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Are Game Maker Video Shows the new Magazines?

The publication of a few quality Game Maker magazines over the past few years has lead to many lower-quality short-lived attempts by less experienced community members.

This year alone has seen the launch and subsequent demise of KwikLook, Simulator GM, Game Maker Development Insight and GMFreak.  Indeed the only magazine launched last year that has released issues in 2009 is Prodigy Game Magazine and some of the startups were high quality and managed several well-received releases but still disappeared.

We haven’t yet had a comparison of the various Game Maker related video services which exist.  There may be more than you think.  Here is a look at all of Game Maker related video shows that are currently active.

GMTV – Game Maker TV

Contents: Game reviews, head-to-head game comparisons, community news.
Key people: Dan Eggers (presenter), Brad Triebwasser.
First episode: November 19th 2007 (26 comments in the GMB discussion)
Last episode: May 12th 2009
Episodes released: 10 (episode list)
Total views approaching: 4,000 since current site launch
URL: http://www.gamemaker.tv
Good: Wide range of areas covered.
Bad: Ever changing release schedules.
The future: The gimmicky green-screen will be dropped and a new set has been built for future shows.

The set to be used in the next episode of GMTV
New GMTV set under construction (in Dan's garage!)

GMVision – The Game Maker Show

Contents: Game reviews, head-to-head game comparisons, community news.
Key people: Joshua Pedroza (presenter), Jonathan Martin
First episode: May 25th 2009 (31 comments in the GMB discussion)
Last episode: May 25th 2009
Episodes released: 1
Total views: 1,000 +
URL: http://gmvision.tv
Good: Strong first episode
Bad: Too much time spent on needless effects
The future: Fancy animations and backgrounds. No word on content but [GMVision is] “bound to pull some sneaky trick! GMVision will have a lot going on in the next few weeks.”

GMVision - Editing in progress
GMVision - Editing in progress

GMGRS – Game Maker Game Review Show

Contents: Very informal Game Maker game reviews.
Key people: Alec and Drew (presenters)
First episode: July 22nd 2009 (9 comments in the GMB discussion)
Last episode: August 9th 2009
Episodes released: 2 (episode list)
Total views approaching: 700
URL: http://gmgrs.roket-games.com/
Good: Friendly presenters who don’t take themselves too seriously
Bad: Too much messing around and lack of depth in reviews
The future: A review of Psycho2 by Spydog.

Magic Man Games Code Project

Contents: Game creation walkthroughs and a look at GML scripts
Key people: Zach Hext (host)
First episode: May 25th 2008 (GMB discussion)
Last episode: June 16th 2009
Episodes released: 4 (episode list)
URL: http://www.magicmangames.com/codeprojecttv.html
Good: Unlike earlier episodes you can now see what is happening!
Bad: Epileptic fit inducing 45 second introduction sequence, misuse of commercial music. Need to have Windows Movie Player installed to watch online.

GrimCast

Contents: Look at Game Maker games and some none-GM stuff.
Key people: Trevor Clarke (host)
First episode: Jan 2009.
Last episode: August 22nd 2009.
Episodes released: 6 (episode list)
Total views approaching: 800
URL: http://www.youtube.com/user/DeathandGrim2
Bad: Low quality video footage. Started life over at the YYG forums.

Thoughts: GMTV and GMVision try to appear too formal and professional whereas GMGRS is a bit too friendly and chaotic.  The Code Project has improved but I do not think the idea of a tutorial show is any better than individual video tutorials.

What do you think?

12 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Aww no notes on my show. Well no biggie I think that video can get around alot further than magazines mostly because Youtube is the most used user-created content server.

    I still read the magazines and blogs however.

    An hey where’s the “Good” section on my review? I only see bad 🙁

    @F1ak3r
    Hey long time no see

  2. Just a tiny little nit pick here but “Total views approaching: 4,000”; that’s just since we launched the new site. The real numbers are higher than that. But, it makes sense where you got your numbers from.

  3. You should add the dates of the shows’ most recent episodes too – it’d give an indicator as to their activity.

    They seem to be getting pretty popular now. Are there actually any magazines other than GMTech still producing issues?

    Good blog entry though. I find this kind of article enjoyable to read.

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