Ex-MTV boss targets games TV

The former president of MTV Europe is looking to turn his company into a games equivalent of the music channel – as it launches a games-focused new show.

Game Face kicked off on Bravo last weekend. The show was created by Ginx TV, which was founded by former MTV boss Peter Einstein.

Game Face includes reviews and is presented by Julia Hardy. The show is broadcast in various prime time slots on Bravo’s channels, and followed international weekly review show The Ginx Files.

I believe that the viewing figures for Game Face will build over time as gamers find the show and look forward to connecting with us each week to enjoy what’s going on in their gaming world,” Einstein told MCV.

As well as working with partners such as Bravo, Ginx TV describes itself as being ‘the first international 24/7 TV channel that turns video gaming into mainstream entertainment TV’.

Added Einstein: There could be multiple reasons that games TV shows have failed in the past – which could even be linked to management, cost overruns, not just necessarily the channel format.

From what we’ve seen in the past a lot of the focus has been more outside of the games, with presenter reviews, stats, interviews with creators and only a bit about the games themselves – as one assumed that you only ‘play’ games you can’t ‘watch’ them.

By taking the rich production values of many games today, using the story line or game objective, Ginx creates a TV production from a TV viewers point of view. We feel this concept provides a fun, entertaining TV event which is appealing mostly to the casual gamer.”