Why Do We Bother With Game Award Shows? (rant alert)
It’s almost that time as the year winds down. It’s time to see which video games were the ‘best of the year’ with Spike TV’s Video Game Awards.
Now, I understand for the casual gamer, these award shows are great fodder for the biggest games this year(more like with the biggest marketing budget) and very entertaining…I guess. But for people serious about gaming, the games nominated/games omitted for certain categories are a joke. One big reason? The timing.
The award show has done itself and average video game consumers a great disservice by airing during the holiday season. This leads to nominations of games that are hardly released yet. (eg Left for Dead 2 nominated for game of the year. It was released yesterday. How does that add up?)
I personally feel that review scores and metacritic do not make a game worthy of nomination status. The group behind the VGAs should watch each game closely, play it themselves, and follow the community for at least a year. A little tedious I know, but it would bring so much credibility to the gaming world.
From the past award shows, I feel the VGAs could be compared to the adult video awards. That’s not fair, when our medium has revolutionized entertainment, and now big hollywood studios come to us for movie ideas.
In the end, I would love to make two changes to VGAs: 1. a stricter, more in-depth nomination process. 2. Change the date to June.
