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The 2011 Spike Video Game Awards: On Teabagging, Cupcakes, and Charlie Sheen

Alex examines why the Spike VGAs aren't really the awards show the video game industry needs, but might just be the one it deserves.

Somewhere between Felicia Day and Brooklyn Decker bobbing for cupcakes, and Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey being gently eased to the ground so that he might receive a mimed "teabagging" from a man who had been hired for this expressed purpose, a salient and depressing realization came to me: The Spike Video Game Awards are not for me, and they're never going to be.

This image sums up the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards better than any words could.
This image sums up the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards better than any words could.

For nine years now, Spike TV, GameTrailers, and complicit publishers have continued to push the illusion that the VGAs are an actual award show. And for nine years, people have continued to say, out loud, that we do not believe this. No matter how many times we try to express that we understand that the VGAs are simply an elaborate marketing ploy, designed to get brand awareness out for huge new games that we won't see until next year or later, Geoff Keighley and the show's producers continue to press this notion that the VGAs are meant to be taken seriously, and that the awards are meant to mean something. And every year, we end up back in the same place, watching the same embarrassing pageant of D-list celebrities trotted onto the stage to usurp air time that, on literally any other awards show, would have been dedicated to the people winning awards.

Prior to this year's show, this was the first time I made it a point to say anything publicly about my disdain for the yearly program. After the first round of nominees were announced (including the baffling "Most Anticipated Game Award"--an award ostensibly created to reward marketing campaigns), I made known via Twitter my belief that the VGAs were little more than a straw man awards show, an elaborate beard constructed to specifically gain Keighley and GameTrailers a mess of exclusive trailers. After all, the vast bulk of the hype surrounding the show was geared toward the big, exclusive reveals from studios like Naughty Dog, BioWare, and the like.

Interestingly, Keighley chose to engage my thoughts on the show directly, asking me what I'd like to see done differently. I explained to him my beef with the needless celebrity pandering, the fact that the awards felt completely secondary to the big exclusive trailers, and that the winners often seemed bewildered as to why they were even there. Keighley was gracious, at least made overtures that my feedback was something he cared about, and asked me to give this year's show a shot. He seemed legitimately enthused about what he and the show's producers had cooked up, so I promised to watch this year's broadcast with an open mind. I won't pretend I didn't still have reservations, but truth be told, nothing would have made me happier than to watch an awards show the video game industry could be excited about, and perhaps even proud of.

Then last night happened.

A rare moment, in which developers were allowed to speak.
A rare moment, in which developers were allowed to speak.

I won't recap the entirety of last night's dreadful spectacle, as much of it has already been recapped via social media and various blogs in the night since. You likely already know that the likes of Charlie Sheen, Hulk Hogan, and the cast of the next American Pie movie were paraded out to breathlessly (or dully, depending on how willing said celebrity was to pretend to be excited about the situation) introduce somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen exclusive trailers for games not out until next year. You may already be aware that whole swaths of categories were awarded via montage or quick, dismissive voice-over, with only a few actual developers being allowed onto the stage to accept their trophy. You have probably already been informed that host Zachary Levi and sort-of co-host Felicia Day were saddled with material that involved them making off-handed jokes about award bribery right before introducing the Game of the Year Award, and running around with one of the Jonas brothers with velcro suits on, respectively.

Once again, the VGAs were a marketing-driven, tone-deaf disaster, almost entirely bereft of the awards emblazoned right there in the title. A more accurate title might have been GameTrailers and Spike TV Present a Video Game Coming Attractions Extravaganza! Then, in 8-point, Comic Sans font, it would read underneath "Also, some trophies!"

And in a way, that's actually kind of perfect for the video game industry.

