Save GameCentral!
July 20, 2009 by Steve Quinn
Filed under Featured
GameCentral on Teletext, one of the last champions of quality games
It was with much sadness that I read on Friday on Teletext, of the demise of one of the last great champions of quality gaming, GameCentral. This teletext, and recently web-based, news and features service started out in March 2003, taking over from the excellent and hilarious Digitiser, written by Mr Biffo, and with such big boots to fill, the two main writers of David Jenkins and Roger Hargreaves have thrived, and created a service second to none from magazine to website. Only recently their reviews have appeared on Metacritic, which shows how well regarded they are in the gaming community. Their writing is consistently excellent, with balanced and informative articles championing quality games, that many gamers would probably never take a second glance at otherwise, over the overhyped big budget blockbusters.
They have taken a lot of stick from rabid fanboys over the years, who simply don’t believe that their overhyped game is not as good as the hype-fuelled machine suggests. But at the end-of-the-day they have kept to their principles of telling it how it is, and what a welcome breath of fresh air that has been. When you read newspapers like The Sun or Daily Mail and their poor excuse for gaming journalism, constantly giving Hannah Montana games 5/5 scores and the like, you begin to lose hope for your hobby, which struggles to be taken seriously anyway. With constant campaigns against adult gaming, which children are being brainwashed by, apparently, (thanks to dimwitted or non-caring parents), to create the ultimate kid killing machine. They have been there for us, with quality adult journalism, that takes our hobby seriously, without mocking us being the sad loner playing games in the basement.
There is also a thriving gaming community who regularly read and write in to the GameCentral Inbox. I myself have met several good online friends through writing articles and letters to the site, and even created the GameCentral Clan with other like-minded gamers on ps3leaderboard.com. Although with limited (ie no) success on Call of Duty thus far! Although it is a lot of fun. This social side of gaming is often underplayed and now is a massive part of gamings appeal, with almost all games now containing some form of online multiplayer mode. GC helped me find fellow players, when my own friends have still to make the jump to next-gen gaming, and my own playing experiences have been all the richer for it.
To try to raise awareness of their plight, with the plug being pulled in January 2010, we have set-up a petition to help show potential suitors that the guys deserve to keep going in some capacity, whether it be another teletext service, website or even TV show (Editor David Jenkins did appear on a rare gaming show called GamesNight recently before it’s untimely demise a few months ago). If you go along to: www.PetitionOnline.com/SaveGC/petition.html and sign the petition, so that if nothing else, at least the boys realise how important they have been to a lot of gamers, and to quality gaming itself.
It’s a sad day, hope we can a least save some part of it.
It’s funny, it’s intelligent, it’s 100% independent….and it’s free. If you’ve been missing out, head over to http://www.teletext.co.uk/gamecentral to see why it NEEDS to be saved!
I used to read this daily until my teletext signal deteriorated
. I’ll be signing
Also Join the Save Game Central Facebook group – http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=234140305132#/group.php?gid=234140305132
Chat with others who want GC saved and voice what GC means to you.
Join the Save Game Central Facebook group and let the boys know what you mean to them and talk with other GC readers
I’ve been reading Digitiser and then Game Central daily since 1994, and still like to read on Teletext despite it being online. It provides the most unbiased and knowledgeable insight into gaming without the aloofness of Edge. For anyone, adult or youngster, with more than a casual interest in video gaming, their reviews and features help steer you towards gaming’s more interesting and imaginative titles, and away from the dull and broken titles that lie waiting to trap the less well informed gamer. I will be sad to see it go….
I have been reading Gamecentral for a few years now, and have had a couple of comments published on the Inbox (to my giddy delight!). I love reading such unbiased views and reviews. Having had my fingers burnt by buying duff games (against Gamecentral’s advice!) I have since based all my buying decisions on their reviews. They never seem to be wrong, particularly with the ‘undiscovered’ gems they often publicise. It’s a real shame they are going; I hope they can continue in some other capacity. I’ll be signing.
what will we do without our daily fix??surely there is a way round it
The decision to scrap GC is apparently a financial one. So the solution is one of three options,
1. By donations, pay the salaries and other costs of providing GC elsewhere
2. Find and ensure that another service provider knows that there is a massive readership waiting for advertising revenue.
3. Ensure that the company behind the teletext service, does not save any money by scrapping GC, by not spending any money on anything (Including goods, services, advertising, etc) of any organisations that pay them money. Hit them where it hurts so to speak!
