I’m paraphrasing Charlie Brooker a bit with that title. Brooker, the creator and presenter of the mocking review shows Screenwipe and Newswipe, was tweeting ahead of Gameswipe’s debut showing on BBC 4. To paraphrase once more, he tweeted that the one-off gaming special was partly aimed at those who don’t care about games. After watching Gameswipe, it’s clear that it was indeed partly – possibly mostly – aimed at the non-gamer, but after reviewing the aftermath and the figures it’s also clear that the show’s chances of being commissioned into a full series fell squarely at none other than the gamer’s feet.

For those who missed it, Gameswipe was a fifty minute show in which Brooker provided a brief history of gaming, focusing on gaming’s different genres and its troubled relationship with the mainstream, and television in particular. Indeed, Gameswipe was undoubtedly the first thing resembling a mainstream British TV show that focused on games and was presented in an intelligent, respectful and professional manner (with the arguable exception of VideoGaiden). Sure, Brooker was his usual sharp-witted yet bitter self, and everyone from those hating on gaming to the gamers themselves took a collective beating, but he kept things honest, and never seemed unfair. It was surprisingly comprehensive for such a short show.

The whole show wasn't presented by Brooker's avatar....

As you can gather, I quite liked it, and the collective buzz that circulated afterwards around forums, Twitter, etc. suggested that I was part of the majority. However, if the comments section of The Guardian’s Games Blog is anything to go by then not everyone was impressed. Admittedly, “not everyone” still equals the majority, but typical of the Internet, the detractors were particularly damning. Some simply deemed Gameswipe “crap”, while others felt its explanatory tone was patronizing, with one commenter even calling it an “insult to gamers”. Do these detractors have a point? Brooker wrote for PC Zone magazine in the 90s, so he certainly knows his gaming stuff. Was it his responsibility to aim Gameswipe at the gamer? Forget responsibility, is there some missed potential in Gameswipe not being aimed at the gamer? And, even more pertinently, how are you going to get a non-gamer to watch a show about gaming?

I doubt Brooker hadn’t considered those questions before creating the show. Then again, I also doubt he expected Gameswipe to succeed ratings-wise, which it duly did. A Guardian report published yesterday revealed that 361,000 people tuned in to watch Brooker shoot down Wolfenstein’s Nazis and call games a “masturbatory aide”. That figure constituted an even more impressive 2.2% of the UK audience for that hour, and easily beat the parallel figures for Screenwipe and Newswipe. Call me a cynic if you will, and uninformed on Brooker’s celebrity status, but it’s hard to believe those who tuned in were mostly those with a passing interest in gaming, especially given how the figures compared to Brooker’s previous shows. I repeat: how are you going to get a non-gamer to watch something like Gameswipe? Of course it’s speculating, but I suspect the majority of viewers were from the enthusiast crowd.

For someone who hasn’t watched it, my theory must seem a bit paradoxical. It wasn’t really aimed at the gamer, and it was a good introductory-type show for the non-gamer, but the people who watched it were gamers? And if it was aimed at the non-gamer, why did gamers enjoy it? Well, I can answer that last one at least: because of all the reasons I listed above, i.e. the intelligent, respectful discourse on gaming, but on top of that it was something that precipitated from the more accessible chat, and that was the knowing winks. Passing mentions of more obscure titles like Flower, Braid and RapeLay, reflections upon cherished but mostly unknown retro titles like Chuckie Egg, and Jet Set Willy, these are like the cheeky adult jokes that intersperse Pixar films or the occasional obscure Motson stat during a football match, and that’s why we love it. One could argue it’s as banal as making gamers feel clever, or even self-important, but I’d argue that it’s about making the enthusiast feel involved. More importantly, it allowed me to put my trust in Brooker. In the words of The Guardian’s Chris Moran, “right from the start, Gameswipe gave me the unusual feeling of being in safe hands.”

So, while Brooker may have aimed Gameswipe at the non-gamer, it’s his work to keep the gamer’s trust in him as an ambassador for gaming that surely brought him success. He may well get those non-gamers with time, but the future of the show is in the hands of us enthusiasts. But, if this first show is anything to go by, both we and Gameswipe are in safe hands.

—