GamesMaster

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GamesMaster was a British show, screened on Channel 4 from 1992 to 1998, and was the first ever UK television show dedicated to computer and video games.

1 Origins
2 Format and hosts
3 Review segments
4 Series guide
5 Relationship with the games industry
6 Hellraising
7 The death of UK games television
8 Minor claims
9 Broadcasting spin-offs
10 Publishing spin-offs
11 External links

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Origins

The project began for reasons that are very simple. Jane Hewland, formerly of LWT, had set up her own production company Hewland International and had taken interest in her son's love of video games. This resulted in her putting together a pitch for a show that would translate the excitement of games playing into watchable television. It was Channel 4 that decided to give her light-entertainment concept a try. However because it had been pitched as a competitive event programme, the show was always under the jurisdiction of the "sports" department. This made it the bedfellow of Football Italia, horse racing and Indian volleyball.

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Format and hosts

Though it featured reviews of games, most of the show was about challenges where gameplayers would play off against one another for the title of "GamesMaster Champion". Contestants who were successful at their challenges were rewarded with the coveted "GamesMaster Golden Joystick" trophy. Dominik Diamond usually presented the show with Sir Patrick Moore appearing (in pre-recorded inserts) as the 'Games Master'. During these challenges, Dominik was joined by a host of commentators. These included Derrick Lynch, Kirk Ewing, Dave Perry, Tim Boone, Edward Laurence amongst others.

For the third series, Dexter Fletcher rather than Dominik Diamond was the main presenter, but this change was criticised by fans, who saw the new host as trying too hard, and too 'in-your-face'. Fletcher was more well known for playing an American character called "Spike" in the ITV drama series Press Gang. Without his fake accent, some viewers thought his genuine cockney slang was actually put on for the effect of making the show seem more hip.

Image:Dexter Fletcher, Gamesmaster.jpg

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Review segments

From the very first episode, GamesMaster included reviews of forthcoming titles. In an attempt to give the show some authority and get the gaming press on their side (not to mention sparing the production the need of extra staff to solely review games), the reviews featured a host of magazines journalists from the publishing house EMAP. This meant the show could pool the collective opinions of magazines like Mean Machines, C&VG and ACE.

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Series guide

The following listed is a list of all episodes, by the celebrity who featured on each show. All transmission dates are as accurate as possible. The show was often switched, half way through a series run, between Tuesday and Thursday evening schedules.

Series 7 – 10 shows, shown Thursdays then Wednesdays at 6:00pm
Location: Desert Island
Show 01 | (20/11/97) – Jo Guest
Show 02 | (27/11/97) – Kaleef
Show 03 | (04/12/97) – Boxers
Show 04 | (11/12/97) – Sol Campbell
Show 05 | (18/12/97) – Emma Kennedy (Xmas special)
Show 06 | (06/01/98) – All Saints
Show 07 | (13/01/98) – Sarah Vandenbergh
Show 08 | (20/01/98) – Catalina
Show 09 | (27/01/98) – Debbie Flett
Show 10 | (03/02/98) – Compilation Look-back Show

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Relationship with the games industry

Prior to GamesMaster appearing, games companies had very few shows to have their titles featured on. UK broadcasters had shown sparodic interest in the scene, normally confining coverage to segments within Saturday morning children's programming. From time to time, the news shows would run a story on one of the very successful British games studios. But in the main, there simply wasn't a regular showcase in the way there was with films and music videos.

That GamesMaster arrived in 1992, after the launch of the Megadrive but before the SNES is timely. 16bit consoles were very responsible for kickstarting gaming into the UK mainstream (though it would take graphics as good as the PlayStation for the leap to finally be made). Youth culture was probably more focused on the gaming scene than even before. Even arcades were still a big business (something that has since almost died). The fact that GamesMaster established an TV viewership in the millions proves that that there was a huge and so far untapped audience.

To say that the various games publishers became desperate to get their products featured is to put it lightly. Not that the show didn't first have to overcome the general preference that certain PR departments had to the specialist gaming magazines. The politics of granting exclusives is a strange and murky world, sometimes based more on close personal relationship between editorial staff and PR managers than anything else.

