The Daily Grind: MMO TV?
Have a read of this article, which features comments from the host of the short-lived videogame TV series Thumb Bandits, Iain Lee. He said that the format of his program did not work, and that the people running it didn't understand games enough to show them in a way that interests the target audience. On the other hand, he mentions the alternate way of covering games -- which is to view them as a sport and show off the elite end of competitive play in tournaments and the like -- as being skewed too much to the fanatics to garner much mainstream attention.
Looking at it from an MMO perspective, what sort of TV program would you be more inclined to watch, one that goes over industry-wide news, or one that shows the hardcore doing what they do best? This could be player-versus-player competition, or even the odd high-end raid encounter. Importantly, would it need to be game-specific for you to want to watch it, or if the show switched it up between a number of games which might be unfamiliar to you, would that still be good viewing? Or, is TV just not the format for this at all, with all the quality internet programming out there?
