The Top 10 Game Industry Disasters of 2013
05. Spike TVs Video Game Awards
File this under 'Be Careful What You Wish For' -- if you are a serious gamer you are no doubt familiar with the annual Spike TV VGAs - Video Game Awards -- in which the satellite and cable channel sets out to recognize the PC and Console Games of the Year.
While it started out as a serious game awards show in 2003, and in fact they actually did a pretty good if surprising job of picking their best game of the year -- you may find their choices interesting so we thought we would share them -- but just their pick for GotY mind you:
2003 -- Madden NFL 2004;
2004 -- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas;2005 -- Resident Evil 4;
2006 -- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion;
2007 -- BioShock;
2008 -- Grand Theft Auto IV;
2009 -- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves;
2010 -- Red Dead Redemption;
2011 -- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim; and
2012 -- The Walking Dead: The Game -- Telltale Games.
As you can see they didn't go with the easy choices, they went with the right choices...
Along the way though and with each passing year the show began to take on a very distinctive -- if distorted -- Hollywood feel to it.
Featuring lots of stars -- both presenting and making up the audience -- which is really great for movie and TV stars and especially if they happen to be gamers, because it gives them someplace to go and help celebrate the Game of the Year and other awards while having a few drinks.
Admittedly it can even be something of a special experience if they happened to have done voice work for a game that wins -- a lot of A-List Stars do that these days.
It is not so good if, as a lot of the game studios appear to desire, you want to be associated with Joe the Gamer...
It is not that the industry is ungrateful mind you, it is just that they got this strange idea in their heads that Joe the Gamer probably does not quite relate to Neil Patrick Harris and his $2,500 Armani Suit.
'Dressed up' for the target audience is more likely a clean pair of Levi 501s, their recently polished Doc Martins, and the BioShock: Infinite T they won for coming in 8th in the BioBlast contest at PAX East last year.
The very strong desire to put distance between Hollywood and the games industry finally came to a head after the 2012 VGAs when an industry insider remarked -- it seems as speculation of the 'high' spirits of one of the presenters -- that next year they should change the reward to a 12' tall gold-plated junky with a gamepad in hand, and the comment indiscreetly hit the social networks.
Which may be partly why the official show organizer and GameTrailers TV host Geoff Keighley announced to the games press that there were some changes to be expected in the 2013 show.
Among these was a name change, as the awards show was now to be called the Spike TV VGX.
With its tagline 'Binge Responsibly' the new branding was intended to represent and acknowledge the next generation of game platforms, and the push for a wider online broadcast focus had something to do with someone explaining to the organizers and Spike TV that more gamers use the Internet as their go-to source for audio and video entertainment viewing these days.
You could not catch the show on your TV because the awards show was not carried live on Spike or any other network -- so if you were determined to see it as it happened then you watched it via your Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, or your Android or iOS devices. There was also Hulu and Yahoo if your preferred device is your PC or notebook. Just saying.
While the modified 2013 version made a genuine attempt at limiting the Hollywood flavoring for the ceremony that success was rather limited.
Entertainment for the evening was Loiter Squad (from Adult Swim) with featured performances by:A$AP Rocky, Chain Gang, Woody Jackson, The Alchemist, and Oh No -- who performed selections from the GTA 5 score among others...
The stars of the show were supposed to be games -- specifically Broken Age, Destiny, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Thief, Titanfall, and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (a reboot of Tomb Raider that was remastered for the new gen X1 and PS4. Nintendo was expected to splash in and they did not disappoint making up some of the world premiers that the show is, well, known for.
The featured reveals included Broken Age, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Dying Light, Thief, Titanfall, Quantum Break, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Tom Clancy's The Division, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and it was all good.
Host Joel McHale explained the name change, illustrating that the 'X' in VGX stood for a n assortment of words and ideas that followed the words 'Video' and 'Game' like an eXcellent, eXtreme, and eXperience -- but it also stood for the next generation of game console --AKA the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
In practical terms the difference between the previous format and the new one was eXpanded content that was more game-focused -- like more preview reels, demos, and interviews with a focus on the next gen platforms and te upcoming titles for them.
Game of the Year went to Grand Theft Auto V, with the runner's up being BioShock: Infinite, Super Mario 3D World, The Last of Us, and Tomb Raider.
Here is the thing - while the Viacom Lord High Muckity-Mucks took the position that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and the attitude that as long as they (they being the people) are talking about you, you did something right... See the thing is, well, no.
For all practical purposes the 2013 VGX Awards was a complete disaster. Here is why, by the numbers:
1. Joel McHale -- specifically the negative attention surrounding him because he was clearly regretting his decision to host the show, and was a total dick to pretty much everyone, from the crew and cameramen to the game developers, insulting the entire concept of a video game-focused awards show. Alright he may have had a point for that last bit but still...
2. The VGZ Awards was a 3-hour long event, but the really lucky viewers accessing it via the Internet on;y got to see an average of 35 minutes in total -- the lucky viewers got to see the title screen, and the unlucky viewers (most of them it seems) saw a broken link or a whirl-bar that said 'Video Loading' for three hours. The reason for that? The cumulative services were only able to service an estimated 1-million viewers worldwide. Period.
3. Despite all of the effort that went into recasting the show, and what was clearly serious thought and work in finding it a new voice, in the final analysis the VGX is exactly what the VGAs were -- an outlet for developers to preview new games with a lot of other somewhat related content shoe-horned into it.
4. Despite the facts that the video game industry has taken a place among the traditional entertainment industries as a fixture in the living room, and despite it desperately wanting and desiring to be taken seriously -- the complete lack of professionalism in the VGAs/VGXs (which no matter how you dress it up is still a pig created by the industry to showcase its products) completely derails that effort.
While host Keighley and Viacom blew lots of sunshine up our skirts with respect to the relative success of the show and how it hit its goals, the 2013 VGXs was so complete a disaster that in all likelihood it will be the final show in the series because now even the games industry itself understands how bad it was.
DRM should be a crime. Publishers need to realize that ownership is what capitalism is all about. People move, have friends, share with their friends, and PC's and consoles die. Hard drives crash. No one should be punished for having to deal with an already horrible situation, ie: catastrophic HD failure.
DRM also creates more piracy that it stops.
I personally was sad to hear about the loss of THQ.
But thankful that the Warhammer franchise was bought over. For all of their terrible games, their Dawn of War and Space Marine IPs were solid, fantastic games!
Will Sims freeplay be a contender for 2014 given the uproar of their new update? Should be its been bsit and switch. A real time game where sims live 42 days! Disgraceful.
"The fact that the vast majority of the content that was being targeted legally qualifies as fair use under the current interpretation of the law considered"
That's where a lot of people have a misunderstanding about Fair Use. Their vids might be seen as Fair Use but ONLY a court of law can make that decision no one else can. Also Youtube isn't at fault here, they are doing only what the law says. If someone files a copyright claim against a vid Youtube has to take it down or they may face legal action from the content owner.
Youtube has been sued multiple times by companies and other people over copyright infringement. Youtube was actually going to shut down do to all the legal troubles until Google bought them.
I took a gamecube to Iraq as well. Eternal Darkness was the kind of thing that made war seem not so bad.
Considering the Steam OS, I personally think that was a very big announcement from Valve and as you can see, lots of game developers thought the same.
Linux is going to be the future, like it or not.
Great list. On a positive note for us non multiplayers The Last of Us single handedly saved the single player game 2013.
Who cares about THQ. In the long run something else will fill the void. And the Xbox one is hardly a failure as they are still selling strong and making microsoft money. They told us before that it will be a gaming system AND a multimedia system. People just need to understand that.