Assimilation is complete. (or G4 sucks)
polycounter lvl 18
G4Tech TV is dropping the Tech TV from their name. just about the only thing left is XPlay. the channel has gone from something i used to watch to learn about computers and technology to some trumped up little whore of commercialism.
screensavers used to have two very competent hosts that could answer any question people threw at them. now the calls are staged and phony.
i can count on one hand the number of people i recognize from when it was still Tech TV. Morgan and Adam from XPlay, Kevin and Sarah on The Screensavers and Martin Sargent. where are the rest? what happened the Kevin and Patrick? people who were intrested in computers and technology and not some hip cool 20somethings that were hired because they are in the target audience of 'gamers'. and not real gamers who are geeks and nerds and enjoy technology and games but 'gamers' who are all pretty and hip and cool and drive riced out cars and like XTREME sports and dress in expensive clothes when they go out to trendy clubs on weekends. you know the MTV crowd. just look at the set of the screensavers. it used to be open, clean and utilitarian with subdued colors, now its all shiny and brightly colored.
they used to have intelligent shows that discussed the technology that goes into sports equipment, cars, archeology, the human body. now we get to watch two teams of 6 play 5 second mini games in Wario Ware or drag 10minute LAN games of UT out for 2 commercial breaks. gee thats exciting. the only good shows they have now are XPlay and some episodes of ICONS (Nobuo Uemastsu and Hedio Kojima). they should change the name of Cinematech to 'dead air filler'.
the whole channel has become nothing but trendy flash and commercialism. quit pandering and put some actual thought into your shows! i used to learn stuff by watching Tech TV now i'm supposed to buy into this "Gamer Lifestyle" bull**** that G4 pushes on me.
a quote from Gabe at Penny-Aracde
[ QUOTE ]
So I guess G4-TechTV is dropping the TechTV part of their name. Apparently they thought it gave them undeserved credibility. They are also launching some new shows, one of which is called girls gone wired. I guess they have judges sit around and rate how hot pretend girls are. Heres a quote from their press release:
"Our audience interacts with digital girls as much as real girls and we're tapping into that fantasy," commented Laura Civiello, Vice President of Acquisitions and Development for G4. "'Girls Gone Wired' is the first pageant of its kind on television with contestants competing for titles like "Hottest Newcomer," "Sexiest Voice" and "Most Likely to Kick Enemy Ass."
I think that the idea of a television channel that focuses on videogames and technology is an exciting one. Obviously there is a lot of potential for some quality shows on a channel like that. I think thats why people dislike G4 so much. Its not just because the stuff they make is so bad. There are plenty of bad television shows on every channel. Its the fact that they are wasting all that potential, and thats what is so disappointing.
-Gabe out
[/ QUOTE ]
they've taken a once respected channel and piddled it away into a great big disappointment. i want to know way to update my system and protect it from the latest worm/virus not hear what Snoop Dogg's favorite game is.
once i could watch for hours now they are lucky if i leave the channel on for more the 3 seconds.
a couple interesting behind the screens look from two former employees:
article by wil wheaton who used to host Arena.
there was also a post by dan huard where he talked about working on the screensavers and having to fake the live call-ins because the producers didnt think regular people were good tv but it doesnt seem to be online now.
screensavers used to have two very competent hosts that could answer any question people threw at them. now the calls are staged and phony.
i can count on one hand the number of people i recognize from when it was still Tech TV. Morgan and Adam from XPlay, Kevin and Sarah on The Screensavers and Martin Sargent. where are the rest? what happened the Kevin and Patrick? people who were intrested in computers and technology and not some hip cool 20somethings that were hired because they are in the target audience of 'gamers'. and not real gamers who are geeks and nerds and enjoy technology and games but 'gamers' who are all pretty and hip and cool and drive riced out cars and like XTREME sports and dress in expensive clothes when they go out to trendy clubs on weekends. you know the MTV crowd. just look at the set of the screensavers. it used to be open, clean and utilitarian with subdued colors, now its all shiny and brightly colored.