A lot of people want to see the VGAs become the "Oscars" for the video game industry. There are a variety of reasons why this can never be the case. One, it's on Spike TV, the network that has brought you such visionary programs as MANswers and 1,000 Ways to Die. Another is that the video game industry isn't really built for something like the Oscars. The Oscars are personality driven, predicated on the notion that you understand who these people are, and why them getting up and giving a big speech is an important thing. As several have pointed out, the video game industry has precious few faces who could go up on a televised stage, and deliver an acceptance speech without the restless mainstream audience simply changing the channel. It is, perhaps, why so few developers were given the opportunity to actually come up and accept their awards, and of the ones that did, one of the less recognizable faces had to be teabagged. You know, to keep the audience interested. Not that that's any excuse for why poor Mark Hamill, who had been nominated for a voice acting award, was dragged out to the show, only to find himself in the bleacher seats and unaware that his award had been announced during the pre-show. He sounded none-too-pleased about that.

The exclusive reveals have all but overridden the alleged importance of the awards themselves.
The exclusive reveals have all but overridden the alleged importance of the awards themselves.

And that right there is the main issue at hand: the utter lack of respect the VGAs have for the very people they're theoretically supposed to be honoring. Go down the line of awards shows, from the Oscars on down to the Teen Choice Awards, and the thing you will see is that, shock of shocks, the people who win their awards are usually given opportunities to accept them. The VGAs didn't even pretend to have an interest in such a thing. They brought up the few developers they seemingly felt obligated to allow on stage, then hurried them off as quickly as possible. Essentially, the message was, "Great, you've got your award, now can you go away so we can show this new Spider-Man trailer?" It's not just disrespectful, it's downright antithetical to the very meaning of an award.

To be clear: "meaning" does not have to equate to "boring." The last thing in the world the video game industry needs is to be treated with dire seriousness. This is simply not that kind of entertainment medium. There are serious games about serious subjects, but the very core of what gaming is rooted in is fun. We want to enjoy ourselves while playing games, so watching an awards show full of tuxedo-wearing developers delivering Important Speeches about Important Things would be senseless. It would not only be dull, but also disingenuous.

Unfortunately, somewhere in the process of designing the VGAs year-to-year, the term "fun" became mistranslated as "idotic." As our own Jeff Gerstmann pointed out during the broadcast, the writers of the VGAs clearly can't find a happy middle-ground between the knowing in-jokes and broad humor aimed at the non-endemic audience. In effect, the VGAs have no idea what they want to be, a show for gamers, or a show for the mass audience. Instead, it's stuck somewhere in the middle, and pleases no one in the process.

I do believe that a middle-ground for such a show can exist. Other industry awards like AIAS, DICE, and the Game Developers Choice Awards have offered glimpses of what a show by the developers, for the developers could actually look like. The GDC awards in particular have generally been pretty good in the last few years, with Tim Schafer proving a more-than-capable host and even some genuinely funny comedy bits tossed in (several of which were courtesy of the Mega64 troupe). The production isn't strong enough to be TV-ready yet, but were a network like, perhaps, G4 (they're still sort of about video games, right?) to toss a little production capital its way, it's something that could totally be broadcast to an audience.

Unfortunately, it's not likely to ever happen on a Viacom network. With Mark Burnett and his team of producers running the show, it's frankly a wonder that this thing even features game developers at all. This is, after all, the man who has been responsible for the last several installments of the MTV Movie Awards, along with several other reality programs I'm guessing you don't have particularly fond feelings toward. Burnett and the executives in charge of programming at Spike TV are the ones that are truly responsible for the decisions made regarding the broadcast. People like Geoff Keighley and Zachary Levi bear much of the hate from the audience--something I, myself, am responsible for too--but truly it's Burnett and Spike's executives that decided that a video game awards show should feature as few actual awards as humanly possible, for fear people may tune away and upset the sponsors.

You can't lay the blame on host Zachary Levi. The dude honestly looked like he was trying.
You can't lay the blame on host Zachary Levi. The dude honestly looked like he was trying.

