So it was time again for the annual Video Game Awards last night. Its a strange affair. The general populous looks upon it as an “oh, neat” kind of thing, I feel. Us in the industry and hard core gamers alike however seem to be a bit divided between “dear god not this again” and “sweet, something else to help boost the industry’s image!”
Sadly the cast of the train wreck that is Jersey Shore trying to banter with Mike Tyson does NOT help our image :\ Especially when it follows Snoop Dog performing.
I have to admit each year the presentation has gotten a bit better. At first it pandered to the stereotypical audience they expected that would watch this on Spike.. and it was embarrassing for the industry really. In the last few years though it has really turned around, something I credit Geoff Keighiley with having a hand in. Still it needs work. For starters there is a fairly hefty list of categories, this is a good thing. However they seem to bookend a single award with a trailer/reveal and another of the same or a musical performance, followed by a commercial break. Now this isn’t to fill the 2 hours… no… because twice in the show they rattled off a list of award winners for several categories with no mention of the other nominees. If they would just cut out all the big hype marketing bullshit, and only cover the awards we could fit it all in. I mean you don’t see this shit on the Oscars!!
Now I know your thinking “Well they HAVE to put all that in there to generate interest to make enough people watch it!” well I understand that, but I don’t care. If the show cant stand on its own they they need to just keep adjusting until it can, but they need to phase this shit out slowly as they do it.
Also some of the categories though need work. They have best sound track and best score. This makes sense really, one is geared towards the selection of mainstream music, the later is which had the best in house music. A good divide if you ask me to split games like Halo and Dragon Age who have incredible original music from those like Brutal Legend that have amazing sound track selection. The problem is all of the nominees except one for “best Soundtrack” were RHYTHM GAMES (Rock Band Beatles, DJ hero, etc) WHAT THE FUCK???!!?? There is already a “Music Game” category, so why put this shit here as well? I mean is there really a quantifiable difference in the songs between Rock Band 2 and Band Hero, and Lego Rockband? A totally wasted and ruined category if you ask me. Also we have the category “Best DLC” which is a noble cause, but the 4 nominees were 2 packs for GTA IV and 2 packs for Fallout 3. That’s kind of stupid, because its essentially down to 2 possible winners really.
My last major gripe is the timing, I don’t think the show should be on in mid December when the holiday blockbusters are still fresh and the early year super-hits (I’m looking at your Arkham Asylum) are growing dust. They need to be in the spring for the prior year if you ask me, that way there are no just-release-last-week titles contending for space when everyone is still riding high on the PR.
One good thing to come out of it all though is the general populous has far less if any impact on the winners now, and its entirely industry based on he voting, this is good, and how it should be. All in all, the show is getting better and I hope in two years time its where I want it to be, at which point I plan to attend 
