The VGA/VGX, your thoughts?

I have a feeling some of you have watched Spike's so called Video Game Awards this year. I haven't watched it because I know it is ridiculous being mostly flash and little substance, it's no better than its debut a couple of years ago.

I wasn't even aware they did it again. I'm going to assume it was filled with celebs that have nothing to do with and/or know nothing about games, irrelevant and/or poorly defined categories that only AAA games "win," and the actual content about games was probably lacking.

If I were going to watch awards about viddys it'd be GDC's developer's choice awards or something. But honestly I'd rather just play games.

The earliest one was the worst one as I have heard they've improved marginally over the years.

I only watched it because ChipCheezum and VoidBurger were riffing on it live.

Dunno how I'd have coped with that thing otherwise. It was baaaaaad. Special highlight to the GTAV "concert" that made up the entirety of the last half-hour of the show, and putting in a PewDiePie video (not even a unique thing, it was literally a YouTube video chopped up), despite pretty much nobody I know of finding PewDiePie worth watching.

Couldn't give a shit. Did notice they changed it to VGX, though. Is X still supposed to be cool and edgy or something?

I wondered if this thread was about display devices.



I suppose, in a way, it is.

My impression of the event as a foreigner who's never watched it was a bunch of American celebrities who don't play video games promoting the kind of popular video games meatheads who make fun of people playing video games play (so I guess sports, COD, GTA and Skyrim?).

Which made it... concerning to see "Gone Home", "Papers, Please" and "The Stanley Parable" pop up in the associated VGX Steam Sale. If even the mainstream starts to embrace these terrible indie games supposedly focusing on social issues* or asking deep questions about video games**, we'll have to endure that shit for years.

*may not be a social issue to anyone who isn't a privileged english-speaking college-educated tumblr warrior
**may not sound deep to anyone who's had more exposure to video games than the GameStop lineup

Dragonsbrethren said:

Is X still supposed to be cool and edgy or something?

I can't believe people still go for this. What is this, the 90s?

I haven't seen the VGX yet, but the VGAs are just ads to me.

And yes VGX is very 90s.

Only thing I've heard about VGX was a little Steam news popup. "Binge responsibly"

I just saw one of the VGX awards on Youtube. Wow its fucking boring. I'm not sure if VGX = VGAs or VGX = Gametrailers end of year awards, but it just seems needless to have a host, interviews and trophies with no actual award ceremony.

It is also awkward how its an interview montage like no one could be bothered to set a time to all sit down as a crew and give a speech. No thanks.

Game award programmes have remained essentially the same since the 80s. The TV industry know nothing of games and seems to care less. Changing the title from VGA (I presume Video Game Awards) to VGX (Again, I presume Video Game... Something...) is enough proof of that for me. The UK (where I'm from) is no better either. Pathetic.

I've never even looked at a clip. I assume it's awful because it involves TV people talking about video games. TV personalities can't even talk about their own medium intelligently most of the time.

I don't think I'd be very interested in something like that even if it was just done by gamers on the web. I may like a lot of mainstream games, but generally my tastes aren't mainstream enough for the opinions of a general group of voters to be interesting. I know people who decide to play something because they heard it's popular, and those kinds of awards might appeal more to them.

What if we televised the Cacowards?

Clonehunter said:

What if we televised the Cacowards?

I would happily watch that. This year chould be something special anyway so why not broadcast it on Twitch or something?

Average said:

Changing the title from VGA (I presume Video Game Awards) to VGX (Again, I presume Video Game... Something...)

Probably supposed to be Video Game XTREME! "Xcrement" would be more fitting though.

Best way to sum up the VGA's was that one year when Miyamoto got hurried offstage for some boy band. Yeah, screw those people who are actually involved with the development of video games, we don't have time for 'em!

That and the fact that the sponsors need to have their friggin' product placement in the name of the award.

And when Neill Patrick Harris was onstage with Olivia Munn, and she was going on about blowjobs or something, so just her being herself in other words, and Neill just said "And what does that have to do with video games?"

