The Game Awards show is a waste of time until this one thing happens

As many of you know, the Game Awards 2014 is tonight. It replaces the now dead Spike TV VGA (Video Game Awards). Over the last few years, the VGA was a glorified trailer. There were no point to giving out awards. The entire show consisted of showing trailers for upcoming games, performing interviews, and the host cracking uncomfortable jokes about gaming and gamers while Geoff Keighley uncomfortably stood there munching on Doritos and Mountain Dew. It wasn’t pretty.

I have a hard time believing that the Game Awards (again, with Geoff Keighley behind it) will be much better, or even serve a point. I haven’t decided if it’s a good or bad thing that some of the biggest names in the industry serve as an ‘Advisory Board,’ when it is their games being judged. The Advisory Board consists of Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision; Peter Moore, COO Electronic Arts; Hideo Kojima of Konami; Phil Spencer, head of Xbox Microsoft; Reggie Fils-Aime, President and COO of Nintendo of America; Rockstar; Valve; Shawn Layden, CEO Sony Computer Entertainment America; Yves Guillemot, CEO Ubisoft; and Martin Tremblay, President of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The judges are comprised of 28 international media, including well-known names like Dale North, Jeff Gerstmann and Chris Grant.

Keighley has been in an ongoing effort to add legitimacy to the Awards shows and make them more like the Oscars. This year, he said “I’ll be presenting [awards and premieres] a bit differently, with a bigger focus on having game developers on stage throughout the entire night. It’ll probably feel a bit more like E3 in that regard, with developers up their introducing their new creations.”

He went on to say, “The magic of this show is how it can blend together honoring the industry’s finest achievements with first looks at upcoming games… Traditional awards shows rely on celebrity culture to drive viewership. In the game industry the ‘celebrities’ for lack of a better term are the first looks and updates on new games. If my Twitter feed is any indication, a lot of fans want to see game announcements and see fresh footage on next year’s big games — that’s what fuels viewership. Yes you are being marketed to, but I think gamers view these first looks like they do movie trailers before a film in a theater — they want to get excited about where our industry is going next. It’s the same reason we watch E3. If you ‘drop’ that world premiere aspect to the show and just do a traditional awards show, you end up in a similar situation to many other game industry shows: The audience is in the thousands of people, not millions.”

That’s where I have a problems with the Game Awards — that they’re worrying about getting viewers for pushing their upcoming games. It uses the cover of an awards show to be a big marketing showcase led by the CEOs of the big publishers. Keighley is off-base when he thinks just having awards will make it like other industry shows. Pushing trailers and dropping premieres makes it like other industry shows. We are pandered to as a community year-round to drive pre-orders for games that release unfinished and not as the products they were portrayed to be. The Game Awards are feeling like a marketing ploy with a mustache-and-glasses disguise slapped on it. Why can’t we just have a show where we can see if our favorite games won awards instead of being marketed to?

In my opinion, one of the reasons we are still looked at as ‘immature’ by other industries is because — despite the billions of dollars being me — we still treat our industry as immature. While we have 28 press members judging games, the Academy Awards had a voting membership of 5,783 as of 2012. And that’s not just press and critics that vote on the films. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a professional honorary organization (not just CEOs and media) are comprised of actors, casting directors, cinematographers, costume designers, directors, documentary, executives, film editors, makeup artists, hairstylists, music, producers, public relations, shorts films, feature animation, sound, visual effects, and writers. Though membership is by invitation only from a Board of Governors, every branch of film is included in the voting process with new membership proposals considered annually. And here we are with our 28 media members and CEOs advising them.

And let’s look at why the AMPAS and Oscars were created. They wanted to “create an organization that would mediate labor disputes and improve the industry’s image.” It started small, but included membership into the organization including actors, directors, writers, technicians and producers. Think of the AMPAS as a better NCAA. A much better NCAA. And the Oscars don’t worry about showing trailers for upcoming films so people get excited. They celebrate the history of the film industry and those involved. They celebrate the surprises and best films of the past year, in all genres and all technical aspects. Give gamers a little more credit than ‘they just want to see trailers and hear new announcements.’ Gamers are smart and know a lot about their favorite developers, artists, voice actors and game directors.

We need an organization in place that looks out for the well-being of the gaming industry. Its membership and Board of Governors needs to include people from all aspects of the gaming industry. It’s an important need to move our industry forward and have other industries take it seriously.

Keighley said it himself; he wants viewers in the millions, not thousands. And so do the CEOs of the big AAA publishers. Until that mentality changes and a real governing body and system are in place, the Game Awards are a waste of time.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Game Awards and Forbes