they used to have intelligent shows that discussed the technology that goes into sports equipment, cars, archeology, the human body. now we get to watch two teams of 6 play 5 second mini games in Wario Ware or drag 10minute LAN games of UT out for 2 commercial breaks. gee thats exciting. the only good shows they have now are XPlay and some episodes of ICONS (Nobuo Uemastsu and Hedio Kojima). they should change the name of Cinematech to 'dead air filler'.
the whole channel has become nothing but trendy flash and commercialism. quit pandering and put some actual thought into your shows! i used to learn stuff by watching Tech TV now i'm supposed to buy into this "Gamer Lifestyle" bull**** that G4 pushes on me.
a quote from Gabe at Penny-Aracde
[ QUOTE ]
So I guess G4-TechTV is dropping the TechTV part of their name. Apparently they thought it gave them undeserved credibility. They are also launching some new shows, one of which is called girls gone wired. I guess they have judges sit around and rate how hot pretend girls are. Heres a quote from their press release:
"Our audience interacts with digital girls as much as real girls and we're tapping into that fantasy," commented Laura Civiello, Vice President of Acquisitions and Development for G4. "'Girls Gone Wired' is the first pageant of its kind on television with contestants competing for titles like "Hottest Newcomer," "Sexiest Voice" and "Most Likely to Kick Enemy Ass."
I think that the idea of a television channel that focuses on videogames and technology is an exciting one. Obviously there is a lot of potential for some quality shows on a channel like that. I think thats why people dislike G4 so much. Its not just because the stuff they make is so bad. There are plenty of bad television shows on every channel. Its the fact that they are wasting all that potential, and thats what is so disappointing.
-Gabe out
[/ QUOTE ]
they've taken a once respected channel and piddled it away into a great big disappointment. i want to know way to update my system and protect it from the latest worm/virus not hear what Snoop Dogg's favorite game is.
once i could watch for hours now they are lucky if i leave the channel on for more the 3 seconds.
a couple interesting behind the screens look from two former employees:
article by wil wheaton who used to host Arena.
there was also a post by dan huard where he talked about working on the screensavers and having to fake the live call-ins because the producers didnt think regular people were good tv but it doesnt seem to be online now.
Replies
Bad sign: In stark contrast to all G4 shows, 'X-Play' would actually givegames BAD reviews! Clearly not driven by marketing, the X-Play reviews would actually point out if games had poor playability, or were just boring. You never heard such negative talk on G4, no sir! I haven't watched recently, so I don't know if this is still true. But I'm sure Morgan Webb is still the hottie geek chick.
/jzero
Actually Adam from X-Play is the longest running member on this station. Because he was around while it was Still ZDTV. Though he does seem to be balding so he may get trashed aswell. And replaced by the dick from Cheat or something.
I also remember screaming fuck you at the tv screen when I decided to watch Filter one day, and it was reviewing things you get for a "dude". MMORPGs were placed as not a game to get, and if you play World of Warcraft you are most likely a nerd. That just pissed me off, because she said it in a negative tone. The whole point of that station was to appeal to the nerd, geek, and gamer. Now all it appeals to is the fuckass who's knowledge of games stop at Halo. What she should have said was "If you don't own or play this game, then you're a loser!"
Ah...nothing like bashing things you dislike!
Like you guys said, X-Play is about the only worthy thing left on it.
damn them...
I happen to work at G4, I'm an animator on The Screen Savers. Personally I think that the network has a lot of improvement to do. Professionaly, I think that we're actually doing an amazing job considering G4 started about 3 years ago. It took Comedy Central about 8-10 years to gain full market saturation within the Cable TV universe, and have a good lineup of TV shows. G4 has been on air for almost 4 years and we're steadily growing at an alarming rate. Just because the shows aren't great now doesn't mean they won't improve. It's definitely an iterative process to see what the market likes and dislikes. All I can ask of the gamer community is to just give it a chance. Instead of having an elitist attitude towards the channel, why not look at it as, "Hey...Video games & technology have become such an integral part of our lifestyle that there is actually a TV channel we can go to now." We truly do care about what gamers think and want. Just look at G-Phoria vs. The Video Game Awards (The VGA's) on Spike TV. At least we had CliffyB co-hosting and red vs. blue doing skits for our show. All in all, I just want to say that the people who work at G4 are actual gamers and techies, that definitely know what they're doing, it's really just an iterative process, it will take time. All I can ask you is to flip to the channel every once in a while. Anyway, if you guys think you have constructive criticism to give me, please fire away. But realize that just saying, "more tech!" Won't work, we realize that already. I can go into more detail if anyone is really interested in G4 a little more. Feel free to ask questions.
