So, Sony has officially gotten into the Reality Show business and yes its as hanus as it sounds. What may seem like an innocent way to get more people to explore PSN, is really a short sighted pollutant that, until it’s canceled/ends, will leave a unwanted stain on all PSN user’s store fronts.
Most of the press around the tester is aimed at the ludacricity of the prize at the end of the tunnel, a job as a Playstation game tester. Let’s step back for a moment and pretend that the reward for winning is something of substantial value, and instead look at the show itself. It’s the scummiest type of television that is found all over basic cable, a red blooded American Reality Show. By taking cues from Flavor of Love, The Bachelor, The Real World, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and Big Brother, The Tester has the gamer appeal of an Oprah special about tooth decay.
The contestants look like the stereotypical “gamer” and act like your typical reality show dimwits, while the challenges have little if anything to do with gaming. The pilot had the contestants playing a game of “what’s different”. They were given two similar pictures and had to tell what was different in each of them. That’s right, they were playing the equivalent of a Highlights for Children magazine game. The producers tried to tie this to how it would help them in their possible future career, by saying that game testers must pay attention to detail. Garbage!
At the end, the three judges (one of which was Hal Sparks, further proving that he doesn’t know how to turn down a role) used their magical judging powers to eliminate a player. The production was set up with the usual dramatic music, comedic seriousness and typical arbitrary token that signifies a player remaining on the show. The Bachelor has roses, Flavor of Love has golden clocks, and The Tester has laminated PSN badges…wtf. Its classy to do homages to interesting and cool media, but to do the exact same pointless thing as your predecessors and to try and be taken seriously is just tacky.
If the Tester had a tongue and cheek feel to it, it could almost get away with existing as is, but The Tester is not produced to mock reality shows, its produced AS a reality show. I can promise you that Sony just gave some money to a production company that specializes in this trash and said, “Do what you do…just put Playstations everywhere”. Hell even the runtime is identical to that of a cable reality show, 22 minutes. Hello, this is a Playstation Network release, it can be as long as you want it to be.
My hope is that no one watches this crap and Sony ends it after one season. If I wanted to watch mind numbing reality poop, my television gets E!, VH1 and MTV. I don’t need/want that type of programming in MY world and that world is one on game consoles.