Gamezville
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| Gamezville | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Gaming news and reviews |
| Starring | Jamie Atiko Darren Malcolm |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Production | |
| Running time | 1:00 |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Sky One, Nick GAS (USA) |
| Original run | 2003 – 2004 |
Gamezville was a computer games show broadcast on Sky One that ran for two series during the years 2003-2004. It was presented by models; Darren Malcolm and Jamie Atiko. The non-studio segments of the show were also shown in the United States between 2003 and 2004 on the digital cable channel Nickelodeon GAS as part of a Saturday night gaming block, under the show title Play 2Z. In this version, some segments were redubbed with an American voice. In 2005 the TV show was cancelled.
Contents |
[edit] Reason behind the show's commissioning
The first series was commissioned by Sky One, in the summer of 2003. The channel had been looking for a new videogaming series since the disaster that was Blam!, an advertorial show for Gameplay.com, that aired in 2000 and was mainly presented by Julia Reed (of Robot Wars fame). The production company that was selected was Shine Limited, which was setup by former BSkyB executive Elisabeth Murdoch after she quit [1] as broadcaster.
As part of the unofficial terms of her severance package, Shine was promised several hundred hours of commissioned programming. With this very large quota to use up, a series was conceived that would produce multiple hours of output per week. In doing this, a format was also needed that would be simple to make as well as cheap, so as to ensure the programme maintained a considerable profit margin from the production budget.
It's for this reason that Gamezville ended up being an hour long show, five times a week. Something that many would argue was not easily justified for a show covering the video games scene, with there only being a finite amount of news and reviews to cover each week. However, though strategy may have not pleased many videogaming fans who watched the show, the approach taken by the production did at least mean costs were kept far lower; that if it had been a more complex and VT lead format.
Though shot in what looked like a studio, it was actually not a TV studio sound stage setup. To avoid the costs of the former (especially the hire costs of a three camera setup, complete with broadcast cameramen and a vision mixer), the show was filmed with just two cameras. A Sony DSR-500 as the primrary, and the much cheaper Sony PD-150 for cutaways. This made most of the studio segments (which represented over 80% of the show) very simple and cheap to cut together in post-production.
The many critics of the series have repeatedly stated how the the whole enterprise was considerably worse than any broadcast television series on videogaming, that had come before it. To many it seemed very out of touch with videogamers who were demographically much older on average, than the teenagers the show was seemingly trying to desperately and awkwardly to appeal to. The fact that the weekly output was so high, combined with the both series running for over 15 weeks each, struck many that Sky One was not in anyway concerned with the content of the show or the reception it was receiving for viewers. This would make the hundreds of hours of Gamezville that were made, the broadcast equivalent of Shovelware. Such practices are not uncommon, since Sky One and Shine were merely going through the motions of forfilling a pre-agreed business deal [2], as opposed to serving a UK television audience.
[edit] Format
The show was filmed in a large set, with audience members on set and near the presenters in a manner similar to Top Gear. Jamie and Darren would introduce the various segments of the show, which would then be presented by another presenter.
[edit] Segments
[edit] Face Off
The show would start with the first part of the Face Off segment, where a multiplayer game is used to settle a dispute between two members of the public, or, in the second series, celebrities. This takes the form of a best of three match between the two guests, the winner of which then plays against one of the hosts. Each of these four matches would be in a different quarter of the show.
[edit] "The Guru"
(Otherwise known as the 'Gamez Guru' in Series one - See Trivia) This portion of the show featured the The Guru, which was 'supposedly' filmed in the roof space above the studio (Series One) and then a disused lift shaft (Series Two). He would reply to requests for cheats or tips sent in by viewers, and was made to look like a mystic or a druid who claimed to have infinite knowledge. He was a comedy character with a very sarcastic wit and would often mock the viewers, calling them "Maggots" before giving out the cheats. Appearing to be constantly exasperated by the 'worthless' questions from viewers and the 'stupidity' of the two main presenters.
[edit] Reviews
Members of the audience would be found to be playing a game during the course of the show, and would be interviewed by a presenter to discuss the various good and bad points of the game and give it a rating out of five 'G's'(first series). In the second series, the game was rated out of 10 though this time by a member of the show with the audience member just giving some opinions.
Also part of the show was The G-Team. It was the G-Team's job to find all those nice bits of news that not everyone would know about.
[edit] Trivia
- The Gamez Guru was renamed "The Guru" in the second series, due to a complaint from Cellcast, owners of the television Channel Game Network (now rebranded 'babestation'), who claimed it infringed on the copyright of their own long running gaming cheat TV show Game Guru. Consequently when the First series re-aired on Sky One in the early mornings, all "Guru" graphic sequenses were replaced with the second series, to keep in line with the new character, even though they clearly call him the "Gamez Guru" during the live-action sequences.
- All of the on-screen G-Team were actually the show's production team.
- Even one of the show's producers, Matt Cuttle, confessed "I admit the presenters Jamie and Darren aren't the smartest of all people (to put it politely!)" in a Jolt TV discussion on the series.
- During an interview with GamesMaster Magazine about his new game show When Games Attack, Dominik Diamond declared that "Gamezville is the equivalent to eating your own S**T, the producers must have thought "oh because we have black people in it must be street".
[edit] Rumours
A rumour speculating Gamezville's return (Series 3) has recently surfaced on the Internet, but there are as of yet no hard sources to prove this claim. Gamezville did not come back for a third season and are no more.
