The Best Video Game Competition TV Shows

It’s wild to think about video games being a big deal in the late 1970s, but that’s when the first boom in home systems began.

Led by Pong, primitive consoles like the Fairchild Channel F captivated the disco decade with blocky graphics and ultra-simple games.

Looking to cash in on the craze, syndication programmer Marvin Kempner came up with TV Powww in 1978, making it the first video game game show ever.

Instead of having contestants in the studio, TV Powww let callers at home compete.

They’d dial in to their local station and use their voice to control the action, shouting “Pow” when they wanted to fire a shot or take another action.

Needless to say, the seven-second lag on broadcasters made these games virtually unplayable, but the concept was so successful that Kepner racked up dozens of local franchises.

As technology advanced, TV Powww was gradually dropped from stations, but amazingly channels in Australia and Italy continued airing the program through 1990!

The first televised video gaming competition that used the games as its core attraction aired on TBS in 1982—back when it was just Atlanta-based “superstation” WTBS.

Starcade laid the groundwork for numerous knock-offs to follow with its simple formula.

Two teams faced off on a selection of arcade machines, with the team racking up the highest cumulative score moving on to a bonus round where they had the chance to take home an arcade machine of their own, or other prizes like a jukebox or a tropical vacation.

Starcade only lasted a single season, but the production company launched a syndicated knock-off called The Video Game in 1984.

That show coupled arcade play with a number of mental physical challenges, including navigating a light-up maze and identifying the names of video game characters.

It was notable for the bizarre “Res-Off” challenge, which let the players move model Karen Lea around the same light-up grid, where stepping on a hidden red square would cause them to be “disintegrated” with primitive computer graphics.

One of the most dependable ratings-getters in the 1970s involved scraping together teams of celebrities and making them compete against each other in activities outside of their comfort zone.

The progenitor was ABC’s Battle of the Network Stars, which continued until 1988.

Los Angeles station KTLA tried its own take in 1983 with Battle of the Video Games, assembling four teams of celebs—including Scott Baio, Heather Locklear, and Lou Ferrigno—to test their skills on the hottest arcade titles of the era.

Each team fielded one player to rack up their highest score at Burger Time, Frogger and Ms.

Pac-Man, with the two highest-scoring teams going head-to-head on Pac-Man.

It was a daring experiment but wasn’t terrifically compelling, as Philip McKeon from Alice came to the table having memorized his Pac-Man patterns and totally obliterated Todd Bridges in the championship round.

KTLA never revisited Battle, so we can assume it wasn’t a ratings blockbuster.

The first season of Video Power, which debuted in syndication in 1990, was basically just a long-form commercial for Acclaim video games.

Hosted by “Johnny Arcade,” the show consisted of a deeply weird team-up cartoon where B-list heroes from Acclaim’s shovelware titles partnered to fight evil.

One of the good guys was the Bigfoot monster truck, in case you’re wondering how cohesive the fictional universe was.

In the live-action bits, Johnny would give previews of upcoming games alongside tips and tricks.

The second season, which debuted in 1991, shifted gears radically.

Video Power was now a game show, where kids were picked out of the studio audience to answer trivia questions and then face off in a video game.

The winner got to run through a massive maze wearing a Velcro vest and helmet, grabbing prizes and sticking them to their bodies while trying to escape with their booty before time ran out.

Easily the most beloved video game game show of all time, Nick Arcade cashed in on the home video game craze with an innovative hybrid of physical action and arcade skills.

In addition to numerous custom “Face-Off” games created by the producers, when contestants landed on “Video Challenge” spots on the game’s digital board they’d transfer over to a home system in an arcade cabinet to try and beat a certain score within a set amount of time.

What really made Nick Arcade special, though, was the game’s final challenge, which used chroma-key technology to put its players “inside” a video game, having them interact with digital obstacles and prizes in the Video Zone.

This was a fascinating technological accomplishment that only ran for two seasons.

In 1999, Nickelodeon was on top of the world, leveraging a deeply powerful kids brand across multiple media.

When you have something that strong, you exploit it as many ways as you can, so Viacom launched Nick GAS—short for Games And Sports.

The network aired game shows and physical events from the parent network, but also some original shows.

Game Farm was a fascinating experiment that debuted in 2003 at the dawn of casual online gaming.

Three kid contestants in the Nickelodeon studio in Florida would play along with a fourth kid from home, and after two rounds of competition, interspersed with interviews and video game news, the highest scorer would get a chance to battle the black leather-clad Gaminator.

Very little of the actual gameplay was shown.

The show was extremely short-lived but a few episodes have been preserved.

We wouldn’t see a conventional game show series featuring video game challenges for some time, but one-offs and specials sometimes popped up to promote individual franchises.

One of the most interesting was MTV’s 2008 Rock Band Battle, which brought together quartets for EA’s massively popular Guitar Hero-killer to try and deliver the best performance for a TV audience.

The winners went home with a tricked-out home entertainment system, but we don’t know how they split the prize up between four people.

Debuting in 2009, this was a curious combination of reality and game show, as SyFy placed a dozen gamers in a loft and expected them to get along while participating in a number of challenges.

Each episode featured a Real Life Challenge and an Isolation Challenge, with the second seeing them playing a then-current Xbox 360 game.

The gamer with the lowest combined score between the two events had to game for their life against another housemate or be forced to go home.

The winner took home $100,000 and a bunch of other swag.