It's too bad, because one gets the impression that Keighley would love to be working on a more respectable show. While the gleefulness with which he promotes his exclusives is maybe a tad off-putting, Keighley's rep as a writer and personality in the industry isn't smoke and mirrors. His Last Hours pieces and GameTrailers interviews shows he's a man who cares about this industry passionately, and not just for his own self-interest. Unfortunately, he is saddled with a broadcast in which his sole duty is to bring to bear as many exclusive treats as he possibly can, and smile for the pre-show camera. He is tasked with trying to make the game industry not hate this show, and while I'm sure the marketing and PR teams at various publishers are on board, there seem to be no shortage of developers and writers less-than-enthusiastic with what the show offered. I doubt I would have even watched at all were it not for Keighley's promises that this would be a better show, something that the industry could really get behind. I realize now that he probably didn't have much choice there, but it was nonetheless disappointing to find myself watching the same haggard thing we've been offered for the last several years.

I don't even blame Zachary Levi, or much of the rest of the talent involved. When Levi was interviewed by MTV ahead of the show last week, he seemed to be saying all the right things. His "geek cred," or whatever, seemed to be on the up-and-up. When he said he wanted this to be a show families could enjoy watching together, I honestly believed him.

And then the teabagging happened.

At that point, I realized he was just trying to put the best face on a not altogether pleasant situation. Watching him deliver one-liners he clearly hated and try to turn the Augmented Reality segments into something other than confusing and weird, I felt for him. He looked like a man who wanted to host a video game awards show--just not this one.

The question, then, is whether or not another video game awards show can, or should even happen. The VGAs will continue on as they always have. Of this much I am certain. Though the ratings have slipped from year to year, they continue to rise in the core demographic Spike TV unashamedly covets: young males, 18-34. So long as the game publishers get the publicity they crave, and Spike continues to get returns on its desperate pandering to immature boys, then there is no good reason for it to ever change its course. So long as we continue to come for the trailers of upcoming games, and not for the games we're ostensibly supposed to be celebrating, the VGAs will continue to represent the "next big thing" portion of the gaming audience, and no one else.

Perhaps some day, someone will make a video game awards show for those of us who would like to celebrate the best games of this year, and not the biggest ones of next. All I know is that, perhaps years after I should have figured it out, the Spike VGAs are, and never will be that award show. And now that I know, I won't be watching again.

Alex Navarro on Google+

250 Comments

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog
"You can't lay the blame on host Zachary Levi"
 
I don't. Mostly because I don't know who that is.
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innacces14

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Edited By innacces14

I feel like everyone's too busy with VGAs while I'm the loser in front of the line who's missed out on 8 days of work screaming "WHEN ARE THE GIANT BOMB STAFF TOP 10 VIDEOS AND BOMBCAST AWARD DELIBERATIONS UP!? IS IT DOWN TO SKYRIM VERSUS SAINT'S ROW?! OH SOMEONE TELL ME, DAMMIT!"

It's Spike TV doing awards. People bitching about inevitable shit is just too damn tiring to see on these forums.

Nice read though. Your pain is what keeps me going, Alex.

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buzz_killington

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Edited By buzz_killington

Just so everyone knows, I follow Glen Scholfield and Michael Condrey on Twitter, and they were in on the tea bagging. That's why Robert Bowling did what he did. Not that this changes anything about the show.

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Procyon27

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Edited By Procyon27

I thought the show was mildly entertaining, but for the most part completely pandering to the lowest common denominator bullshit.

Miyamoto was top notch. The Black Keys were great. Levi did his best to make the horrible jokes written for him....work.

I know the producers don't know a damn thing about video games except what they see on the news and here about second hand from internet memes, but someone with some balls and half a brain needs to take this show over and make it legit.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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@Alex: The 'writing style' was just a pluck from something I had read from you a few months ago when people were complaining about your writing. Last night you were talking about just accepting things as permanently being bad as being defeatist, now the solution is just to ignore it? I'm sorry, there's just an inconsistency in message that irks me.

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gbrading

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Edited By gbrading

The BAFTAs are video game's real Oscars. Enough said.

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jillsandwich

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Edited By jillsandwich

Alex, killing it as always.

