Allow me to preface this with saying that I have nothing more than the highest admiration for the staff at Gametrailers; Shane, Marcus, Justin, Brandon, ect. The guys who compromise the editorial side of Gametrailers are in my mind, only behind these guys here at Giantbomb when it comes to their diligent work in providing us, the fans, the very people who support this very industry, with the very best insight into the happenings. I cannot say that I know much about the jargon surrounding what constitutes the division between Gametrailers and GTTV, but what I can say is that I am not here to pick a bone with the latter, only the former.
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For a while now, at least since the last VGA, I’ve been thinking about what exactly this industry is, and watching Thursday’s edition of GTTV nailed something home, something very deep, is this what we want our industry to be represented by? I ask this question to all of you gamers out there, does Rose McGowan - who is undoubtedly easy on the eyes - represent you? Does that air head Amanda McKay, represent you? At a certain point I began asking myself, is this elitism, or am I onto something here? Why is that we have these “celebrities” attempting to represent us, when in reality they don’t know the slightest thing about the industry? Why does Keifer Southerland get an award for narrating a game, when guys like David Hayter, John DiMaggio, ect, guys who put in good performances in their blockbuster games, get nothing but a snippet?
Do we as an industry need these people to speak for us? I honestly had to fast forward through the entire episode, just clicking on the trailers – although I must admit I stopped every now and then and ogled at Rose. It kind of felt insulting to see these people, who clearly know absolutely nothing about video games, let alone this industry attempt to put on a show for the people who do – do they think I’m an idiot? Why don’t we have people, like developers, journalist who cover this industry, people that you and I know, instead of people who know absolutely nothing? Why is it that the video game industry, a machine for making money, toppling almost every single other form of entertaining, has to cater by putting in these celebrities? It’s almost makes it seem like we are as feeble minded as the people in the movie/music industry, well most of them at least.
What amazes me most is how dedicated we the fans are, I believe you would be hard pressed to find any other form of entertainment that has as ravenous and as diehard fans as us – easy to say that sports are in a league of their own. I watch the Bonus Round because I care about what these guys say, because they are the masterminds that know - Rose McGowan, for as amazing beautiful as she is, doesn’t know a thing about video games; Amanda Mckay, well, let’s not go there. If they had gotten guys like, Brian Crecente, Kevin VanOrd, the almight Super Sayin Vinny Caravella, and so forth, I would have been inclined to sit there and watch the whole damn thing because they are gamers, they are journalist whose principal interest is what they play, not how good they are talking down to us.
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Again, I feel as if I am not being objective with my analysis on this issue, but I feel as if, “if this is what the video gaming industry is being show as, then I am not going to bother defending it any longer”. I think it’s about time the incompetent ESA got someone with balls and started stirring the pot a bit. The VGA’s for instance, what a disgrace, what an insult; would it have killed them, I ask you, to have gotten real developers, real journalist, hell they could have called up Jeff and Ryan who were right there to go present an award, because even though John at home won’t know who they are, I will, and so will a huge number of others. You can give them credit for attempting to broaden the horizons, expand the fanbase, but then again, I feel as if they are going about it the wrong way, and I’m not afraid to slam them down for doing so. I’ve been gaming for over 17 years now, and it saddens me when I see Will Wright give an acceptance speech that only the people who the audience who’ve actually played his games and understand where he is coming from, know what the hell he’s talking about when the rest are a bunch of clueless faces, only there so John at home says “Oh I know them!” just before changing the channel.
Thoughts? I feel as if I’ve written something that is extremely biased, but again as I said before, it is not without good reason. I’d like to see the opinion of those who care.
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