It’s wild to think about video games being a big deal in the late 1970s, but that’s when the first boom in home systems began.

Led by Pong, primitive consoles like the Fairchild Channel F captivated the disco decade with blocky graphics and ultra-simple games.

Looking to cash in on the craze, syndication programmer Marvin Kempner came up with TV Powww in 1978, making it the first video game game show ever.

Instead of having contestants in the studio, TV Powww let callers at home compete.

They’d dial in to their local station and use their voice to control the action, shouting “Pow” when they wanted to fire a shot or take another action.

Needless to say, the seven-second lag on broadcasters made these games virtually unplayable, but the concept was so successful that Kepner racked up dozens of local franchises.

As technology advanced, TV Powww was gradually dropped from stations, but amazingly channels in Australia and Italy continued airing the program through 1990!

The first televised video gaming competition that used the games as its core attraction aired on TBS in 1982—back when it was just Atlanta-based “superstation” WTBS.

Starcade laid the groundwork for numerous knock-offs to follow with its simple formula.

Two teams faced off on a selection of arcade machines, with the team racking up the highest cumulative score moving on to a bonus round where they had the chance to take home an arcade machine of their own, or other prizes like a jukebox or a tropical vacation.

Starcade only lasted a single season, but the production company launched a syndicated knock-off called The Video Game in 1984.

That show coupled arcade play with a number of mental physical challenges, including navigating a light-up maze and identifying the names of video game characters.

It was notable for the bizarre “Res-Off” challenge, which let the players move model Karen Lea around the same light-up grid, where stepping on a hidden red square would cause them to be “disintegrated” with primitive computer graphics.

One of the most dependable ratings-getters in the 1970s involved scraping together teams of celebrities and making them compete against each other in activities outside of their comfort zone.

The progenitor was ABC’s Battle of the Network Stars, which continued until 1988.

Los Angeles station KTLA tried its own take in 1983 with Battle of the Video Games, assembling four teams of celebs—including Scott Baio, Heather Locklear, and Lou Ferrigno—to test their skills on the hottest arcade titles of the era.

Each team fielded one player to rack up their highest score at Burger Time, Frogger and Ms.

Pac-Man, with the two highest-scoring teams going head-to-head on Pac-Man.

It was a daring experiment but wasn’t terrifically compelling, as Philip McKeon from Alice came to the table having memorized his Pac-Man patterns and totally obliterated Todd Bridges in the championship round.

KTLA never revisited Battle, so we can assume it wasn’t a ratings blockbuster.

The first season of Video Power, which debuted in syndication in 1990, was basically just a long-form commercial for Acclaim video games.

Hosted by “Johnny Arcade,” the show consisted of a deeply weird team-up cartoon where B-list heroes from Acclaim’s shovelware titles partnered to fight evil.

One of the good guys was the Bigfoot monster truck, in case you’re wondering how cohesive the fictional universe was.

In the live-action bits, Johnny would give previews of upcoming games alongside tips and tricks.

The second season, which debuted in 1991, shifted gears radically.

Video Power was now a game show, where kids were picked out of the studio audience to answer trivia questions and then face off in a video game.

The winner got to run through a massive maze wearing a Velcro vest and helmet, grabbing prizes and sticking them to their bodies while trying to escape with their booty before time ran out.

Easily the most beloved video game game show of all time, Nick Arcade cashed in on the home video game craze with an innovative hybrid of physical action and arcade skills.

In addition to numerous custom “Face-Off” games created by the producers, when contestants landed on “Video Challenge” spots on the game’s digital board they’d transfer over to a home system in an arcade cabinet to try and beat a certain score within a set amount of time.

What really made Nick Arcade special, though, was the game’s final challenge, which used chroma-key technology to put its players “inside” a video game, having them interact with digital obstacles and prizes in the Video Zone.

This was a fascinating technological accomplishment that only ran for two seasons.

In 1999, Nickelodeon was on top of the world, leveraging a deeply powerful kids brand across multiple media.

When you have something that strong, you exploit it as many ways as you can, so Viacom launched Nick GAS—short for Games And Sports.

The network aired game shows and physical events from the parent network, but also some original shows.

Game Farm was a fascinating experiment that debuted in 2003 at the dawn of casual online gaming.

Three kid contestants in the Nickelodeon studio in Florida would play along with a fourth kid from home, and after two rounds of competition, interspersed with interviews and video game news, the highest scorer would get a chance to battle the black leather-clad Gaminator.

Very little of the actual gameplay was shown.

The show was extremely short-lived but a few episodes have been preserved.

We wouldn’t see a conventional game show series featuring video game challenges for some time, but one-offs and specials sometimes popped up to promote individual franchises.

One of the most interesting was MTV’s 2008 Rock Band Battle, which brought together quartets for EA’s massively popular Guitar Hero-killer to try and deliver the best performance for a TV audience.

The winners went home with a tricked-out home entertainment system, but we don’t know how they split the prize up between four people.

Debuting in 2009, this was a curious combination of reality and game show, as SyFy placed a dozen gamers in a loft and expected them to get along while participating in a number of challenges.

Each episode featured a Real Life Challenge and an Isolation Challenge, with the second seeing them playing a then-current Xbox 360 game.

The gamer with the lowest combined score between the two events had to game for their life against another housemate or be forced to go home.

The winner took home $100,000 and a bunch of other swag.