Gamers Evolved

MTV has its hand in almost everything in the business of industry. When it comes to reality TV and music, MTV has it. They have even made a few movies(a few B-rated movies) and unfortunately they have been quite successful at it.

The one thing that MTV was not good at was dabbling in the video game industry, something they tried a couple years back. But it seems they are ready to get back on the horse and try once more.

MTV Networks is planning to spend $500m (£250m) on developing video games as part of a two-year worldwide strategy to extend its programming brands beyond the TV screen. The new virtual, console and handheld games will be aimed at its primary youth and male audiences(surprise, surprise!).

“We’re putting well over $500 million behind building our games business across all of the brands in our portfolio,” MTV chairman and chief executive Judy McGrath explained to Reuters. “I’d like to see more game applications on some of our current big brands across the music group.” One of the fund’s first beneficiaries is Rock Band, which is due to launch on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 this autumn. MTV is now looking for ways to tie a TV show to the game, which allows players to play and sing along to rock songs.

“Media companies are crazy trying to bring video game development in house,” observed Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. “They act like anyone can do this. The fact is not everyone can.” Pachter had a similar reaction when he learned of Michael Bay’s plans to direct his own game. “It’s going to be very difficult,” he said. “The skill set of a game maker is very different from the skill set of a graphic artist.”

Will they succeed this time or will MTV fall flat on its face once more? Let’s hope that MTV doesn’t make it too far. Who knows what kind of games they would create to corrupt people even more!