor for five minutes each, doing what they do best (be it reviews or industry commentary), with perhaps some links from Brooker and a short round-table discussion at the end with some of the above or prominent industry figures. I'd probably watch that.
You could say these people don't in any way need traditional TV to thrive, but I figure it could be a way to get people who'll only buy a copy of the latest FIFA and Halo every year to engage more and think more about the issues around a rapidly evolving artform, and present the pastime to people who've never really engaged in a much warmer, wittier, more intelligent light than has been previously managed.
What do you think?