They’re screwed. Teletext is owned by Daily Mail, I’m shocked they lasted this long! D:
Ofcom said Teletext aren’t worth government intervention, because Ofcom is beyond pointless.
Who would have thought the Daily Mail doing some good in keeping GC running all these years?
It’s a real shame, I hope they can find someplace else to go. If anyone’s interested, I paid my hommage to them on my 1UP.com blog page. I think we’re looking at the end of an era though people. Kudos to Cubes and Scruffy for putting up such a good fight by the way (you may refuse to have me on your friend list, but I’m still told about all your doing ScruffyBear).
Associated Newspapers own a lot of other stuff!. Therefore many targets to not support with your hard earned cash. This tactic will only work though, if they link lack of enthusiasm for their other stuff with enthusiasm for GC, by petition i assume. As for them doing some good all these years, yes they have, but obviously inadvertently, as they seem unaware of the existence of GC or its popularity. If all else fails maybe we should start mass emailing the BBC, and get GC on Ceefax instead, their gaming pages seem to have died a death, due no doubt to the competition!. I bet certain publishers and lazy developers are getting twice as much bubbly and balloons out ready for the new year though eh!. There is still time to save GC, do not mourn out daily companion it until it passes.
Sorry for the garble at the end of my previous post, you know what i mean.
Not enough sleep!
There has to be some way of saving GC and keeping the community together. See my effort at http://gamecentralforever.appspot.com All support welcome.
Its not just the inbox community though, Its GC Itself, 4Players, In The Middle, Reviews, Charts, Industry News, Etc
What we need is some co-ordination!. Lots of people are putting forward all kinds of ideas, which is good, but unless we choose one single direction (whatever that may be) and move together, I think there will be boards up on the windows of GC Towers come January.
We really have to start making some contact with other service providers. By the time enough people sign the petition it will be too late. It will be a lot more difficult to re-animate a dead and broken up GC, than it would be to slide it over to another service provider. The GC people will have moved on to pastures new, and may be contractually prevented from being involved in a GC mark 2 rebirth.
I fear that only when GC is gone will the majority of its viewers realise that they have to go hunt out even the most basic info about which games are worth time and money, and what the industry in general is up to. Instead of having it delivered to your screen in an addictive and easily digestible format.
The petition is aimed at Sky, CH5 and BBC. I doubt Sky would be interested, a while back they threatened to pull their channels from freeview, and half the population do not have satellite or cable. CH5 used to have their own text service, called something like ‘Fivetext’, but it was too costly and not enough people bothered with it, so they bought in Teletext like ITV and CH4. That just leaves auntie beeb. No commercial funding concerns, no gaming pages (that I can find!), and an equivalent technical platform to what we are all used to. Merely the task then, of convincing them to take it, and the present owner to let the format go!
WanEye mate!, Nice effort, but I just realised you expect them to work for free!, GC is their job, its how they earn a crust!. Like I said we need another employer for them, that is the real task.
Its not just the inbox community though, Its GC Itself, 4Players, In The Middle, Reviews, Charts, Industry News, Etc, We cannot really expect the GC people to work for free can we?, it is their job after all.
What we need is some co-ordination!. Lots of people are putting forward all kinds of ideas, which is good, but unless we choose one single direction (whatever that may be) and move together, I think there will be boards up on the windows of GC Towers come January.
We really have to start making some contact with other service providers. By the time
enough people sign the petition it will be too late. It will be a lot more difficult to re-animate a dead and broken up GC, than it would be to slide it over to another service provider. The GC people will have moved on to pastures new, and may be contractually prevented from being involved in a GC mark 2 rebirth.
I fear that only when GC is gone will the majority of its viewers realise that they have to go hunt out even the most basic info about which games are worth time and money, and what the industry in general is up to. Instead of having it delivered to your screen in an addictive and easily digestible format.
The petition is aimed at Sky, CH5 and BBC. I doubt Sky would be interested, a while back they threatened to pull their channels from freeview, and half the population do not have satellite or cable. CH5 used to have their own text service, called something like ‘Fivetext’, but it was too costly and not enough people bothered with it, so they bought in Teletext like ITV and CH4. That just leaves auntie beeb. No commercial funding concerns, no gaming pages (that I can find!), and an equivalent technical platform to what we are all used to. Merely the task then, of convincing them to take it, and the present owner to let the format go!