G4 shuts down much less a yr after relaunching – Esports

Within the memo, Scott explains a number of the reasoning behind the closure. “As you already know, G4 was re-introduced final yr to faucet into the recognition of gaming. We invested to create the brand new G4 as an internet and TV vacation spot for followers to be entertained, be impressed, and join with gaming content material.”

“Over the previous a number of months, we labored arduous to generate that curiosity in G4, however viewership is low and the community has not achieved sustainable monetary outcomes. That is actually not what we hoped for, and, in consequence, now we have made the very troublesome choice to discontinue G4’s operations, efficient instantly.”

G4’s legacy

G4 was a cultural touchstone for a lot of within the US through the 2000s. A gaming-focused TV community, it was typically described because the “MTV of video video games.” Nostalgia for the community was excessive, with some collection corresponding to Assault of the Present! turning into cult favorites. The unique community ran between 2002 and 2014.

G4’s relaunched in November 2021, with content material centered round a mixture of oldschool G4 exhibits, and new exhibits. However the relaunched community struggled to seek out its area of interest in a post-streaming and on-line video world. Its target market was unsure, trying to garner millennial nostalgia, and youthful new viewers, with combined outcomes. 

G4 finally switched from its personal content material to having streamers and different on-line personalities do it for them. AustinShow’s Identify Your Worth, a mock-70’s sport present primarily based on The Worth Is Proper, and Vtuber CodeMiko’s interviews with content material creators had been a number of the most notable of those.

Nonetheless, in a extra linked, international leisure world, the nostalgia of North American millennials was not sufficient to create a model identification. What’s extra TV viewership throughout the board has fallen, and area of interest pursuits battle to return on funding. Not like historically tv, streaming has a much more disseminated viewers, and G4 struggled to capitalize on that earlier than its shut down.

As per the memo, G4 will stop working “efficient instantly.”

Michael Hassall

Michael is a UK-based content material creator who caught the esports bug in 2010, however took eight years to determine he ought to write about it. Throwing away a promising profession in advertising and marketing and PR, he now specialises in MOBAs, overlaying League of Legends, Dota 2, and esports typically since 2019. When not glued to tournaments going down on the opposite facet of the globe, he spends time nurturing an unhealthy dependancy to MMOs and gacha video games.