[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Jul 2 2003, 07:49 AM\'] They probably didn't expect the overwhelmingly negative reaction this press release caused. Frankly, I was braced for it and I'm STILL amazed at how riled up you guys have gotten. I guess they thought that *especially* among computer users, devoting a tiny portion of their schedule to something that might cater to a slightly different audience would have been considered a good thing.
They don't typically go around censoring negative remarks on their forum, so this must really have hit a nerve. [/quote]
I'm not amazed.
The online portion of game show fans tends to be more traditionalist and don't like change. When something new comes, they instantly dislike it, irregardless of the quality of the program or the positives linked to it.
The best thing that happened to this network are the new crop of originals. Hollywood Showdown and Inquizition were good programs in their own right, although obviously lower-budget than they could (or should) have been. After those originals, plus such stellar examples of early interactivity as Super Decades and Trivia Track, the online game show community (OGSC) was less than enthusiastic about hearing that the schedule was going to be half-originals. After hearing the changes to PYL that would become whammy, it's not surprising that many people (myself included) were braced for the worst. Ratings were high and quickly fell off, so the OGSC was hoping that this would fire a warning flare to Messrs. Cronin and Boden. No such luck -- Friend or Foe and Russian Roulette came on board two months later, but amazingly enough, now most people had at least one show out of the three to like. Then came Lingo. That's the show that, despite its small flaws in gameplay, was fairly universally liked.
At this point, the vast majority of the OGSC seemed enthusiastic about new originals and were optimistic about Cram and WinTuition, the former which was the quickest-renewed show out of this batch of originals and the latter which was the quickest-removed show. More enthusiasm came from hearing about new pilots and new shows coming to the lineup.
The moral of the story: This was a long process -- four months between whammy and Lingo. Many people didn't like it at first -- I remember being linked to threads by friends at the GSN board with similar messages about GSN as were just deleted. The difference is that this is a much smaller change than the half-originals/half-classics... it's just moving to a 48-48-4. If it doesn't work... at all... it will be replaced as quickly as WinTuition was. If it works, give it a few months and you might just like it.
P.S. The scope of about 225 fans at this board is nowhere near the eleventy billion at the GSN board. When people get in large groups... it's not surprising that the thread would have to be deleted.
