Video games don’t work on television. That’s the nugget of unquestionable wisdom that’s been passed down from producer to producer over the last 30 years as gaming noisily became one of the world’s most popular pastimes.

Sure, there have been exceptions, people will grudgingly concede. In the early 90s, Games Master bought all the chaotic fun and competition of teenage Mega Drive fanaticism to children’s TV for several glorious series. The late 90s and early 2000s saw Bits and Thumb Bandits, both starring one-time Guardian games columnist Aleks Krotoski.

Since then Ginx TV’s often thoughtful and funny Video Game Nation was the only notable British show but was sadly cancelled.

Starting on Dave, however, is a new contender that offers something its predecessors perhaps lacked: true, crossover celebrity appeal.

Dara Ó Briain brings with him crossover celebrity appeal, drawing in gamers and non-gamers alike. Photograph: UKTV

Dara Ó Briain’s Go 8 Bit is billed as a comedy panel show about video games. Each week, two teams compete in a series of gaming contests, taking in retro favourites like Chuckie Egg and Tekken as well as fresh titles such as Star Wars Battlefront and Fifa 16.

Each week, the team leaders – comedians Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon – are joined by celebrity guests with varying degrees of gaming skill, and their ensuing antics are overseen by host Ó Briain and resident gaming expert Ellie Gibson, whose role as judge and rule explainer makes her a cross between Countdown’s guardian of the dictionary, Susie Dent, and Pointless’s Richard Osman.

Although Games Master will be the natural comparison point, the format actually has its origins in the mid-eighties BBC quiz series First Class, where general knowledge questions where interspersed with rounds of Hyper Sports and Paperboy.

McNeil and Pamphilon first developed their own take on the TV gaming quiz for the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe – when they couldn’t think of anything else to put on.

“We’d had the idea of doing a late night show on Friday and Saturday nights, just for fun, where we’d get comedians drunk and then encourage them to abuse each other while they played retro games – purely for shenanigans,” says McNeil. “Somewhat tediously, it was more successful than anything else we’d done up to that point. So we kept doing it.”

Episode one featured Susan Calman and former England goalkeeper David James. Photograph: UKTV

The duo met up with TV producer Rohan Acharya who helped them develop the idea into a live show, which they put on to great success in a series of London venues including Lee Hurst’s Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green. A few television commissioners saw the show, paid for a pilot to be produced in 2014, and finally the satellite TV channel Dave got onboard – as did keen gamer Ó Briain.

Why did they take a risk on the idea, given the accepted wisdom about TV and video games? “Well, we were selling out a live video gaming show on the comedy circuit,” says McNeil.

“We had non-gamers coming back each month, young and old. We were playing bigger and bigger venues. While the show is made by people with a love of video games, it’s also – hopefully – a funny show regardless of that. We’ve spent a lot of time getting the balance right so that, as with Never Mind the Buzzcocks, for example, you don’t need to know much about the subject to enjoy it, but there’ll be some extra bits in there for you to get if you’re into the more obscure stuff.”

Episode one saw keen gamers former England goalkeeper David James and comedian Susan Calman join Steve and Sam for surprisingly competitive rounds of Chuckie Egg, Tekken and Star Wars Battlefront. There was a lot of chat about guilty gaming routines and rituals, some sharp jokes about Tetris and human rights, and a bizarre segue into the reproductive system of chickens.

It looked like a lark to make, and it was amiable viewing – even though, at times, Steve and Sam looked a little shellshocked that their concept had finally made it to television.

David James looking fierce. Photograph: UKTV

Games journalist and comedian Ellie Gibson got involved with the show after seeing it in a north London pub, then auditioned for the role of gaming expert. She brings meticulous gaming knowledge, dry wit and unsolicited Catford references to the show.

She also understands why we’ve had to wait so long for something like this to come along. “Games Master is the best video games television that ever was, but even when that was made, Jane Hewland, who developed it, had a terrible time convincing execs that it would be a big thing. And it was: a year after it started every teenager in Britain was watching.

“But later, a new generation of execs came in, the golden age of gaming passed, and there was a new fear around the medium. Then the PlayStation came along, and that was actually cool. Television isn’t good at cool, cool on television quite often happens by accident, and when TV tries to be cool it’s usually dreadful. What we’ve tried to do with Go 8 Bit is come at games from a comedy angle, as a form of entertainment.”

There’s an argument, of course, that the internet has all this covered. Gaming is the most popular genre on YouTube with stars like Stampy Cat, Pewdiepie and Dan TDM drawing in millions of viewers. The online streaming channel Twitch, which specialises in games coverage, has a monthly viewership of 150 million. Doesn’t this render TV coverage obsolete?

“I think things like Twitch have really helped our cause, as TV now finds itself having to play catch up,” says McNeil. “TV can offer a level of production values that’s missing from most online content.”

Television also has the power to draw in celebrities from outside the gaming community, which in turn attracts a different demographic. Later shows in the series feature comedians Ed Byrne and Bob Mortimer, who are unlikely to pop up on gamer YouTube channels anytime soon.

In some ways though, what’s missing is that sense of tension and atmosphere that comes from a live event. The original Go 8 Bit stage show got audiences roaring their support for contestants, but a recorded TV programme lacks that sense of drama and interaction. Maybe if it’s a success, there’s the potential for a live TV version with interaction from viewers at home, although that is perhaps prohibitively ambitious – unless Simon Cowell suddenly develops an interest in gaming.

Whatever, Go 8 Bit is funny and daft, and Ó Briain is an expert host. It already does what it set out to do: to admit the absurdity of the medium, while also revelling in how compelling it is. For the show’s understanding of games and the way we play them, and its infectious sense of fun and irreverence, it is certainly recommended viewing.

“The show is a celebration of games,” says Gibson. “It’s not taking them seriously, but it’s also – in terms of the competition element – taking them incredibly seriously indeed.”