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N7

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Edited By N7

I feel bad for everyone involved. This is something we as a society should look at and vow to never let happen again. Like Mass Genocide.

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Wraxend

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Edited By Wraxend

That show was so bad it is impossible to put into words. At least in the UK we have the Gaming BAFTAs which if I'm to be honest is the nearest we will ever get to a gaming Oscars if thats what people really care about.

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Benny

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Edited By Benny

@Alex: Loved the article, especially the subheading.

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Anupsis

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Edited By Anupsis

I watched the first 10 minutes with my family and turned it off cause it made me embarrassed to be a gamer.

I also feel really sorry for Zachary Levi. He was trying so hard.

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Oni

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Edited By Oni

Fantastic article Alex, I think you nailed it better than Jeff's.

Also, and I like the dude, but is there really any doubt that Keighley is a total shill? Or tragically misguided at best. He hosts videos on gametrailers called GAMESTOP PREVIEW or shit like that about what's coming to Gamestop. Come the fuck on. I have no doubt that he's passionate about games but he should never be considered an independent, tell it like it is person. At this point he's more on the PR side of the business than the journalist side.

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Ghostiet

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Edited By Ghostiet
@Branthog said:
"You can't lay the blame on host Zachary Levi" I don't. Mostly because I don't know who that is.
Lead actor from Chuck and the voice of Arcade Gannon in Fallout New Vegas.
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AssInAss

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Edited By AssInAss

I actually do watch the GDC and DICE awards, and to me personally they're a lot more entertaining because they're presented with discussions and lectures on stuff that's enlightening. It'd be great if more people watched those, they've had pretty good hosts the past few years.

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tapsoda

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Edited By tapsoda

There should really be a "I like this article" button, but just for your Whiskey Media Profile or something like that.

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christilton

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Edited By christilton
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SlightConfuse

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Edited By SlightConfuse

Found the 2011 GDC awards, some good stuff here

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AlKusanagi

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Edited By AlKusanagi

@Redbullet685: Pretty sure it's like the Kids Choice Awards where the judges and fans votes are "taken heavily under consideration" but then they just give the award to whoever they want.

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Prok

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Edited By Prok

Well written Alex and I think you speak for most of us.

Would have loved to see the Bastion devs get a minute for the THREE awards they won but instead they had to make time for that horrible Spider-Man segment.

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Grondoth

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Edited By Grondoth

It doesn't take hate to be dissapointed in a sideshow marketing ploy disguised as an awards show. It takes a heart.

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Edited By Aska

I watch the VGA's every year with a group of friends despite us never enjoying it. We love to see developers we respect get recognized, especially on TV. It was really terrible just how little screentime was actually granted for that purpose.

Also, I have to say. Just got finished reading Jeff's writeup then I noticed another one was up, and that it was longer. I almost passed on reading it but I noticed it was by Alex. I've come to really enjoy the way you write, and it was an awesome read. Keep on, duder!

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anzejk

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Edited By anzejk

Well, this is a great article. Alex, you tha man!:) I totaly agree with this whole piece. It's really a shame... VGA's could've been a good game-awards show, but it probably really never will be. And i feel really bad for Geoff 'cause i believe he is very passionate about games. Well, shit happen's...

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Mr_Skeleton

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Edited By Mr_Skeleton

I agree with everything Alex said.

I would actually watch a "boring" VGA where they let the developers speak because I find it interesting but it will never happen on TV especially on Spike.

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Tordah

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Edited By Tordah

Brilliant write-up, Alex. In a better world this "award" show would not exist.

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nightriff

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Edited By nightriff

Glad I didn't watch it, I hope the Bombcast talks about it on tuesday

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Dylabaloo

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Edited By Dylabaloo

Great Article.

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selbie

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Edited By selbie

Can't we just accept that the VGAs are nothing more than a Teen Choice Awards or MTV Awards equivalent? Surely it can remain the sacrificial limb for the more respectable awards that try to recognise good talent.

