G-4, Philip Rosedale, FBI. wth?

I just watched the Friday episode of Attack of the Show on G-4 and they mentioned Philip. Unfortunately they were poking fun at him about him saying he called the FBI. They didn’t seem to think the FBI would dedicate a lot of time to SL when pesky things like real terrorism are about.

On this note I recall G-4 having a place in SL a while back and joking on TV about the residents/neighbors being so rude about the G-4 build. I guess those residents never heard of the network or something.

G-4 is pretty big in the gaming promotion world right now and they have a lot of loyal viewers. If LL and G-4 don't hit it off it won't hurt SL any, but it would be nice if things went well and all those viewers thought SL looked like a cool place to visit and stay. If those gamers are only hearing "FBI", "drama", "pretentious neighbors", "money", etc then you can bet they won't come here.

Is the LL relationship with a major game promotion venue like G-4 any indication of its promotion ability with other media outlets? Is the reason SL is not promoted more because of a purposeful course of steady and controlled growth? Is it more likely that they don’t know how to promote SL given that it’s such a unique animal?

I don’t know the answers of course but I predict that LL will have to foster better relations both within and outside of the SL community simultaneously in order to market itself in a light of trustworthy entertainment. The CS issues with LL are large and in some areas they are seemingly so far behind that individual Linden decision making is flawed and this results in upset customers and lost income for LL. Only by making hard changes to SL management style will anything change at all. SL is a world of potential but it will be all for nothing without a sound captain at the helm.

Thoughts?

I hope Leo Laporte flys in on the magical power of his latest book, screaming "Buy my book!" and the sheer power of his voice alone shatters the entire network of G4. Each and every "Kevin" (Well, maybe let Kevin Rose live, if he's even still there) should be equally demolished by solely the sound of his voice... Do they even show "Portal" anymore? That was kinda funny, especially when they had the guy doing that wonderfully obnocious badger voice... And maybe I laughed at one comment made during one episode of "X Play"... But other than that, please just nuke the damned station, it gets dumber and dumber every time I check it out.

The only shows I used to like was The Screen Savers and Call for Help. I don't like the new hosts and The Screen Savers is more towards gaming now, and not just computers. On the other hand, Cinematech I've always liked because they show game previews without any commentary and have actual in-game footage. Though, I also like X-play, because no one can beat adam sessler and his stupidity.

Ahh, yes Cinematech is occasionally interesting. But other than that, they all must die.

Edit > Oh! And the "castle" thing - If I recall, G4 intentionally went into SL and tried to make the most gaudy eyesore that they could, then broadcast live from there as residents flew in, lagged down the sim, said "Your build sucks", ect... I chalk it all up to, "Any publicity is good publicity"... I'll link to that thread if I can find it...

Listen very carefully.

Attack of the Show is a dumb show. It's not a computer show or even a Tech Show. It's a "let's cater to the lowest denominator" show.

I think G4 only likes to think that they're a "major" media outlet. From what I've heard, their ratings are rather in the tubes.

Meanwhile... I'm installing my trusty old Bryce again. It's got primitives, meshes, boolean operations, better graphics and no prim limits
Sadly the lag is much worse... takes several minutes to render a frame

I thought it was a pretty well delivered joke, myself. I laughed out loud and nodded.

Not Office Jesus funny, but funny nonetheless.

Brilliant!

I spend all my time playing computer games and not watching tv. One must wonder how good a gamer can be if they have time to watch G4? lol

Well, first, I'd hardly call Phillip an unsound captain. While I don't always agree with LL's practices and policies, there's no denying that Phillip Rosedale is an extremely impressive individual. Watch his talk from SLCC and you'll see what I mean.

As for G-4, they're certifiable. They seem to have decided long ago that it's cool to make fun of SL. I have yet to see them do a positive story on it. Everything's always a gag, or a gimmick, never a serious look at what SL actually is or what it likely means for the future. The attitude at G-4 seems to be if it's not exactly a game, then it must be something gamers should look at as silly.

I really miss Tech-TV. Before the merger with G-4, I quite enjoyed shows like The Screen Savers and Call For Help. They weren't always right on the money with some of their assessments of emerging technologies, but at least they gave me the impression they were trying to present honest facts, not the condescending, opinionated rubbish we get from G-4.

