That Time Again

Another year, another Spike Video Game Awards show, another win for BioWare, and I still don't care. Oh it's nice to win anything, but a VGA means nothing to me. A VGA win is the equivalent of one of those exuberant film endorsements solicited from people coming out of free viewings and added to the front of a trailer. The VGAs are a media event, a showcase for new game trailers, an addendum to the year's convention season. It's not a show about the artistic and technical achievements of game developers, it's a chance for Spike to generate ratings by promising celebrities and new game footage. The show is nothing more than marketing and as such is very effective, but ask me if I care about winning a VGA and I'm going to shrug. My company paid to have some trailers shown and that means more people are going to be aware of our games, if Spike decided to tack an award onto the proceeding in order to legitimize the experience then great, but that's not the point. If someone wants to televise the AIAS Dice awards then I'd watch, those are awards that matter to me; everything else is marketing and pandering. The value of awards such as the VGAs amount to about as much as ad copy on the back of a box or the front page of a company website. It's nice to be recognized, but there is no prestige in the prize for me. The public can support us by buying our games, that's what will help us the most and in the case of BioWare, they have. When I want awards I'll go to my peers and serious analysts, sorry Spike.

Sent from my iPhone @ Epoch Coffee