Michael Makowski

Good Game is an Australian television gaming programme produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which was aired on ABC2 from 2006 to 2016.

Created by Janet Carr, Jeremy Ray and Michael Makowski, included a mix of gaming news, reviews, and features.

The original hosts were Jeremy "Junglist" Ray and Michael "Kapowski" Makowski; the latter was replaced by Steven "Bajo" O'Donnell in 2007, and the former by Stephanie "Hex" Bendixsen in 2009.

Other onscreen presenters included field reporter Gus "Goose" Ronald and Dave Callan.

The show is named after the friendly phrase gamers traditionally say after completing a competitive match.

The show's producers maintained an online presence with the audience, often directly communicating and taking feedback from viewers; audience competitions and polls were also held.

In addition, a mobile application and a book were created by the production team, to further cater to the show's audience.

Good Game received generally positive reception, with the hosts and segments being the subject of much praise.

The show also received multiple awards, and achieved the status as one of the most downloaded ABC shows.

Since 2009, there were at least 43 episodes each series, lasting from approximately February to December.

Series 4 had 32 episodes, while series 1–3 had around 13 each, and series 10 had 45.

Two podcasts were also created: Good Game: Grandstand in 2012, and Good Game Roundtable Podcast from 2015 to 2016.

The show's popularity has resulted in four main spin-offs: Good Game: Spawn Point, a show for younger viewers broadcast on ABC ME; Good Game: Pocket Edition, which ran on ABC2 from February 2013 to May 2014; Good Game Pocket, hosted by Nich "NichBoy" Richardson, with daily episodes released on ABC iview and YouTube from 2015 to 2016; and Good Game Well Played, an online show focused on eSports and hosted by Angharad "Rad" Yeo, which ran from 2015 to 2016.

Both Well Played and Pocket were previously hosted by Michael "Hingers" Hing.

In 2014, the show updated its logo and opening credits.

Hex said, "It takes a week of long hours and hard work to put together a review on the show. Gaming, capturing all the game footage, logging all the footage, writing the review, re-writing, editing, filming, re-editing... the finished product is something I'm really proud of."

Bajo described the editing process as "a bit like Machinima".

Both he and Hex checked edits remotely during the period of the week when they had finished their filming and the rest of the crew "shoot field stories and finish off the rest of the show".

Hex said that during the playing of games and filming she became quite attached to her avatars and wanted to show off what her own character did.

Hex says, "We've tried our best on the show to present both sides of the argument in any stories we've done".

Bajo explained: "Mondays we finish of reviews, log footage, swap games, read scripts and sub everything after a production meeting, Tuesdays we make GG and GG: Pocket, Wednesdays are GGSP and any green screen stuff, then Hex and I are off to review for the rest of the week, while the gang shoot field stories and finish off the rest of the show. We check edits remotely usually which is my favourite part of the job. changes week to week but that's the general schedule" Bajo has stated that "often segment ideas are pretty spontaneous".

When asked about taking on Good Game: Spawn Point as well as the original show, Bajo responded: "we're busier than ever, but we've got things down to a pretty tight production schedule now".

According to series producer Janet Carr, making the show was "an immense challenge, but... great fun".

In response to receiving a Lizzie Award, she said, "Being acknowledged like this is just the icing on the cake. We have a very small, hardworking team, and this award is dedicated to everyone who has helped make Good Game the show that it is."

Bajo has said, "There's lots of late nights for all of us, so the show receiving these awards has been really uplifting."

In fact, the show has explained via their Facebook page that the cast and crew have sometimes had all-nighters in order to wrap up episodes in time for their broadcast dates.

Bajo explained, "It's such a team effort [so] it would be unprofessional and incorrect to take too much of that kudos... I think we're our own worst and best critics... we know if something worked or if it didn't so we're always trying new things."

Both shows aimed to be inclusive, with Hex stating that while the team tended to aim for a gaming audience, "there's something about videogames that's just really compelling to watch, and people who aren't even involved in games or who don't understand half the jargon" get really involved.

The individual personalities of the hosts was regarded as important to contextualising their reviews.

The show was cancelled in January 2017, after the ABC received news that Bendixsen and Richardson had been hired by Channel 7 for the gaming show screenPLAY.

In 2019, Ronald began producing video game previews and reviews under the Good Game name for ABC iview and YouTube.

Each episode of Good Game had a three-week production schedule.

Week one was pre-production, where games were played and reviewed, and any segments appearing in the episode are written.

A rundown was made, allocating the minutes of the episode to each review and segment.

Filming occurred early in week two, as well as collation of any gameplay capture necessary for the episode.

The episode was then edited throughout week two, for finalisation early week three.

After airing in week three, post-production involves putting the episode online, finalising copyright information, etc. The weeks overlap for consecutive episodes (i.e. post-production for episode 1, filming for episode 2, and pre-production for episode 3 all occur in the same week).

The show was shot and edited in standard def 576i PAL, as "all of ABC2 (and most other free to air channels) are transmitting in Standard Def."

Episodes are then dubbed onto Betacam tape for transmission and the ABC Tape Library and uploaded onto Good Game's YouTube channel in upscaled 720p.

Both Good Game and Good Game: Spawn Point are filmed in the ABC building located in Ultimo, Sydney.