@CLinendoll said:
@Fattony12000 said:
I love that this photo pops up every couple months.
Aye, it's usually me that's posting it.
@CLinendoll said:
@Fattony12000 said:
I love that this photo pops up every couple months.
Aye, it's usually me that's posting it.
David Foster Wallace wrote an essay once where he kinda took people to task for shitting all over terrible television when it's pretty obvious that a lot of us take pleasure in watching and then picking apart all of the stuff we claim to hate. Ever since I read that I've been really self-conscious of coming off like a smug asshole whenever I start dumping on stupid garbage, so I learned to just shrug and move on when confronted with a new low in entertainment (or admit that deep down I at least enjoy the spectacle of some of it).
I guess my point is that people flipping out about the air of defensiveness and/or apathy surrounding the VGAs are coming off as a little naive about what most television actually is and the kind of people it's aimed at. You're right that it's garbage, but expecting anything else from "mass market" TV is just going to lead to perpetual disappointment.
@spazmaster666 said:
I probably could have saved myself some pain and annoyance had I just waited until the show was over and just watched all the trailers at Gametrailers
Thats exactly what I did and I honestly don't understand why anyone with any know-how about SPIKE and the VGA's would do anything but that.
I couldn't care less about who won what - I skimmed over some post stating the winners of each category and probably disagreed with 90% of it. I will probably disagree with a lot of the Giant Bomb picks as well - but thats ok because awards are so completely arbitrary theres no reason to even get upset at their outcomes. Madden 2015 could win a hundred GOTY's and I would still never even consider touching it.
I like the show. I think its entertaining enough and i sit through it to see the trailers, just like i watch the piece of shit most americans call a sport that is football every year during the superbowl to watch the commercials. If i want quality entertainment though, i should get a subscription to giant bomb, where they shit on new videogame systems and don't like how iterative and stale games have become. They're premium videos are better than anything else in the universe when it comes to showing off the staleness that is games.
The only thing I would like to see changed are the nominations.
1) have users vote on the nominations out of a list of all releases that fit the categories. The nominations seemed extremely back half of 2011 heavy, was very surprised LA Noire barely appeared. I actually thought for a second, wait did it come out last year. It only makes it seem like more of an advertisement to sell games that came out this holiday, even if the nominations were voted on.
2) Continue to have the press vote on the winners. This is a good thing to take out of the hands of the users.
Why are you glad that they exist when it's complete bullshit? Even a respectable dev like Cliffy B even said so in a tweet.People who actually follow the industry (or, even better, work in it) don't much care for it, but we all understand that it's an important thing in order to keep video games going as strongly as they are. I don't watch the Spike VGAs, and I don't like them, but I am very glad they exist.
@hbkdx12 said:
I'm not saying there needs to be some stuffy oscar-esque show for video games but they need to cut all the bullshit that does nothing but give people who look down on video games and gamers, more reason to because it typecasts all of us as stupid bumbling idiots who do nothing but drink beer and gawk over women bobbing for cupcakes.
I honestly think there are enough people playing video games (or are at least close to people who play video games) at this point that still being caught up in how the outside world perceives this hobby comes off as silly navel-gazing.
I didn't watch the Spike VGAs, but I've heard that they're getting better every year.
This kind of thing is still in its infancy and it's rather unfair that everybody is giving it so much shit. I bet the Academy Awards in its infancy wasn't like today's streamlined yawnfest.
What I like is that the show is specifically about showing the greatness of gaming, and the games industry so often is focused on showing the engines and tech that it doesn't look at the total package.
Things like the Bioshock Infinite trailer are what I'm talking about - it was there to play on our emotions and imaginations a bit, to feel a bit of what people in that world might feel, not to show off any new tech in the engine or to really hard sell the game to you. Only a very few games get advertised on TV this way, and only a few bother to put together a strong trailer to float around online at all. I think that's a mistake. We've seen how it worked for Dead Island. Sure there's seldom any gameplay in trailers, but that's not what they're about, they're about selling the dream.
