Video Game Awards on Spike
The Video Game Awards aired over the weekend on Spike. There always seems to be all kinds of controversy stemming from various online gaming outlets in regards to this program and it’s easy to understand why. One reason is that these outlets all spend hours each year handing out their own awards and while they are comfortable with any other website doing the same, they are uncomfortable with any bigger and grander type of award ceremony that would make their own awards seem not as important and almost amateurish.
One common complaint is how Spike seems to rush through many of the awards. This is just plain stupid. This award show does not take place on a website where readers are forced to navigate through dozens of pages to get through all the awards so that ad revenue can be maximized. This award show is on television where time is money. The producers have decided that 2 hours is the best that can be done so that’s what we get. Am I really that disappointing that I miss out on hearing the acceptance speech for the ‘Best Performance by a Human Male’ category? Of course not. It is interesting to take note of who ends up winning such trivial awards but slowing everything down to this pace would likely require a 4+ hour show which is not feasible.
Some people also seem to enjoy criticizing the ‘stupid humor’ and ‘stupid acts’. They shoot off claims that Spike is more focused on ratings than on catering to gamers. Well obviously the whole point of the show is to garner ratings, but who do you think is going to watch the show? You think people who don’t care about video games are going to watch it just because they have people like Brooklyn Decker or LL Cool J present awards? Fat chance. I think the root of this type of complaint comes back to the fact that the people making these complaints work through the internet and are so used their omnipotent egos. All you have to do is visit any forum online and see how every seems to think they know everything about everything. My question is if you thought it was so beneath you, what would you do different, and why don’t you make an annual video game awards show on television and lets see how many people enjoy your show.
I’m not at all saying that this is some perfect show. There are definitely some things I would change. For example, I would absolutely stay away from people like LL Cool J. He came off as just thinking he was the man and apparently failed to realize that no one cares about him. Also, the whole foot soldier tackling thing just seemed stupid and sophomoric beyond belief. I’m not saying that they should stay away from non-gamers. I think having Charlie Sheen out there to present an award was genius. For people complaining about Brooklyn Decker, just take a minute to think about overall how woman are portrayed in games, what what common female characters in games look like and I think you’d have a hard time saying she doesn’t belong at a video game show.
The awards show seems like a giant juggling act. As an awards show they must hand out awards. The trick is that Spike wants to get all the big names in the room so the degree to which nominations and awards are skewed to get the right people in the room is obviously questionable. Mix in the all the world premiers and you end up with this strange intermingling and massive conflicts of interest between the awards show and the studios/developers.
The fact is that at the end of the day none of the above really matters. That is because the end result is a 2 hour show jam packed with seeing and hearing from the big names behind the games we play, as well as world premier trailers and announcements for new games. Sure the in between skits aren’t supurbly awesome, but they serve as an entertaining filler for the main attractions. You also even get the added benefit of seeing impressive and deserving montages for both Blizzard and The Legend of Zelda. So all the detractors can go back to their hole in a corner of the internet and give their own awards and continue to criticize everything and I will enjoy my couple couple hours of video gaming entertainment.