• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,894
From Fast Company:

VENN, which stands for Video Game Entertainment and News Network, is a 24/7 network targeting Gen Z and millennials that aims to do for gaming what MTV did for music and pop culture in its heyday.

VENN is launching with six original shows, including the daily news program The Download, variety show VENN Arcade Live, and interactive fitness show Looking for Gains.

For much of VENN's content, it was a matter of finding existing talent like CashNasty—YouTuber, competitive gamer, and host of Looking for Gains—and channeling his interests for gaming and fitness into its own program that's unique to VENN but could easily exist within his own channels.

We are a talent-first network, and we believe that the creators of this generation are incredibly special because they're making things without even a roadmap sometimes," Horn says. "They create these formats that they don't even realize are formats."

There's perhaps no better example of that in VENN's lineup than The Sushi Dragon Show, hosted by internet sensation Stefan Li, aka TheSushiDragon.

Li had gained prominence on Twitch for his gonzo live streams in his basement that often involve him dancing in front of a green screen with elaborate technical work. But he says he hit a plateau in not being able to stream and create as much as he'd like because he was too bogged down on the back end—and if you watch his behind-the-scenes content, you could understand why.

At launch, VENN will available on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming, in addition to its own website VENN.tv. VENN will also roll out to connected-TV platforms, including VIZIO SmartCast, Xumo, STIRR, and Distro TV.

Sounds pretty cool, like a modern day G4. Super interesting this is launching now ahead of whatever G4 is planning next year.

Looks like they're going live at 2:30 ET today: https://www.twitch.tv/watchvenn
 
Oct 27, 2017
6,348
So their strategy is to give different streamers shows and they handle all the administrative and backend stuff for them?

It's impossible to judge this without seeing the content, but their design is nice at least.
 

Komo

Info Analyst
Verified
Jan 3, 2019
7,110
I'll take a look at them solely cause of SushiDragon.
 

McNeelyJ

Member
Oct 26, 2017
10
I'm checking this out, curious if it actually gains a following. As an older gamer I'm into Twitch having 24 hour content...not sure how it works from a re-airing perspective and if they find fun people to watch for more casual gaming and more core news.
 
OP
OP
Bear

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,894
I'm checking this out, curious if it actually gains a following. As an older gamer I'm into Twitch having 24 hour content...not sure how it works from a re-airing perspective and if they find fun people to watch for more casual gaming and more core news.
They're putting everything on VOD for free on their site after it airs, so you can actually keep up. Smart move actually.
 
Oct 29, 2017
3,287
Eh I was hoping it wasn't just cultivated game streaming. I'd love a gaming news segment, history stuff, some tournament stuff. Basically giant bomb content mixed with g4tech tv. Is this getting a roku app?
 

Apathy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,992
Interesting take on the mix of streaming and traditional tv shows. Not my cup of tea, but could definitely see something like this growing (and even having more channels like this)
 

Jogi

Prophet of Regret
Member
Jul 4, 2018
5,454
Actually looks interesting. I will definitely be taking a look.

Edit: The 24-hour thing is weird since content can dry up really fast.
 

ShabbadooJr

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,523
Omaha, NE
Their news show the Download works pretty well as daily "news podcast". I didn't enjoy the interview with the Creative Director of the network, but I'm sure a lot of that is first day touting of the network. I'm interested to watch more.
 

chrominance

Sky Van Gogh
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,647
Tuned in just now, and:

loTg3vR.png


...sorry VENN, not for me.

(though to be fair, I'm pretty much not their target audience at this point)
 
Oct 27, 2017
6,348
After tuning in at different points in the channel I have to say this is not for me. This is far too overproduced and scripted, and therefore diametrically opposite to what makes watching streamers fun so much.
 

Deleted member 2802

Community Resetter
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
33,729
Only focusing on The Download right now, but I'm interesting in seeing how long this will last
I thought this would be good Emma Fyfe did a decent job on Collider/Screenjunkies, but this is a full variety show that goes on for 40-50m.

I remember Chobot would do like a 5-8 minute IGN show Daily Fix but only whenever there was enough gaming/movie news and that was decent. All the day/week news in less than 10 minutes.

So, how it did fare?
A month later and all of their videos only have low triple digit views on youtube after 24 hours of posting
Some even low triple digit views after weeks

www.youtube.com

VENN

A New 24/7 TV Network for Gaming & Culture. New LIVE episodes Wed - Sat. FULL SCHEDULE - https://www.venn.tv/schedule/

Their reddit is dead af.
old.reddit.com

VENN • r/watchVENN

Welcome to VENN. A New 24/7 TV Network for Gaming & Culture.

Twitch seems to have like ~1k live viewers

except for this one viral moment which resulted in like 150k views



Rough first month
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
76,219
Providence, RI
Well, I thought about VENN randomly last night and decided to look into it.

I'm interesting in seeing how long this will last

Six months.

The answer was six months.

VENN's Twitch channel largely stopped streaming their own daily series from their studio around February when they shifted their content strategy from "about 85% long-form shows to 85% short-form." The channel switched to showing random League of Legends matches and hosting Fan Controlled Football-related shows. That ended shortly after and the channel hasn't been active at all for months.

In July, they hired an accounting firm for "accelerated acquisition process amid pivoting business and financial struggles." This week, they furloughed half of their 15 remaining employees.

To add insult to injury, since they cancelled their streaming content early in the year, their official Instagram is basically just terrible video game memes, usually about Warzone.





 

Deleted member 11976

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,585
I remember watching 3 minutes of one of the variety streams when they launched and it was terrible. They had 2 streamers talking while trying to something abstract out of LEGO. Not a set. Just randomly putting stuff together.

It was doomed.

EDIT: oh wait, I posted about this in this very thread?! Yeah, it was DOA.