The fallout from last week’s axeing of Good Game host Junglist has continued. A post from Team Good Game appeared yesterday on the show’s own community forum, the first public statement from the ABC to address the reason behind Junglist’s removal.
Last Friday, the ABC announced that Junglist had been replaced as Good Game co-host and Hex would be joing Bajo for the rest of the year. The pair would also present a spin-off show called Good Game: Spawn Point on ABC3 next year.
The reaction from the Good Game community ranged from anger to sadness and disbelief at Junglist’s departure. Some fans have even set up a website devoted to saving Junglist “from being axed by the ABC.”
Late yesterday afternoon, a statement was posted on the Good Game forum attributed to Team Good Game, saying that the “decision to take Junglist off air was not forced upon us by ABC Management and it’s one that is fully supported by all the GG team.”
The statement also addressed the fears of some viewers that the host changes would result in a “dumbed down” program, saying: “That’s absolutely not right. We, as ever, will continue our quest to bring you the show for gamers by gamers…”
This statement quickly drew a response from Junglist himself, refuting some of the claims made by Team Good Game. He said he knew a number of team members “clearly DON’T support this” and that the decision “was forced by ABC management, for a mass appeal direction”.
Later, Bajo responded to Junglist’s post, stating that “while Junglist may have his own version of events, so do we, and all we ever wanted to do was work with him but it’s not to be…”
Good Game staff are bound by confidentiality agreements and thus cannot discuss the details of the situation directly. The thread is now well over 40 pages long as the Good Game community continues to debate what may or may not have actually happened.
Roland
Monday, November 2, 2009 at 1:53 PMGood game, the show “for gamers, by actors’…
cuNTFOOL
Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 12:42 AMFUck Junglist and fuck the ABC. I don’t want my tax dollars going to some fuckwits anyway. Junglist isn’t even australian.
Mike H
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 3:56 PMI always thought that they had a winning combination in Jung and Bajo, that they’d eventually get picked up by commercial TV. ABC have killed the best part of the show. I’m probably one of the oldest audience members. I used to watch it every week with my teenage son. Now neither of us watch it.
senomar
Friday, November 13, 2009 at 9:36 PMduh yeah… he is an oz
Tasmanian Boy
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 5:11 PMWhile I have no problems with Junglist being sacked I am very disappointed with his replacement Hex. She is as boring as batshit and compltely devoid of personality and enthusiasm. She just sits there with a sarcastic and superior look painted on her face. Putting a female gamer in the show smacks of political correctness. I own a video game store and I can tell you females make up 1 customer in every 100. No offence luv.
Neolith
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 10:41 PMIf it’s a show for gamers by gamers and the HC gamer has been shuffled off in favour of a sweet young thing (who is obviously nervous in front of the camera – for now), what kind of finger is being pointed at the Gamers? I reckon it was the buckets that did Jung in ;) I got RSS for this kind of thing anyway…
Tom
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 2:30 PMI didn’t realize how good Junglist was untill I watched some old episodes. Then I watched a new one with Hex and it really sucks. The pair of Hex and Bajo don’t have that same relationship that Bajo and Junglist had.
MrDamage
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:23 PMI’d refrained from commenting on Hex’s performance on GG but having just watched the Xmas show I have to say that I won’t be bothering to watch throughout 2010. There’s no rapport between Bajo and Hex and for some reason the show’s content has been really dumbed down. Sorry folks but I’ll be giving it a miss from now on.
GuyofMan
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 4:51 PMGG needs Jung. Hex is fine but he made the show awesome.
rageface
Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 2:17 AMi can understand the abc’s desire to make the show appeal to a larger demographic, but dropping jung wasn’t the way to do it imo. it seems to me like they’ve dropped nearly half of the show just to try to get more people to watch. im not trying to say that hex is bad or anything, but as has been said already, she and bajo share too much in their views and commentary, so that instead of “actually bajo” we get a lot more “I agree”. best of luck to jung.
ZPJ
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 10:14 PMI’m only a very occassional viewer (obviously because I’m commenting a couple of years later apparently?!), but every time I’ve caught it lately I’ve thought ‘dear god where has the other dude gone??’. The girl is terrible, sorry, and junglist (lol just learnt his name) was the best part of the show. Not worth watching now IMO.