Link: Why Do The Spike VGAs Even Bother With "Awards" Part? [Spike]

Why Do The Spike VGAs Even Bother With "Awards" Part? [Spike]
I can't agree more. I have no problem with the Spike VGAs as a media event, in fact it comes along at a time when the hype machine has slowed due to the holidays and serves to get people interested in what's next while they're currently purchasing what's current. My real problem is the masquerade that is the awards. Ditch the awards and you've still got 75% of the content and probably 90% of the reason people show up to begin with. Also, you wouldn't be pissing people like me off: professional game developers who prefer a real awards show to the "me too" antics of the VGAs.

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

At Least I'm Not Alone

Ok, so this guy is more than a little annoying, but he makes some good points on the same subject I brought up this past weekend: The Spike TV VGA's. It's just nice to see someone who doesn't work in the industry support it in the same way many of us inside do.

The Angry Joe Show - Why Spike's Video Game Awards Suck Balls

An Honor Just to Be Nominated

The Spike TV VGA's are the Grammy's of video game awards; a popularity contest at best, shamerless plugging and pay-to-play consumerism at worst. BUT it is nice to work for a company that not only gets nominated, but wins as well. So congratulations to Dragon Age for winning Best RPG and Best PC Game 2009.

I had to read about the wins this morning online because I simply can't watch the VGA's. I tried to watch it last year when the last game I worked on, Warhammer Online, was nominated for Best RPG, but it the show 45% celebrities unrelated to gaming, 45% trailers/advertising for next year's games, and maybe 10% awards show. It's nothing but pandering to hype-machine obsessed mainstream audience and an attempt to validate ourselves to the same audience by coopting celebrities from other entertainment mediums. I want a televised awards show that celebrates the art and artistry of game development the way the Oscars do film making. But then I'm one of the people who enjoys watching the Oscars from start to finish every year. If there were a video game awards show like the Oscars, likely no one would watch it. And it's not just because most people find awards shows boring, but because the video game industry has spent so much time hitching it's star to other forms of entertainment that people don't know how to relate to us without them.

I just wish the video game industry would take itself more seriously when in the spotlight instead of prostrating ourselves before television, hollywood, and the celebrity cult of personality like we're their kid brother trying to "be cool." Yeah we're the new kids on the block, but we don't need their approval to succeed and the fact that the video game industry revenue exceeds that of music, television and film and has for several years, should be proof enough.

In America at least I feel as if video games are still seen as an industry of nerds and slackers making more money than they have any right to. This is a myth perpetuated by an misunderstanding of what goes into the making of video games and the few publicized successes from the 90's (Doom, etc.) Are we nerds? Yes. Are our work environments generally casual? Yes. But I challenge any hollywood, record label, television, or other office drones to call me or any decent game developer a slacker to our faces while they're skipping out of work at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Game developers are overworked and underpaid and we love every minute of it. And while my ultimate payoff is that I love my job, I wouldn't mind a little respect from the rest of the 9-5 working world and that's not something we're going to get by acting excited just to be invited to the party.

Video games are going to shape the 21st century the way that film shaped the 20th, it's time to grow up and act like it. I'm honored to have worked for companies that have been nominated for and won Spike TV VGA's, but I don't need Jack Black, Green Day, and Samuel L. Jackson, to validate that to the rest of the world. We need to make our own celebrities and face the world on our terms. Let them pander to us because we don't owe them anything.