Start your TiVos: Game designer's roundtable on MTV2

Back in May, MTV News' Stephen Totilo produced a game designer's roundtable featuring four prominent game designers -- Harvey Smith (aka Witchboy; Deus Ex), Will Wright (The Sims), David Jaffe (God of War), and Cliff Bleszinski (aka CliffyB; Gears of War) -- that MTV decided (in their infinite wisdom) was not worthy of full television exposure. Instead, they opted to run an edited version and stick the full program on their PC-only Overdrive site. Thankfully, they've had a change of heart and have decided to run the entire special on MTV2 beginning tonight. Kudos to MTV for filling an entire slot with four white guys talking about video games in an art gallery. G4 seems to be of the mind that there's no audience for smart programming about video games.

Get going, it starts in thirty minutes! It's late notice, we know, but you'll be able to set the old TiVo (or VCR ... yuck) to make the best out of cable television's tendency to repeat programming. A lot. Note to MTV: more quality gaming coverage, less Punk'd reruns, k?

Sat 08/19@6:30PM
Sun 08/19@12:30AM
Mon 08/19@10:30AM
Wed 08/19@3:00AM
Thu 08/19@3:00PM
Fri 08/19@10:00AM

Read - MTV News Presents: Gods of Gaming schedule

Reader Comments (29)

Just put it on Tivo

I want CliffyB's job.

Tried the website

"Copyright restricts from playing this video outside the U.S."

:(

Just watched it. It sucks. The guy from Sony wants fame. Will is a uber geek but a nice guy. Cliffy seems cool but full of himself (not real bad. Oh and you get a speach about how George Bush should be impeached. Cant wait to play that game....(My ass)

I just spent 20 minutes of sitting thru mind numbing commercials and MTV "news" breaks before I said fuck it and close the window. I didn't even get to the first video.

MTV Overdrive now works on Macs and with Firefox, so if you are on those browsers and you want to see the Web version of the special, you can do so.

Personally, I think Will Wright is a genius. He just thinks on a completely different level to the rest of them.

8/19 seems to fall on every day of the week...

yes ok wait for torrent

I watched that when it was first released on Overdrive. I had no problems with the restriction to US residents (I'm an Australian) and also had no problem with ads.

Tryed to watch it. Goddamn overkill with the Motherf**king MTV news crap and there's no way to skip it from what I can see.

I would really want to be in that gamer round table. But alas, i won't be.

What little faith I had in MTV's Overdrive was completely lost following their piece on Second Life. A week of filming and a month of waiting for five minutes of utter crap. I'll try watching this piece as soon as it's ripped and put on YouTube or Google Video.

Ok, It is completly impossible to watch the videos off the mtv site. I've seen about 15 different ads and I still havn't seen any of the videos I wanted... WTF!!

yeah, if you want to watch the video on overdrive, click that link, then go to chanels, games, game makers round table, or else you'll watch an infinite loop of adds and news breaks

That was a really interesting discussion. I wish it was longer, though, because it seemed like there was a lot more they could have said. It didn't seem completely brainless like I had expected it to be and it addressed a lot of important issues. It was interesting to hear what those on the inside of the industry think.

It's too bad these guys are tools. If they were real designers, they wouldn't be trying to push their stories on MTV, of all places. They'd actually be trying to make good games instead of trying to get mainstream media to suck them off for the "benefit" -- notice the quotes -- of their "experience."

Why don't the interview some real designers who know that it's not just their "fame", but their actual experience in the field and their ability to produce good games that make good games. This shit they're pushing is just bullshit aimed at the idiot consumer who think games come from a magic workshop where ideology and creativity comes from the taint, and not from hard work.

Fuck cliffy b.

I see someone's living up to their name.

#18
Dude WTF is your problem? these guys are THE developers right now. top of the friggin totem pole. (well maybe not the deux ex guy, but eh he was still pretty insightful) I mean seriously, who is a better developer than Will friggin Wright? NO ONE! Who would you have rather been part of this round table? These were 4 pretty different but very well represented points of view on this industry of ours from 4 very (well at least moderately) eloquent men, who happen to be more involved with the industry more than you can ever even pretend to be.

Personally i thought that this round table was awesome. Jaffe seems a bit too irritable for my taste, but he still had very good points of discussion. I have SO much more respect for Cliffy B and Will Wright now. not that i didnt think they were awesome before, but seeing them represent themselves (and in turn all of us) so well makes me very confident in the future of gaming.

oh, and one more thing wanker... if you care about the content of your games remaining untouched, and possibly one day finally beein recognized for the art that it is, then you should want all the POSITIVE mainstream attention possible.

First off...Wanker...you are an idiot.

-->"you get a speach about how George Bush should be impeached."

I haven't watch this yet but if that is true...What the hell does that have to do with GAME DESIGN?

Oh yea...Will Wright is a real game designer you tool. He was around designing games probably before you were born.

I think he was trying to say that game designers can't do anything like that due to the time it takes to develop a game where as other medias such as Television or movies can.

*Off Topic*

I don't know where to post this but it might be interesting to note that Madden 2007 is $12 off at Circuit City this week.

The only person who deserves to actually be sitting there is Will wright.

Tell you who should have been on that panel:Will Wright, Sid Meier, Tim Schafer, and the spirit of Dani Bunten channeled through a seance.

#25 No, the Bush thing isn't entirely true. Jaffe just talks about themes in his upcoming game, which includes the majority of America's feelings towards the Iraq war and the and the anger and distrust towards the current administration held by many (if not most) people. He says putting in specific things like Bush's possible impeachment would date a game, since it could be old news by the time a game would actually be released.

Ok so it's partly pointless then. If a game were to come out dealing directly with that Iraq, I'll probably pass b/c it probably get preachy. I like to play games to escape reality and explore new game worlds, not be reminded about one person's opinion.

oh my fucking god - this discussion is the fucking problem - you all bitch about how G4 and MTV suck - and admittingly G4 does suck - but what has MTV ever done to piss off the gaming community? I mean seriously - this news story is as good as it is going to get on tv right now - 4 of the most creative minds in the field talking about their craft. Seriously - what kind of gaming shows would you want to see...
oh .. and another thing - overdrive isnt the best player in the world - but if its delivering quality gaming shows like this maybe it is worth dealing w. an ad here and a computer crash there

thanks for the heads up on this... I ran home and recorded it... (not tivo tho.. MediaCenter works just fine ;)..)

It was really nice to watch an intelligent discussion about video games... This is the kind of thing that is good for the industry. If only we had a video game channel... oh..umm... that actually did have video game related shows..

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Start your TiVos: Game designer's roundtable on MTV2

Reader Comments (29)

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