Spike TV Video Game Award Winners

Gamespot reports on the results from Friday's Spike TV Video Game Awards. Top Game honor went to RE4, while King Kong and World of Warcraft both took home several category nods. From the article: "As much as Spike might have refined the show over its past pair of efforts, it was clear the network had not yet found a way to perfectly merge the subject matter, the celebrities, and the audience. Nowhere was evidence of this more pronounced than in the significant number of audience members heading for the exits right after Missy Elliott's climactic performance, having seen all they came for and not caring to find out who was going to take home the Game of the Year award. Winners for Best Gaming Publication, Best Gaming Website, and Best Gaming Blog were not announced at the show. "

Comments

Awarding not-yet-released games? Boo!

[Eddy Da KillaBee]

Could we at least give awards to games that have been released? King Kong? Come on, that's not shipping till the 22nd of this month.

I'm all for a rewards show, but I really would like for them to concentrate more on games that have been released already (like they did with Resident Evil 4).

A Word From Carmack

[rsmith-mac]

Last year, John Carmack made a good post about why award shows like this simply do not fit for video games. I'd like to repost that comment, because it's still as true today as it was last year.

I did the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences awards show a few years ago -- I was inducted into the hall of fame one year, then the next year I inducted Will Wright.

I hated it, but it is a big industry, and there is a broad range of people involved. Honestly, I'm almost certainly in the minority. One developer that I was talking to backstage was very bullish about how important it was to legitimize the industry with events like this, but I just don't have any empathy for what I perceive as "Hollywood envy".

Some award show issues are just a result of stupidity -- I felt so bad watching Hironobu Sakaguchi of Squaresoft, a non-native english speaker, being forced to read a long speech written by some PR type about me. I threw out what they gave me to say about Will, and wrote something more to the point myself.

I do feel that there is a rather fundamental mismatch with big awards shows for game development, because game development isn't a performing art. You expect actors and musicians to show well, because that is what they do. Why aren't awards for authors the same glamorous events that the movie / TV / music ones are? Game developers are much closer to authors than actors.

John Carmack

Nothing has changed about these award shows, they're still just as bad as last year.

awards are just commercials

[akhomerun]

this award show is full of paid awards.

as in about half of the winners probably won due to payoffs.

PSP as breakthrough technology...BS
King Kong winning a bunch of awards...the game isn't even out yet. real legitimate awards shows have deadlines for eligibility.

there are more, but i'm so disgusted i won't bother reading the rest of the winners, though i'm glad resident evil won a few awards.

REPEAT AFTER ME:

[phoxix]

BIGGEST

WASTE

OF

TIME

EVER

I mean jeebus, they even have a winner for Most Addictive Game Fueled by Mountain Dew category! Can you say retarded product placement ?

The video game industry does not need to sink this low ... those G4 Tech TV people are already annoying enough!

Re:Who are Spike TV?

[zerocool^]

Well, I figured someone else had given a real answer to this, but reading the other 6 responses at this point, no one has.

SpikeTV is the "First Network for Men", a slight at Lifetime and Oxygen, two networks that focus programming on women. It's kind of the "only white men aren't in a minority, and that makes us feel like a minority" thing.

Anyway, SpikeTV used to be "TNN", or "The Nashville Network". It's programming origionally was very country-music-culture oriented. That's hard to explain to someone from outside the US - I have no idea how "country music" is understood or digested in the UK. But, we have a channel over here called CMT, which is MTV for Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, also known as the special olympics of television. TNN, prior to becoming SpikeTV, had an odd mix of country music videos, documenteries on country music stars, hoe-downs (the redneck version of MTV's The Grind, i guess), and country themed shows like Bass Fishing and Dukes Of Hazzard reruns, "Walker, Texas Ranger", and others, as well as the WWF-slash-WWE's Monday Night RAW (professional wrestling).

Someone bought TNN, or whatever, and decided to change the format. The first thing I remember them doing is purchasing the syndication rights to "Star Trek - TNG", and when they did, they ran all-day marathons of TNG - seriously, from 9-am to 3-am (almost all US stations show infomertials in late night), nothing but episode after episode of Star Trek (it was heaven). They slowly moved away from the redneck-only programing, and now they air an eclectic mix. Their current lineup highlights are TNG, Deep Space 9, syndicated episodes of CSI:Crime Scene Investigation (the first 4 or 5 seasons only), Ultimate Fighter (pro wrestling, but people actually try to beat the fuck out of each other), and TNA Wrestling (WWE's competitor - WWE for some reason has jumped ship back to USA, where they will be more censored and pre-emped for dog shows several times this year alone).

There are other shows they air, like MXC, Cops, and a variety of others, but there's still several hours of both TNG and CSI each day.

Hope this helps.

Why, yes, I am between jobs at the moment. I start my new one on Monday, and I've been sitting at home with the wife and 18 month old for 3 weeks now.

~Will