Despite this, the show managed to secure a host of exclusives over the years, often showing games that were months (sometimes years) away from being finished. Because GamesMaster was at heart a challenged based show, games studios could just present a single level to be used these competitive segments. Blast Corps is one example of a game that got its moment in the sun long before it (or even the N64) ever hit store shelves.

There was even a time when some games studios went the extra mile and made levels specifically for use on one of the challenges. Shiny Entertainment were one such studio when they put together a special level of Earthworm Jim. Though this worked out well for both parties, the experience was somewhat soured when this code ended up being leaked on the internet. It's believed that the only way for this to have happened is that one of the staff on the show must have had links with online ROM crackers. It lead to a lot of red faces and certainly upset the trust that must have existed between the production, Shiny Entertainment and their publisher: Virgin Interactive.

When gaming moved into the 3D era with the Playstation, the show obviously felt a need to show the most grapically dazzling titles available. This could sometimes mean that some style-over substance games got featured in challenges, at the expense of more worthy titles. One such apparent occasion when this occurred is when DMA Design had two of its N64 titles completely overlooked. Despite strong assurances made to the studio's then PR manager, Brian Baglow, both Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley were never used in a challenge. Given that these were not the most eye-popping of gamings then offerings (the show did feature a lot of leading edge arcade titles with visuals that were way in advance of current consoles), it's not massively surprising that they didn't make the cut. Many other political factors may also have played their part in these and many other games not getting their moment in the Channel 4 spotlight.

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Hellraising

Certain reports have linked Dominik Diamond to mischievous behaviour both during the filming of the show and its feature reports. Though Dominik was always very cheeky with the guests, teenage contestants, commentators and - some would argue - Channel 4's censors. One incident is famous for pushing a co-commentator's buttons to the N'th degree. It involved Dave Perry - who'd previously had a very good relationship with the show - and him losing a challenge to young teenager in record time. Dominik smelt the blood of wounded pride and set about exposing the ego of the "games animal" in a style and persistence worthy of Jeremy Paxman. The red faced and fuming Perry tried to claim - repeatly - that he'd barely played the game (Super Mario 64) before, on account of it not being available in the UK. Dominik pushed further by testing the validity of that claim, in that Perry was a true hardcore gamer (as well as PR manager for THQ) and would surely own an imported N64.

There also exists the tale that on a trip to visit Virgin Interactive's US studio and LucasArts, Dominik became so drunk (leading to a spell of being equally obnoxious and amusing) on a flight to California, that he was banned for life by Virgin Atlantic.

Dominik and the show may bare a responsibility for making the UK games studio Rare, into an even bigger bunch of reclusives than they'd previously been [1]. Not many people recover from having their looks ridiculed on national TV, and the Stamper brothers must still have harrowing flashbacks.

In 1995, there was a one off "Gore Special" that went out close to midnight on Channel 4. Despite being broadcast well after the watershed, it still received a huge number of viewer complains for its "vivid" content.

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The death of UK games television

Prior to Gamesmaster leaving UK television, there had been a crisis of confidence in games television over at rival channel ITV. Their children's department had commissioned another videogames show T.I.G.S.[2] to accompany Bad Influence. Then, one series later, they pulled the plug on both shows, deciding that kids did not need or want any games coverage on their channel.

Gamesmaster was not affected and went from strength to strength. Then, in 1998 (towards the end of production for the 7th series), the show was looking set to be re-commissioned. Viewing figures were still strong, the show was finding a new audience benefiting from the whole PlayStation culture (in that Sony's console was taking gaming into the mainstream). The whole production was much more tuned in to actual games players than the first few series (which had been decidedly light in feature content). It was no longer pointing and laughing at nerds and geeks, as it was young adults and not kids and teenagers who appeared on the show. They and the publicity hungry celebs were now the butt of most of the jokes.

However, changes in senior staff at Channel 4 was to take the show off the air. It's believed that Dominik Diamond, along with the shows producers, were wanting to make a more adult programme that would air in a late night, more mainstream time slot. There was talk of a spin off show being made, that would seek to ape the US talk shows of the time. Whether this would have meant a programme that focused far less on games is unknown. No confirmation exists that any pilots of this concept were ever made. Channel 4 did not see the potential of a gaming show for an older (read 20-30's) viewership.