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Max21

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Edited By Max21

Loved the article Alex

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SithToast

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Edited By SithToast

Dig Deeper into Teabagging.

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deactivated-5b1b0a3fa1333

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The annoying and depressing thing about all this is that regardless of how horrible "everyone" thought the contents of the show between the trailers were... the same trailers are what "everyone" is now talking about. That's the cycle; that's what "everyone" responds to.

We can crow about how above teabagging and Charlie Sheen and stale humor we are... but we're not. That long-form commercials with no gameplay is even a thing people get excited for points to a greater deficiency.

I have a huge litany of issues about "gamer" or "geek" "culture" as a whole and one of these days I should just sit down and try to coherently connect all the dots. I like Alex (and Giant Bomb) because he's got a better batting average than most at calling individual components of it.

When he's not writing articles with image macros in them, anyway.

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Pinworm45

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Edited By Pinworm45

I just don't get why it's called the Video Game Awards. Not even just because that's clearly not what the show is about, but why do they want to pretend that's what the show is about?

I mean, who really gives a fuck what game wins what? I don't care if they think Modern Warfare 3 was the best shooter, because I don't, I thought BF3 was. I can only cynically assume that every reward will go to whoever gave them the most exclusives, so it's meaningless to me. But even if it WAS genuine, I still would not care - and I think the majority of people are only watching for the exclusives, feeling the same apathy towards the awards.

So why pretend? Why not just simply call it something about presenting new games? You can still honor the past, but the point can be advertising new games, which is what most people want anyway. It'd be more honest, less offensive, and would cut some confines they clearly wish didn't exist.

I don't understand why they simply don't do that.

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ghostNPC

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Edited By ghostNPC

Excellent and fair review of the VGAs, Alex. Well done.

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Insectecutor

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Edited By Insectecutor

Great article Alex, I preferred this to Jeff's sort of rambling piece. I've never dared watch these awards and rely on reporting like this to tell me what wondrous spectacles I've missed out on.

I think a lot of people enjoy complaining about the VGAs and I worry that this goes some way to making it a success. It's almost as if they do it on purpose.

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Edited By MudMan
To be clear: "meaning" does not have to equate to "boring." The last thing in the world the video game industry needs is to be treated with dire seriousness.

I disagree so much. So, so much. I'm trying to stop the disagreeing before it tears a hole in reality and sucks as all in, but I might not be able to do it, so if the world ends right now out of pure disagreement at least you know what happened.

I'm so, so, SO tired of actual professionals of the actual industry shrugging with a goofy smile and just casually assuming that:

a) Games can't be serious or deep.

b) "Serious and deep" can't be entertaining (everything from Shakespeare to Woody Allen to friggin' Citizen Kane and, of course, Portal, proves otherwise).

c) Their own personal idea of "fun", which tends to be some variation on a LSD trip or, for that matter, Saints Row III is somehow an absolute idea of fun. That the games they dislike are not fun because they dislike them.

It's belittling, it's annoying and it's frankly willingly stupid. Worse yet, if you speak out against it you're accused of having an inferiority complex. "Games don't need to be art, or serious entertainment", they'll say, "You're just fishing for legitimacy. You should just let go".

See, it's the other way around. Because gaming already is a legitimate art form (no, really) it'd be nice if the guys making that sort of thing weren't shunned and told that, somehow, what they do is not a videogame. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Jeff.

Look, I like the Whiskey crew. I do. That's why I'm around, that's why I'm a subscriber. But can we at least accept that just as Transformers coexists with 2001 and Twilight gets to be displayed in book stores alongside Michael Chabon's novels, gaming is multifaceted and able to tackle many subjects.

I genuinely live in fear of this approach completely dominating the industry. I fear that Giant Bomb will one day be Comic Vine, and utter geeks in it will write about games in-fiction and won't even consider the possibility that the art form contains more than the equivalent of superheroes (military shooters, I guess?).

So, hey, I don't necessarily want the VGAs to be the Oscars, and Alex is spot-on in most of his criticism, but that has nothing to do with whether I think developers can make an impassioned speech about what they were trying to do with their work and how happy they are that people got it and chose to recognize it.

