GameLife Show: The Kikizo Interview

We met the presenters of home-made gaming show GameLife, to find out how they shot to infamy overnight.

Everyone's at it these days: you don't need fancy equipment and a bandwidth bill with five numbers in the bottom line to broadcast your own programme anymore - anyone can do it. And indeed, everyone does; so far in 2006, one new YouTube-style game videos website launches every hour, on average. But one group of home-grown talent learnt the hard way that it has to be a little bit... different to get noticed.

The GameLife Show (not to be confused with Chris Kohler's industry blog Game|Life) launched in February 2006, and in the words of the show's founder Andrew Rosenblum, "people just thought it was so horrible and so bad, that we decided we wanted to make it better". Three months later, and the show's five presenters and a friendly PR chaperone were all flown out to the E3 show in Los Angeles courtesy of magazine publishing giant Ziff Davis, which was evidently not the only outfit with its eye on the youngsters.

The GameLife presenters talk to Kikizo at E3 2006

Case in point: Kikizo. We thought these guys were onto something as soon as their second or third episode was released, proving that they weren't going to quit so easily. A range of new presenters were added to the unashamedly amateur formula, and over time, the production has become more slickly put together. But the key point is that these gamers love their games - a lot. And it shows.

Back at this year's E3, we spent the final hours, of the final day, of the final E3 as we know it, meeting with the GameLife guys for a video interview about how they got started, what's kept them going, finding new presenters (or in the case of Meilissa, who for reasons we didn't ask, watched the interview take place rather than appear in it - how presenters found them), and their thoughts on the state of videogames media today. And other stuff too.

So today's video interview is a little bit different to what you'd normally see at Kikizo, but we like to throw something wacky into the mix every now and then. And if anyone deserves a bit of credit for persistence it's these guys. Having watched some of their episodes (they've done seven now), it's clear that they're as knowledgable about their games as anyone, and quite frankly, they could show some big-name gaming media a thing or two about honesty and integrity with their reviews.

Download the video feature below! And don't worry. You can still see Melissa in it.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo

Click here for Kikizo's interview archive.