New gamer reality show

March 11, 10:06 AMDenver Video Game ExaminerKeenan Fries

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Hopefully many of you did not see WCG Ultimate Gamer tonight, this was yet another terrific example of how awful reality programming can be. Let us start with the biggest issue: most of these people aren't gamers. Sure, there are a couple not-so-good, big names, but the rest? Pretty sure they just grabbed a few actors, and had them play Wii Sports for an hour and labeled them gamers.

But, let's continue. Eliminations are based on a 50% of your score being based on a real-life challenge, and 50% being based on playing whatever game has been chosen for the week. As all "reality" tv shows, alliances are built, but oh ho ho, plot twist my friends. Random teams for gaming. Because hitting notes in rock band requires team work.

For a 60 minute show you see approximately three to five minutes of gaming on the screen. With Rock Band, sure, it isn't a terrible idea to get off of them, but I have a feeling this will happen with the rest of their games as well. Sure will be enjoyable to not see a match of Virtua Fighter 5, and then listen to drama and bragging for an hour. Now, really, what is the target audience here?

Casual gamers? Unlikely, I don't think they would want to watch a show about gaming. That would be pretty much against the point of being casual. Hardcore gamers? Obviously not, again. If they did watch a show about gaming, they would want it to be about gaming. Middle-of-the-road gamers? Nope! I'm as close to middle-of-the-road as you can get and I won't be watching this tripe again. Reality show junkies? Maybe...

Further, does that mean that the gamer demographic is now focused on no one? It has been pretty obvious they shifted the focus away from the original hardcore gamer crowd, but what exactly is the demographic focused at now? Wii was pretty obviously targeting the casual crowd, but Nintendo did that with the GameCube as well. Sony has always never had a target, and instead worked a blanket approach which worked wonderfully with the Playstation 1 and 2. Xbox and Xbox 360 were always pretty obviously targeting the college crowd, although with Microsoft's "exclusive" attack, they are attempting to sink the Playstation 3 and Sony with it.

However, with sponsorship from Microsoft, it is not like this show will be canceled. So, just try to avoid Sci-Fi on Tuesday nights, maybe go play a game instead.