Basically, I like the celebration of our hobby, even though it's hard to do well. The Felicia Day bits were painful, but as long as the VGAs keep getting better than the previous year, I'm down with them. In particular, I don't think it's justified to snipe at them for being backward when they finally started streaming it online this year. That is a huge improvement in relating to core gamers.
Posts like this are prime examples as to why I adore Giantbomb. Great read, Jeff. And I completely agree. :D
The show sux every year and every year people bitch about it. I think the people who they are putting the show on for are not represented by anyone who is ACTUALLY a hardcore gamer. I think the people who like this show probably love Gossip Girl and Survivor. Just tell me I'm wrong...
Thanks for a well written balanced article Jeff. I personally feel that the hate for this show is just insane. Yeah, this show not perfect but what do people expect from Spike TV? Wanna get around the problem? Start lobbying the idea of a award show to other TV networks. I even think that there could be a Internet based cermony. The problem is to make it big and juicy enough for publishers and developers to be on. For example. Can't G4/Gametrailers do it themself? Lower the budget and make something that is truly respectful (but I still want entertainment!) for the medium. There has to exist some kind balance somewhere. You wanna see games on big ass TV networks? Then this happens because it's pointed at a lot of more people, people that like, even love games BUT not the same way we do.
VGA are the same as the MTV Video Awards. That's okey...if you take it for what it is. Want more respect then we have to find a different kind of plattform and in this time and age there is a lot to choose from.
I agree the point about the writing. It seemed most of the writers focused on surface level jokes about video games ie teabagging, the health bar bit. But of course if the writers had written about how Skyrim is broken on PS3, it would fly over the general audience's heads with the exception of the hardcore base. The writers didn't know who they are writing for and is probably why we got Charlie Sheen.
If the VGAs are the Video Music Awards or MTV Movie Awards/Scare equivalent, then what is the Oscar's/Golden Globes video games awards show equivalent? Is it GAME's BAFTA awards? Jeff says traditional shows are boring, but it's what the industry needs to not look juvenile like last night.
Another great article!
An award show geared to "Call of Duty and the Madden" types who also wear Tap-Out & Affliction shirts.
The best part of the show was Miyamoto being there to accept the award for Zelda being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Second part was Kojima being awesome and awkward at the end.
Also, while Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader sucks, and The Apprentice is okay on occasion, Survivor has put off some really entertaining seasons over the years. Sure there's been a couple of duds, but that's to be expected when there's been 23 seasons.
i agree with everything jeff just wrote lol. I really wish they just cut out that stupid cupcake and spider man shit XP and there had to be something staged about the fruit ninja thing. cause god that looked dangerous. but yeah i feel the entire award show was tilted toward the "bro" gamer. but then again it is spike so im not sure why i expected different.
This is basically my opinion as well. I understand that a television award show about video games that appeals to me might be too narrow for a mass audience, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still fucking embarrassing with humor that appeals to the lowest of the lowest common denominator. None of that changes that it's terrible. This idea that it's somehow excusable because we "need" that VGAs to be taken seriously is crazy. Who cares if we do or don't? It's a terrible show anyway.It wasn't funny or entertaining in the least. It's the exact type of entertainment that the Giantbomb staff makes fun of off hand in every conversation about pop culture ever. Any attempt at criticism of the VGA's is as valid as any other criticism. From Roger Ebert reviewing films to your buddy telling you over a bear how terrible the finale of Lost was. I watched it and I hated it. What else can be said? I should expect to be shit? Maybe, but that has no bearing on my opinion that it is.
Haha, I love that Jeff and Alex both came up with their own names.
Also the worst part of the whole thing? I thought the award choices were good. Which makes it seem all the worse when they blow through like 15 awards in 2minutes without any mention of the developer.
Also the whole 'best character' award, where the characters from the game talk is fantastic. There, I said it. If they really want to go for entertainment, that's the direction they need to go.