Actually, that's the best way to sum up the VGAs.

Necromancer-AMV said:

And when Neill Patrick Harris was onstage with Olivia Munn, and she was going on about blowjobs or something, so just her being herself in other words, and Neill just said "And what does that have to do with video games?"

Actually, that's the best way to sum up the VGAs.

Pretty good way to sum up Attack of the Show, only the question is "what does that have to do with anything at all?" Still pretty fucking bitter G4 got rid of The Screensavers and then put that trash AotS up in its place.

Clonehunter said:

What if we televised the Cacowards?

In the elastomania community at the day of a similar annual awards thingy everyone gathers on an IRC channel and then the awards are announced one-by-one, while people are simultaneously discussing them, raging, etc.

Memfis said:

In the elastomania community at the day of a similar annual awards thingy everyone gathers on an IRC channel and then the awards are announced one-by-one, while people are simultaneously discussing them, raging, etc.

That's how the Golden Cyber did it, afaik. Doom was there first. :P

Well, it would be cool if the same thing was done with Cacowards so people could boo at btsx, etc, like:

[19:59:50] Bloodshedder: and the first cacoward goes to...
[20:00:01] Bloodshedder: Back to Saturn X!
[20:00:06] *Memfis has quit #cacowards (connection reset by peer)

I've been told that last night's VGX didn't even have an audience and consisted mostly of Joel McHale making obnoxious sexual comments to everyone because he really didn't want to be there to begin with. Sounded hilariously awkward but dreadfully boring at the same time.

Best thing to come from it, though, was Naughty Dog's acceptance video, which included this:

http://abload.de/img/0318_hwu31.gif

Greatness Awaits

Nomad said:

Still pretty fucking bitter G4 got rid of The Screensavers and then put that trash AotS up in its place.

I wouldn't have wanted them to continue it, especially in a time where on-demand game content and the internet access to obtain it are much more ubiquitous than when G4 started. Cable providers have been dropping G4 all of this year; even Comcast, who owns the company that owns G4. NBCUniversal is quiet on the issue, but G4 is dead.

Nomad said:

I've been told that last night's VGX didn't even have an audience... Best thing to come from it, though, was Naughty Dog's acceptance video....

There were actually some other interesting announcements made:

-Telltale Games is making a Borderlands-themed adventure game in the style of the episodic Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us games, and a Game of Thrones game.
-Square-Enix is making a "definitive" version of Tomb Raider, which is kind of bizzare, because Tomb Raider didn't really have much substantive DLC. I guess it's a case of "Well shit, we didn't meet our utterly unrealistic sales expectations that we set for ourselves as a result of spending a bajilliondy dollars on the hair engine, so let's wring this title a bit more."
-The makers of Joe Danger are making No Man's Sky, a sci-fi, fully procedurally generated exploration game.

Necromancer-AMV said:

-Square-Enix is making a "definitive" version of Tomb Raider, which is kind of bizzare, because Tomb Raider didn't really have much substantive DLC. I guess it's a case of "Well shit, we didn't meet our utterly unrealistic sales expectations that we set for ourselves as a result of spending a bajilliondy dollars on the hair engine, so let's wring this title a bit more."

Waiting for a Tomb Raider: Director's Cut with worse performance and somehow downgraded visuals. I guess Tomb Raider didn't have any endgame spoiler DLCs to stick in the middle, though, did it?

Enix and Square (I'll be damned if I put Square first) is sadly trying to squeeze money out of games that have come and gone. Oh who am I kidding? They always have. Dragon Quest 1 on Nintendo, then Super Nintendo in Japan, then Game Boy Color.

I love Enix so much more than Square. Square is morbidly obese, guzzles money, food, shits on the couch and says I used to be pretty once. Then Enix was dumb enough to take them in.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Couldn't give a shit. Did notice they changed it to VGX, though. Is X still supposed to be cool and edgy or something?

Aprentley yes.