Yet the major contributing factor in the decision not to make another series of Gamesmaster, might have been a simple personality and ego clash. The new head of Channel 4 was Michael Jackson (who would later leave in 2001 [3] and go on to head up USA Networks). He had been at LWT at the same time as Jane Hewland and the two never saw eye to eye. Having been the head of BBC2, Jackson was probably just wanting to have less low-brow entertainment on Channel 4. Something that Gamesmaster did represent, for it was not opera, engaging history brought to life or This Life. Or it could simply have been that he had a score to settle with Jane Hewland. In refusing to commission anymore shows from her company, he succeeded. Since Gamesmaster ended, Channel 4 has never commissioned any other shows from Hewland International.

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Minor claims

It should be mentioned here that Violet Berlin, of GamesMaster's closest rival, Bad Influence, argues that she was the first to provide regular videogames coverage on British television, for Sky One. This however does not make whatever coverage she provided (the title of the show she performed this on is - to date - unknown) part of terrestrial network broadcasting. Sky One was a small viewership satellite channel in the early 90's.

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Broadcasting spin-offs

Several gaming shows were commissioned by Sky One in 1993 from Hewland International. These included: Games World, The Eliminator and Beat the Elite. Due to this close relationship with BSkyB, Hewland International were even successful in convincing them to launch a whole new channel dedicated to gaming, computers, the internet and technology. The Computer Channel launched in 1996 for only BSkyB subscribers, appearing for just two hours every night. Originally, the only gaming show was Game Over, made by some of the same production team as Gamesmaster and Games World. When the The Computer Channel was relaunched as DOT tv in 1998, others shows began to start covering the gaming scene. These included Gear, Roadtest, ExMachina and also Games Republic.

The latter show was closest in style and tone to Gamesmaster, featured a themed studio set, studio challenges and irrelevant presenters (Trevor and Simon, of Children's BBC fame). Though the show did not include any feature or VT content, it did include the talents of television satirist Charlie Brooker (of TvGoHome) as a very regular co-commentator.

Dominik Diamond returned to games television first as an interviewee in the 1999 documentary Games Wars, in which he commented that boys getting turned on by Lara Croft was tragic and desperately sad. He then returned to presenting in 2004 with a show on Bravo, called When Games Attack. This programme was a welcome replacement to the channel's previous games coverage, was feature based in the main and contained plenty of the trademark humour from Dominik's salad days. Though it did also feature challenges, they were just thinnly veiled exercises in showing a female model/actress/pop star jump around and show off her assets (they were never head-to-head competetions). To date, Bravo has yet to show a second series.

Gamesmaster was also the first UK show to feaure (within a news piece) the sport of robot fighting, which at the time was on Local Public Access Television in the US. Hewland International worked for several years to translate the sport into something for UK viewers. Though they never succeeded, another production company, Initial, were able to get their show concept Robot Wars picked up by BBC2.

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Publishing spin-offs

In 1993 Future Publishing began a tie-in magazine, also called GamesMaster, which as of 2006 is still published, headed up by editor-in-chief Robin Alway. In September 2003, GamesMaster Philippines was established in Quezon City, Philippines.

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External links

Fansite
Fansite by Jack Templeton, currently down (Jan 2006)
First ever episode (1992) thanks to Google Video
Gamesmaster at TV Tome
Online Petition directed at Challenge TV, to bring back repeats of the show
Full listing (with guest appearances) on the IMDB
Former GamesMaster commentator Derrick Lynch on a UK television in 2001, giving his thoughts on the Tekken/Virtua Fighter rivalry
Website of Co-Presenter Dave Perry
Official Website of GamesMaster Magazine Philippines
GamesMaster Magazine Philippines Official Message Board
The Bad Influence! Website also features GamesMaster

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/GamesMaster"

Categories: British magazines | Computer and video game magazines | Channel 4 television programmes

GamesMaster

From Free net encyclopedia

Contents

Origins

Format and hosts

Review segments

Series guide

Relationship with the games industry

Hellraising

The death of UK games television

Minor claims

Broadcasting spin-offs

Publishing spin-offs

External links

Views

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