Gaming on the BBC

Posted on March 3, 2007
Filed Under General

I hope they do better than Click. Coverage of gaming on television is pretty dismal, more people play games than go to the cinema, the theatre, or any of the dismal exhibitions mentioned on Newsnight Review.

Granted vewing figures are going to be affected by the fact that the people who play games are going to be playing games while any coverage is on the telly. Here is where the BBC’s new deal with YouTube comes into its own. Gamers sit at their computers, they surf the web, participate in chats, and read their emails. They may even do other stuff with their computers, I plutter about with this website for instance. I would quite happily watch a three minute video segment about something that interested me (an often have) as long as I’m not treated like a child.

The only programming on the BBC even remotely related to video games is Click on News 24 and that is dismal. I remember seeing a presenter talking about the Xbox, supposedly while sitting infront of a TV playing a game. Only problem was he was holding the controller upside down.
If you want to have credible coverage of gaming and its associated technology then the journalists, presenters, and ideally the entire crew involved <em>must</em> be gamers, and passionate gamers at that. I’ve lost count of the number of times a journalist has shown themselves up on TV by proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have no clue what they’re talking about when it comes to games.
Remember GamesMaster with Dominic Diamond and Patrick Moore? The gamers who watched that are still gamers, they just grew up. Video games have grown up with them. There is alot of serious art in the gaming world. And people out there who want to hear interesting things about games without being condescended to. We were kids once, not any more. Showing us some pretty pictures and shouting ‘Brilliant’ doesn’t cut it any more.

We don’t need reviews, with percentage scores and a selection of people trying to be objective about games they have no interest in. We’ve got magazines for that. What we want are serious discussions of where gaming is and where its going, We want to know about the latest technology and what its implications are for our favourite toys. We want to know about the growing number of social gamers and the games they/we play. As well as having a deal with YouTube the BBC might consider building a presenc in Second Life. Reuters may have don it first but If the BBC made it the Hub for all their gaming coverage, feeding video to YouTube from inside Second Life (now that voice comms seem to be on the horizon). The BBC sets great stock by having reporters spread out across the world, so that if something happens in the middle of nowhere they have a journalist vthere in a few seconds (well near enough). If you want to have credible reporting from our world then you have to have reporters living in our world, and its an unforgiving world. Any hint that you don’t know what you’re talking about and the epithet of n00b will follow you for eternity.

So Mr. BBC if you’re going to cover gaming and games, you better hope that you do it properly.

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