Hello everybody.
Do you have tv shows/programmes about computer games in your country or do you know of shows in other countries? Then I would like to know the name of the show and the station that airs it. I need to get an overview of this for a project I'm doing (I'm a journalist by the way).
Any help appreciated.

Sincerely, Kristian

In France there is a tv channel devoted to computer games: Game One.
It is available on cable, satellite and DSL

In Germany we have GIGA Games and GIGA eSports on NBC Europe/Germany. GIGA Games is about games in general - they're playing new releases, make interviews with developers etc - and GIGA eSports is about professional gaming. GIGA Games is part of the GIGA show, a show about internet and PC stuff, which airs weekdays from 3 PM to 8 PM. GIGA eSports airs daily from 10 PM to 12 PM. So you could say we almost have a channel devoted to it...

In the UK you can only watch TV shows about video games if you subscribe to satellite or cable. Currently the five terrestial channels don't air anything similar

If you do have cable or satellite though, you can watch "Game Pad" on Bravo hosted by Violet Berlin (she is nice ). Bravo also airs "When Games Attack" and "Gamer.TV"

Bravo itself is pretty cool, when I want no brainer TV & beer I always end up watching that channel.

Violet Berlin has a huge set of puppies, which unfortunately she seems to hide nowadays.

There is also "Gamesville" on Sky One. My 2 year old is scared of The Guru.

Whenever I've tuned into Gamer.TV (which is a Sky channel) it has just looked like one of those text-in trashy channels - like Babecast without the skin. I've never seen a documentary or show on there. Not that I have really tried that much.

Historically, there was Gamesmaster on Channel 4 - the show that made Domonic Diamond the fat, arrogant ****er he is now. He now hosts "When Games Attack" on Bravo (mentioned above).

Bravo did also run a reasonable series a while back called "Around the world in 80 Games" - the pretext of which was that the presenter was travelling around America in a big bus talking to games developers (inc. musicians, artists, etc.). It was midly interesting if you fancy yourself as a wannabe games developer - but yet again lacked much substance. Bravo did have another games programme, but I can't remember what it is called - it was often aired just before GamePad. It's possible it's worth checking out http://www.bravo.co.uk/telly/index.html.

Sorry to be a grump, but I've always completely hated all these types of shows. I haven't seen everyone mentioned here, but I have seen some others not mentioned, and they were all arrogant and immature. And as for the standard 'blokes-are-supposed-to-fancy-presenters'..... erm, no.

Hey, I didn't say I fancied Violet Berlin - she has a face like an unsuccessful robber's dog - but she does have a fair set of funbags. This fact can't be argued, or ignored.

I think Violet is the only female games presenter I can think of actually. It seems she is more often employed as a script writer/editor than a presenter. I believe she writes the script for GamePad.

Presenters may seem immature as the majority of their target audience are young. This may be a misjudgement by the script writers - to dumb down too much - but I believe this to be the reason. Surely anyone who fancies themselves as a TV presenter is going to be slightly arrogant? Perhaps the fact that they are so keenly interested in computer games at the wrong side of 25 says something... who knows, or cares.

Oh yeah, I definately don't fancy Dominic Diamond.

Thanks guys. The thing is, noone has ever really cracked the code as to how to make a great tv show about computer games. I guess I can say I'm giving it a crack and people aren't uninterested. But it's really hard to nail some ground rules down... Every other good intention seems to play out quite different on screen than intended. Feel free to comment on the subject. My personal feeling so far is that reviews would still have to be the spine of a succesful show (and by show I mean a 30 min. airing on the subject - not a "show" per se).

Kristian

There are programs called "Tilt" and "Play" in Finland.

There's a show called "Games AN Gamers" in Greece,
which totally sucks.

Half of the time they have meaningless clips to help "ease"
the transition from the one game presentation to the other,
and in between they have crap (p)reviews including in-game
footage where they display their total lack of gaming skills.

If you exclude the pretty in-game shots, it's kinda painful
to watch it.

My pennyworth:

• I guess hints and cheats are always going to be popular.
• An extensive complimentary website - with walkthroughs, hints, cheats, forums, demo downloads, freeware, high score charts, etc. The show and website should have a clear relationship.
• Don't use a presenter. There is too much time spent with a presenter waffling about nothing in between the real content. The show-who's-name-I-can't-remember that was on Bravo just had a guy doing voice over - which meant you were always watching a game - not some idiot who thinks they are funny.
• Previews of games are always very interesting.
• As a wanabee games developer I love to see the making of games/behind the scenes and interviews with famous developers (like Shigeru Miyamoto).
• Gamesville do a small retro piece, where they talk about an old game like Asteroids or BattleZone. For older gamers (like myself) this is quite amusing. You can even get retro about Megadrive/Genesis or SNES games now... I saw the other day there is a full magazine in th UK now dedicated to retro games, and remakes of retro games. It shouldn't be a large part of the show though, just a bit of a break to first person shooters...
• As you say, reviews of current releases (not games released 3 months ago) - with a lot of in game footage (not the presenter) - should be the core of the show. Use a comprehensive rating system like in magazines - not "how many out of 5" like Gamesville, as that is too restrictive.

Thinking about it, I wonder whether a TV show can ever compete with a website now, as the info always seems outdated. It would have to be recorded very soon before airing.

Best of luck anyway.