Also, Vassago. The original G4tv wasn't launched by Microsoft. It has no links to Microsoft whatsoever. However, Paul Allen, the ex-3rd co-founder at Microsoft who owns Vulcan Ventures, used to own TechTV. G4tv was launched and is owned by Comcast. Lastly, TechTV was going to be sold no matter what, Paul Allen wanted to get out of the TV business so having Comcast buy TechTV and merge it with G4 was actually the best thing it could've happened to it. Sony was in the running at one point to buy TechTV and turn it into a Sony Channel, which they have in Japan already.
Again, sorry for the long post but I just wanted to make some things clear, and I'm always here browsing the boards.
Feel free to drop me a line, thanks.
Luis F. Hurtado
i can count on one hand the number of people i recognize from when it was still Tech TV. Morgan and Adam from XPlay, Kevin and Sarah on The Screensavers and Martin Sargent.
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I thought Martin Sargent was fired since Unscrewed was cancelled? Or is he on another show now?
Bob, I understand that the channel is in its infancy and that it is an 'iterative process,' but you're not talking to G4 fans here; these people here are TechTV fans (many of whom have probably been watching since it was known as ZDTV), and they have been alienated. Most TechTV shows have been dropped, and the ones that are still there have been horribly mutilated. The only TechTV show I recognize is X-Play. I think a few videogame shows are more than enough (X-Play, Icons, and Pulse should be kept), the rest is just mindless filler.
And Bob, you should really tell the higher-ups to go to just about any tech or videogame message board, and search for the term "G4TechTV." I challenge them to find a single positive comment about the station, because I have yet to see one. This is your demographic right here, and with every 'iteration' of the channel since the merger, your demographic has become more and more alienated.
Just my two cents.
im pretty sure we are not their main demographic. their main demographic it seems are the "hip" nerds who just call themselves nerds and geeks to be cool, as akward as that sounds. even more likely, the demographic are the 12, 13, 14 year olds who think san andreas is the best thing ever to be invented ever.
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I thought I was in their target demographic; I'm 20 years old, I'm a bit of a PC gamer but I also own an XBox and enjoy sports games, racing games, and action games on the console. I play mostly first person shooters (especially on the PC), and have never actually played an MMORPG (well... I participated in the open beta of Planetside, but that's not much of an RPG). So I'm basically in-between a 'hardcore' gamer and a 'casual' gamer. I'm more knowledgeable and more refined than the average casual gamer (in regards to my gaming knowledge), but I'm not quite as dedicated as most hardcore gamers.
Whatever their demo is, from what I've heard, according to their Nielsen ratings they're not doing a very good job of appealing to that demographic.
-R
As for g4tech tv I have had the month to check it out and icons seems to be the only decent show.
It's typical of any hollywood-type grasp on tee vee....and sad that we lost a network that was originally much closer to us on a personal level that we could relate to. Now you've got all great looking hi-speed actors....all in shape (looking) with the proper hair-dos and clothes trying to sell them to us for the look rather than their skills. The original cast seemed to be themselves. You tell us your working on improvements. We say you already had a great show.
I'll stop now. I can't believe you can go back to the way it was so there's no point in any further words on my part. I hope you read this with some objectivity. I'm not ranting....just saying what has been on my mind and I think many others like me.
Thx, Sal
Scott
I miss Leo LaPorte,
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yes I do too, very much so. hell I miss kate botello too!
sarah lane though, I can watch for a minute or two (because of her looks
Hollowmind: Since when is "JAG" freaken history. God I can stand to watch the damn show because every god damn ad for a coming up show is either "after JAG" or "before JAG"*
*I am refering to the canadian history channel, but I can only guess that the other history channels can only go downhill from what we get.
And don't get me started on A&E.
TV sucks, alot.
I new it was a bad thing when G4 merged with TechTV, The Screen Savers has dropped down to the quality of a cable access show, it really hurts to see this.