The Making Of: Games World
Games World was the height of Nineties gaming television. This show and its four seasons proved that videogame-focused TV entertainment was viable. We reached out and challenged a trio of Videators to find out what working on the show was like
Behind the scenes of the Sky games show
Who were the Videators? The answer lies in the Friday showcase featured within Games World: ‘Beat The Elite’. This game show had members of the public come in and challenge the show’s collection of champions. These were the Videators, and they became recognisable characters that would appear weekly on Games World’s ultimate event. If you were a kid in the Nineties and wanted to prove you were more than just the best Mario Kart player on your street, the only way to prove your mettle was to come on the show and take on the Videators.
There’s no better way to test your strength than to take part in a showdown with the Videators. Tracking down and challenging these champions today will be a sure-fire way to experience a slice of Nineties TV, as well a chance to learn what it was like behind the scenes of Games World.
But before we get to that, first an explanation of Games World is needed. Created by Hewland International as a small-budget TV show in early 1993, the show was a five-day-a-week videogame programme that did everything from tips and reviews, to game shows like the aforementioned Beat The Elite. This wasn’t Hewland’s first attempt at creating a gaming TV show but it was hugely popular at the time, helping to grow the then humble Sky One channel into what it is today.
The first Videator we found was Eddy Lawrence. Eddy previously played Radion Automatic on the show and has since gone on to work as a journalist. Eddy (appearing as Radion Automatic) had previously appeared on another of Hewland’s videogame-focused shows called Gamesmaster, before going on to play a Videator role on Games World. While he was only around during season one, there’s no one better to vividly describe how exactly elite gamers became Videators than him. “It was a bit weird,” he remembers. “I was 17 at the time and had just moved out of London. I had done a few episodes of Gamesmaster as a reviewer, and I had a memorable name because I was named
after a lurid washing powder rather than having a normal human name. They [Hewland] put out a call among certain games mag publishers saying they were looking for people for a new show. I thought, ‘Yeah, why not?’ and went down for the role of a Videator.
“There was a cab driver I used to use a lot that I was quite friendly with, and on my way down to the screen test he produced a ‘jazz cigarette’ which a few of us shared,” Eddy continues. “I then turned up, 17 and with no idea what the fuck I was doing, and they kind of pointed a camera at me and wanted me to tell them about myself. I was very surprised when I got a call back and was told I got the part.”
What about the character we saw on the show? How did that manifest itself as it did? While the name Radion Automatic was taken from Eddy’s pre-existing writing work, the version we actually saw took a lot of work to get Tv-ready. “I was supposed to be this grunge gladiator of videogames kind of character,” Eddy explains. “So the costume designer had created this sort of army kit, it was basically an olive vest and shorts that had been sewn together into a one-piece. I showed up and I think they were expecting a normal human. My body shape looks like I’ve been badly assembled from pipe cleaners, and I’m pale like a corpse, so I knew it wouldn’t work. At the time, I wore a lot of cut-off trousers and boots, so I wore them over that costume and it looked a lot better. So when you look at the costume, I was wearing my own boots, trousers and my favourite coat, which they ruined with a bunch of shit they sewed onto it. It went from the gladiator idea to a deranged street performer.”
Next on our Videator hit-list is Big Boy Barry, also known as Alex Verrey, who was a huge star among the cast of Videators. Not only did he take part in the Beat The Elite show during season one, he went on to get his own segment by the name of Barry’s Joypad in later seasons. This sitcom and his following popularity thrust Barry forward as the face of the show – he would go on to film in several international locations as part of his role on Games World. “This was all before the days of pro gaming, so us Videators were the original pro gamers. Twitch had nothing on us!” he tells us. Alex now works in public relations for the videogame industry and is director of PR at Heaven Media.
“I worked with the producers and a young researcher by the name of David Walliams (yes,
THE FIRST SERIES WAS A BIG HIT FOR SKY, SO THEY RECOMMISSIONED IT. SERIES TWO GOT MUCH MORE MONEY, IT WAS MUCH MORE PROFESSIONAL, AND IT WAS THAT YEAR I WAS OFFERED MY OWN SHOW AS A BREAKOUT CONCEPT CALLED BARRY’S JOYPAD
ALEX VERREY
that David Walliams),” Alex remembers. “We put the character of Big Boy Barry together. Originally the character was going to be named ‘Fat Boy’, but we decided that would be a little bit harsh for a poor 15-year-old kid who would still be at school at the time, so that got changed to ‘Big Boy’. It was going to be more of a Harry Enfield style character – a not-subtle swipe at the ‘loads of money’ shtick – a wide Essex boy and very dislikable. Somehow that just transformed into a slightly happier character, just as arrogant but a little more likable.”
lex notes the difference between season one and two, and how the shift came with a massive change to his experience. “We didn’t know what we were doing in series one, but my job was quite easy,” he tells us. “The strength of the competitors was pretty shit because the show hadn’t caught on yet. A lot of the Videators were pretty bad, as some of them were actors rather than videogame players. For example, you had this talented guy playing The Ninja who was used to doing lots of suit work for Jim Henson, he played one of the Ninja Turtles in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. He was a great martial artist, he had a great stage presence, but he didn’t know how to play videogames. So he’d go out and he’d lose pretty much every time, and it became a common theme.
“Things kicked up a notch with series two,” Alex continues. “The first series was a big hit for Sky, so they recommissioned it. Series two got much more money, it was much more professional, and it was that year I was offered my own show as a breakout concept called Barry’s Joypad. At that point I dedicated my life to Big Boy Barry. I finished school and got to fly around the world. It was a lot more intense in series two – so too when I was doing the challenges, as alongside the sitcom side I’d still be taking part in Beat The Elite.