Logan is correct, by the way, about G-4's story on the neighbors complaining about their build. Their own description of the segment was "We built the ugliest building in Second Life to see if we could get the neighbors to complain." That's not exactly the pinnacle of journalism.

You may be right that G-4 has a lot of loyal viewers, but I wouldn't define them as "important in the gaming promotion world" in any way that matters for SL. First, I'm sure by the level of the conversation on most G-4 programs that a large portion of those "loyal viewers" are kids who can't be in SL anyway. Second, SL is not a game. There are no monsters to slay, no loot to hord, no points to score, nothing that would be of interest to the average G-4 "reporter". G-4's people excel at creating hype about whatever happens to be the latest and greatest incarnation of the more-of-the-same mentality that has plagued the gaming world for at least the last 5 years, but they fall painfully flat when it comes to discussing anything more intilectual, so it follows that all they can think to do is make fun.

As for the actual topic at hand, which is Phillip's calling the FBI and G-4's impression of it, do you not find it interesting that when "real" game companies like Valve or White Wolf bring in the FBI to hunt down hackers, it's legitimate news, but when LL does it it's comedy? Seems to me, G-4 will always make fun of whatever any of us do in SL because SL is not a "real" game in their eyes. What seems to escape them is it's also not a fake game. It's not a game at all, so why they're even intersted in it is beyond me.

Amen!!

Hehehe, my thoughts exactly

there is a big difference in watching someone pop the head off of an opponent in UT with a sniper rifle clear across the field and actually doing it...I love that voice as it tells me "Headshot!"...nothing more satisfying

heck, I didn't even realize that the station was still on cable till now.
btw, what is this thing called teevee? is it some sort of old monochrome computer monitor?

I like to accentuate the positive... so I guess I could say, one of the nice things about G-Phoria follows, aka THE ANIMATION OF SAIMAN CHOW!



http://www.saimanchow.com/mo/movies/gameon.html
http://www.saimanchow.com/mo/g401_mov.html

Kevin Rose is no longer associated with the network.
Portal is gone, that show was fun. :/



I always thought Adam was cool and his reviews are honest.



I did not know they built something ugly on purpose. Pics would be cool.



That is your opinion. :/



Where did you hear that? Who would you consider has a larger audience for gaming on television?



I’m not suggesting something that drastic



Some of us even have to work.



Chosen you make some good points there. Let me clarify that I am not saying Philip is an unsound captain, only that SL should be operated by someone who relates well with community and the press. LL may very well be doing just fine communicating with everyone and most likely the people at G-4 are just having some fun with us all. Regardless when media enterprises like G-4 come to SL, much like a newbie, they don’t know all the rules and customs. SL seems to breed a very rigid sense of self entitlement into its residents that supersedes another’s right to be, well, dumb.

I guess what I’m saying is that in some of the outer media, SL is coming off as a very serious place. Serious does not instantly translate to fun in most peoples minds. Sure everyone can have fun with SL, but will you try it if all you hear are these bad things that are constantly coming out of SL. Probably not. As my original post stated, LL needs to set its positive direction by being the leader and setting the example, not by generating their own drama.

You beta not defame Emperor Phil!

As for G4, i don't know much about it other than having tuned in once to find them counting down the top 10 hottest game character chicks. Look pixelated hotness! Cartoon boobies! How can I ever turn this channel off?

Heard it on the This Week In Tech podcast, which is composed mostly of the old TechTV personalities. The figure came from Leo Laporte ("Call For Help", which recently just got back onto G4 in an early morning time slot after being on G4 Canada for nearly a year and TechTV for years before that).



I acutaly like XPlay and Icons and Atack of the Show doesn't always completely suck. And the event coverage for stuff like E3 is decent. Most of the rest is just plain bad. There is no other "tv for gamers" and that's probably a good thing. I'd rather get my gaming news from Gamespot or Gamasutra.

I'm wondering how long until the channel becomes entirely about loose women and fast cars, and has nothing to do with video games at all. ;P

Yeah it was pretty rude how they treated Leo

Call-for-help back then was a great show. I caught the Canadian Call for Help on G-4 recently, but it wasn’t the same.

Whatever happened to Patrick Norton?

Patrick's on TWiT, Extreme iPod.com and digitallifetv.com (run by Ziff-Davis, the company that used to own TechTV before Paul Allen bought it). Kevin Rose has been mostly busy with digg.com, having just gotten a coupple milion in venture capital for it, and he has a coupple online TV shows as well.