Sheesh. Ok. Rant over. It's a thing that bothers me, that's all. Moving on.

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jessej07

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Edited By jessej07

Great article.

I turned of the TV once L.L. Cool J started talking... that was embarrassing.

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Arc209

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Edited By Arc209

I guess for what it's worth I should mention that G4 did hold an award show from 2003-2009 for video games that progressively got worse about midway through its annual running til it suddenly got a lot smaller. It was interesting for what it was. It was the first time we got to see Cliff Blesinski in his crazy tuxes. But with where G4 is at right now I kinda doubt there will be another massive award show like that again. So yeah...I don't maybe we don't need one? Either way probably am going to continue my trend of not watching the VGAs again next year.

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LiquidSwords

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Edited By LiquidSwords

ALEX REIGNS SUPREME!

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artofwar420

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Edited By artofwar420

Beautiful article.

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Mexican_Brownie

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Edited By Mexican_Brownie

Great piece, Alex!! It was sooo bad. The only decent moment of the show was Miyamoto recieving that award, but that didn't last long since they quickly cut to a horrible rip off of Tested.com's Real Life Fruit Ninja segment form the last BLLSL. And Shigytried so hard to speak in English :(...dicks

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Zeraldonith

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Edited By Zeraldonith

Teabagging? Really?! Words can not describe my frustration, I just hope that next year's VGAs aren't about noobs and pwning.

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Nightfang

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Edited By Nightfang

@Dtat said:

Tell it like it is, Alex.

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TadThuggish

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Edited By TadThuggish

I don't think they're going for the 18-34 demo as much as the 9-16 demo.

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CornishRocker

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Edited By CornishRocker

Your tweets were the highlight of the VGAs, Alex.

It makes no sense to me that they'd spend more time with awards/devs on the pre-show than the actual broadcast, that's just lazy and disrespectful to the people this award show is claiming to be putting in the spotlight. That fuck up with Mark Hamill is a prime example of this, too.

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NegativeCero

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Edited By NegativeCero

Wow, I wasn't watching it but had it in the background and from that I would've said it wasn't horribly offensive. Clearly I missed the "good parts". I'm more surprised that this has been going on for 9 years than that it turned out bad again.

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Bestostero

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Edited By Bestostero

@FluxWaveZ said:

Hot.

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scottygrayskull

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Edited By scottygrayskull

I watched the first few VGAs but haven't bothered since. Glad to know I'm still not missing out on anything, and I'll continue to wait for respectable year end awards like the Giant Bomb stuff.

Curious when Keighley will give up on that sinking ship.

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MrMazz

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Edited By MrMazz

Amen Alex

If spike had a 1 to 2 hour special of trailers like the VGAs I would have no problem with it but to masqurade it as a awards show and paying feint service if any at all to the games themselves and their develiopers his disrespectful and shameful.

I like Kehighlys Last Hours stuff and am sure he dosen't have much pull if any so he is stuck in a rock and a hard place but calling it a Video Game Awards show is Bullshit.

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medacris

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Edited By medacris

Let the developers and voice actors talk, don't make it one huge advertisement, and stop acting like dudebros who automatically assume most girls who play games are actually dudes.

There were a couple parts I did like, though:

  • Hearing Shigeru Miyamoto accept his award for creating the Zelda series
  • Every time Portal was mentioned (like Wheatley's nomination acceptance speech) and seeing Ellen McLain and John Patrick Lowrie interviewed (Tara Strong, I love you, but I think GLaDOS deserved it the most.)
  • The augemented reality stuff was pretty cool.
  • "If you think the anonymity of the internet entitles you to make racist, sexist remarks, you're a douchebag."

I'd like to hear the song of the year nominees played live, like they do at the Oscars.

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ThePhilatron

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Edited By ThePhilatron

I don't need to write anything now, I can just link people to this page for my feelings to be known. Thanks Alex.