@gringbot said:
Thanks for the read and perspective, Jeff.
Heres the deal, gamers, maybe if we all stop raging so hard on each other over an art form we can end up with an award show that takes our community more seriously.
Our hobby won't be taken seriously on television, radio, or awards shows, until the current crop of middle-aged and older adults drop dead, and are replaced by a generation of current late-teens and young adults who grew up with this industry as it became that multi-billion dollar industry.
That's also why the jokes on the VGA's are shit - because they are written to what they think we want to hear, not what is actually funny. They have vague awareness of once-popular memes and tropes of the gaming world, and nothing else. They treat it like writing an episode of a children's program, and not a massive mainstream hobby for millions of kids and adults alike.
Film and music nerds rage all over the internet, yet their awards shows aren't an almost insultingly written farce. Why? Because older adults - the people who actually control decision-making - treat those two endeavours like mature conduits of entertainment, despite being filled with just as much schlock and juvenile humour overall.
The VGA's are insulting to me, because through the writing, the skits, and the commercials they air - you can clearly see what they think of their audience. So we get teabagging jokes, soda commercials that are too extreme for silly girls, Charlie Sheen, and a bunch of other celebrities offering half-hearted validation of our chosen hobby by pretending to like it too.
I don't need gaming awards to be a ballroom gala - but a show that gives the industry, and the incredible artists within it the respect they deserve, would be nice. The game trailers are the only thing that make the VGA's watchable, in it's current form.
The only thing more annoying than award shows are people who complain about how annoying award shows are. There hasn't been an award show invented that has been anything more than a self-congratulatory wankfest (at best), and anyone who expects better is deluding himself. The whole concept is no more than a shallow, shameful market-grab, and to bring it into video games - a medium that doesn't exactly lend itself to celebrity, due to it's very nature - is even more ludicrous. I'm glad when good games are recognized as such, but there is no need to have any of it televised. Top ten lists and the like on sites dedicated to gaming is more than enough.
I suppose you could take that to mean that I have pretty specific tastes, but I'm really just taking the long way around to tell you that I don't have an especially high opinion of television programming. It's hard to describe that without sounding like I'm some sort of elitist snob, but I don't take too kindly to the way much of it is presented. If you'll allow me to further generalize, television feels like it's being presented to the lowest common denominator, with much of it being written by people who seem to have absolutely no respect for the people who might later go on to watch these shows. Parts of Spike TV Video Game Awards broadcast sort of reinforce my feelings on the medium, which is too bad, but ultimately I didn't really expect it to go much differently. The restrictions in place when producing a show like this almost ensure that, as one of those Internet-loving assholes who inherently distrusts marketing and finds most TV to be ironically enjoyable at best, the deck for liking such a show is sort of stacked against me.
My god I couldn't agree more.
@Scotto said:
\he VGA's are insulting to me, because through the writing, the skits, and the commercials they air - you can clearly see what they think of their audience.
Not meaning disrespect to rest of what you said by any means, but this is what has been ocurring to me about this whole thing. I'm way out of the age demographic, but this is what spike tv thinks is the mentality of the audience it is trying to reach.. and also then ignoring that there may exist a wider and more diverse than they will allow for. Jeff is right about the enterainment side of it, but they don't really seem to be speaking to anybody but a creation of what they think the audience is, and that through their own perceptions. MTV lost me decades ago. No, I didn't watch the VGA's, just going by what I have seen and heard since.
I not read through all the comments so sorry if someone has already posted this:
This sums up the whole thing perfectly, even Mentions Jeff.
End of the day only way these will work or will be taken seriously if a regular well respected panel form a limited range of awards that target the correct and important aspects of games and awards them to the right people.
The public then need to know what they are. If someone says to you "This movie has oscars" then you know it is either good or has a good story and very boring. So any video game award needs to also be known by average gaming Joe and not just the elite.
"Spike game award winner" On a video game box means nothing to me, I care not!
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