Xbox LIVE announced yesterday on the 1 v. 100 blog that the experiment has come to an end. After one season, the first true audience-interactive trivia game show is not coming back. No definitive reasons were given in the blog entry—instead the space was used to thank all the fans, knowing that there will be a lot of disappointment.
I feel the same way I always do when one of my favorite shows is canceled: I don’t think they really gave it a chance to succeed. I think that the producers and executives are being selfish in pulling it for a reason as lowly as profits. But, mostly, I feel a sense of hot-faced betrayal, and it is with that in mind that you must parse the remainder of my words on this subject.
Those words are thus: This is a big fucking mistake.
I know… I’ve said the same thing at the end of countless other shows but statistically, I’ve been right. I mean, we don’t really have a control group. We don’t have an alternate universe into which we can peek, and see what would have been if the shows hadn’t been canceled, but of the ones that were eventually brought back, I’ve only been wrong about one of them, and we all know that one is a statistically insignificant number.
Why is it a bad idea this time? Because 1 v. 100 was never supposed to make money. Not that I saw, anyway. This was, at most, a subscriber service, and, at the very least, a noble experiment in multi-player gaming. Massive multiplayer gaming experiences are the future of entertainment, and the fact that the first real attempt at a non role-playing MMO was dropped after its first season means a set-back of years in this arena.
I’m not saying that Microsoft had some kind of obligation to lead well in the arena. I’m not saying that as the gatekeepers of the technology, they should be responsible with the reigns of the art form. I’m not saying that as a huge multi-national conglomerate with a near stranglehold on the US online console gaming market, which they have earned through a series of moves which have shown them to be trustworthy and deserving of our $50/year, Microsoft should be more careful not to prematurely squash projects which when terminated might spell the downfall of an entire branch of online entertainment…
No, I’m not saying that at all…
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