Gladiators re-revival - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Gladiators re-revival (/showthread.php?tid=55)

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - Larry the Loafer - 03-02-2024

Briefly forgot one of tonight's contestants was called Nia, and thought people in the crowd had signs paying tribute to the National Indoor Arena...

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - Brekkie - 03-02-2024

Took me four weeks but noticed tonight each Gladiator has their own emblem - another touch which shows they didn't skimp on the effort.

Not sure how much opportunity there is for merchandising with it now being a BBC show but they certainly seem keen to push the Gladiators as individuals rather than just a collective. Wonder if the arena shows might return too.

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - PATV Scunthorpe - 04-02-2024

(03-02-2024, 10:57 PM)Brekkie Wrote:  Took me four weeks but noticed tonight each Gladiator has their own emblem - another touch which shows they didn't skimp on the effort.

You may be quite interested in reading this then...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/noddydog_gladiators-gladiatorsuk-graphicdesign-activity-7153041225271377923-xec9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop 

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - WillPS - 04-02-2024

(03-02-2024, 10:57 PM)Brekkie Wrote:  Took me four weeks but noticed tonight each Gladiator has their own emblem - another touch which shows they didn't skimp on the effort.

Not sure how much opportunity there is for merchandising with it now being a BBC show but they certainly seem keen to push the Gladiators as individuals rather than just a collective. Wonder if the arena shows might return too.

Not sure why being a BBC show makes a difference in that regard. Plenty of Doctor Who branded merch and always has been, not to mention Strictly live tours etc.

If a licensee wants to manufacture Gladiators pencil cases or make a Gladiators video game I'm sure the rights are available for a price.

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - JAS84 - 05-02-2024

(04-02-2024, 02:48 AM)WillPS Wrote:  Not sure why being a BBC show makes a difference in that regard. Plenty of Doctor Who branded merch and always has been, not to mention Strictly live tours etc.

If a licensee wants to manufacture Gladiators pencil cases or make a Gladiators video game I'm sure the rights are available for a price.

I'm not sure a video game would work well. There was an American Gladiators one in 1991 (before the UK show started, so it kept the US branding even in the UK), and well, it's generally regarded as poor. There's never been another attempt since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gladiators_(video_game)#Reception 

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - XIII - 06-02-2024

There was a Gladiators comic book back in the day.

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - tellyblues - 06-02-2024

(05-02-2024, 07:27 PM)JAS84 Wrote:  I'm not sure a video game would work well. There was an American Gladiators one in 1991 (before the UK show started, so it kept the US branding even in the UK), and well, it's generally regarded as poor. There's never been another attempt since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gladiators_(video_game)#Reception 

There were limits as to what could be achieved with video games in 1991. Maybe there could have been a game for the PS1 in 1995 but by then because of the new tech it was the case that good games took years and serious money to develop instead of being something knocked up on the cheap in a couple of months. I'm not sure the marketing team behind Gladiators would have wanted to commit to that at a time the show had peaked and people had moved on from the merch (including board games) they already owned. Nowadays, a similar uncertainty over the future of the show makes a video game, a full-blown one at least, unlikely. There's also more profit in producing T-shirts, hats etc.

I don't think a lot of the tie-in games back in the day did much other than promote the film or TV show, which were making enough money on their own anyway that it didn't matter if the games flopped, but companies started to become more particular over who they were handing out the licensing rights to to produce product because of the bad PR.

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - WillPS - 06-02-2024

(05-02-2024, 07:27 PM)JAS84 Wrote:  I'm not sure a video game would work well. There was an American Gladiators one in 1991 (before the UK show started, so it kept the US branding even in the UK), and well, it's generally regarded as poor. There's never been another attempt since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gladiators_(video_game)#Reception 

I'm not advocating for it, I wouldn't buy it and I don't think it'd neccessarily be good. I'm not even commenting on likelihood. That's quite different to ackowledging it's possible though, while still being a BBC hit programme.

It's certainly more suitable for adapting to create a video game from than, say, Little Britain - but that happened.

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - Neil Jones - 06-02-2024

(06-02-2024, 02:00 AM)tellyblues Wrote:  I don't think a lot of the tie-in games back in the day did much other than promote the film or TV show, which were making enough money on their own anyway that it didn't matter if the games flopped, but companies started to become more particular over who they were handing out the licensing rights to to produce product because of the bad PR.

No end of games in the 80s and early 90s that had tie-ins to film and TV shows. And most of them were crap, sometimes because of the limitations of the hardware (particularly on 8-bit machines), sometimes because of crap programming (usually because a lot of 8-bit games started on the Spectrum, got ported to the other 8-bits and no attempt was made to do it properly so they looked like Speccy clones) and other times because the concept was crap.

Spitting Image got a game back in the day (and on the 8-bits as well), it was fighting game/beat-em-up. About as detached from the TV show you could possibly get. Then there was Count Duckula 2 based on the cartoon... oh dear. Even Mr Blobby appeared in a video game, but had no references to the House Party at all (Blobby of course being the break out star from House Party) and it turned out to be another crappy game that had been repackaged - with the crapness still intact.

So game tie-ins don't always work. They may work better for film tie-ins (and there are some good examples) but for TV shows, well even with decent hardware they're still mostly crap.

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RE: Gladiators re-revival - Brekkie - 06-02-2024

It would make a good Wii game but it probably needs take off in more territories again to make it worthwhile developing.

Obviously we know about the main English language ones over the years but I'm guessing it also had a presence in a few European countries too. Any others currently running?

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