“I could tell there was something there, around midway through season one I started being recognised in the street and seeing my photo in publicity shots more. So I could see that something was brewing. I was going to award ceremonies with Hewland International, but I was probably too young to fully realise it. I was surprised at just how big it got, and I was at the leap in quality after series one.”
Our final interviewee is a third Videator with behind-the-camera experience that’s needed to truly understand Games World. Thankfully, there’s no Videator that fits that knows quite as much as the scourge of the videogame seas himself, The Violet Blade. Rik Henderson was the buccaneer that terrified many a contestant back in the day, but now he finds himself as the editor at Pocket Lint. Not only was he a beloved Videator but he also produced the show behind
the scenes, so If anyone knew about what it was like to work on Games World it was Rik.
His transformation was somewhat of a leap of faith. Working as a videogames journalist, he was looking for something new before the opportunity fell into his lap. “A friend of mine was working on Gamesmaster – a guy called Doug Johns (who later became the Videator Games Messiah),” Rik tells us. “He contacted me and just said, ‘We’re launching Games World, would you like to be a part of it?’ I didn’t know what he meant, but I went along and became a researcher. About a year after making Games World I was associate producer, because I had gone to acting school when I was younger and I was doing everything behind the camera, they asked if I would like to be on camera as well!”
s previously established, Games World was a big deal at the time, but Rik elaborates on just how much gold Hewland struck with the show and how much work it took to pull it off. “The Games World final outperformed The Simpsons three years in a row. It was a mad show with a different show on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday!” he says. “To be honest, they were very long days. The way the schedule worked is you would do the research and pre-production section for months – getting all the games and calling all the games companies etc. Then we’d have a two/three-week block-booking where we would film a whole load of shows – including the Eliminator and Beat The Elite. We would film two Eliminators and a Beat The Elite every single day (including weekends) for a few weeks. Then that would run for the 26 weeks of the show, then we’d bring people back for the final if they got through that far.”
With these long days and a wide range of shows, Rik has plenty of great memories about the show and the team. “So on the previous Friday’s Beat The Elite, I (Violet Blade) kidnapped Alex Verrey (Big Boy Barry), because I lost at a game,” he remembers. “I come running out on the show with a baseball bat and scream at Big Boy Barry, I hit him in the stomach (which I genuinely did on accident), and I dragged him off. Everyone was confused because we didn’t even tell some of the crew. Next week we start Barry TV and it’s a kidnapped episode with me, Alex, David Walliams, and Charlene. It was the camaraderie and the comedy on set. These were long hours, but we had a great time filming. Everybody liked it and everyone got on. I still have some of the camera men and others as good personal friends to this day.”
“After days of researching, we’d all sit in the games room and play Mario Kart or Micro Machines, or whatever came in!” Rik continues. “We just got a couple of beers in and spent an evening in the games room. Me and Dominik Diamond (commentator for Gamesmaster) would love to play Micro Machines with people, sometimes for money.”
Imagine what kids back then felt, taking on these peerless icons of videogame supremacy, with a lot of laughs and love weaved throughout the whole shebang. It’s an idea and experience that hasn’t really been replicated in the videogame industry, not really. Sure, there are superstars and immensely skilled gamers, but some plucky teenagers from Bristol will never get to face off against them, and certainly not on a booming TV show. To wrap this whole thing up, the Videators who were integral to the appeal and success of the show share what they think of the show looking back, nearly three decades down the line.
Eddy believes it was the perfect thing at the perfect time, that captured the imagination of the public at a time when videogames are what they craved. “I knew one guy who had Sky, so I thought no one was going to see it, but it became this massive thing. Now, looking back, I am not at all surprised because it was the right moment for it. Games were really catching the public imagination, and there wasn’t really much in the way of games media. It was so perfectly of its time, it was so fucking Nineties. The fact that it is very over the top, very camp.”
Alex notes that it provided something nothing else really did at the time, a rare glimpse into the work of games that we take for granted nowadays. “There were aspects of the show that were so exciting at the time, a time when it was the only way you could see videogames moving in action. You can’t underestimate the importance of that, you would never see trailers or gameplay online because it didn’t exist. So this was the first time people could see Street Fighter or the Playstation in action, or Super Mario 64! A lot of those elements wouldn’t work today as the internet has replaced a lot of that, competitive gaming has dozens of sources where that’s available like Twitch. But there was nothing like it at the time. It was very creative and proper television.”
And finally, Rik believes that something in the Games World style will never be done again and remains a true product of its time. “Jane Hewland had an incredible idea to hire the people who knew the subject and make them into TV people, not the other way around. Games World was made by enthusiasts. Everything you see on that show comes from someone that doesn’t only know about games, but genuinely cares about them. So we tried to make shows that we would want to watch, with an entertainment slant.
“I think the games industry has moved on dramatically, and obviously we have streaming services and a lot of gaming content constantly being streamed. But for me, there will never be anything quite like the general idea of using games as an entertainment medium, rather than trying to push a games agenda.”
I THOUGHT NO ONE WAS GOING TO SEE IT, BUT IT BECAME THIS MASSIVE THING. NOW, LOOKING BACK, I AM NOT SURPRISED BECAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT MOMENT FOR IT. GAMES WERE REALLY CATCHING THE PUBLIC IMAGINATION, AND THERE WASN’T REALLY MUCH IN THE WAY OF GAMES MEDIA