The Game Awards 2015 Roundup

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ost forms of media have awards ceremonies. Movies have the Oscars, television has the Emmys, music has the Grammys, and video games have The Game Awards. Once a year, people from all around the gaming world come together to celebrate gaming. This should, in theory at least, be something to celebrate, but, in practice, these Awards are still in a form of early development (they have only been in existence for a couple of years), which means that, ultimately, this year’s show was frankly disappointing.
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This largely stems from the relationship that the ceremony has with corporate sponsors. Whilst this relationship is understandable in many ways, due to the independence of the show, it doesn’t mean that the constant barrage of advertisements is any less galling. Not ten minutes went by without an ad break, and at times, it honestly felt that the true focus was actually the sponsors, and that video games were just included as an excuse to run the ads.

Even more annoying than the obvious adverts were the ones that came with the inclusion of visits to the ‘green room’, otherwise known as one of the lesser circles of hell. These visits were ostensibly included to interview people from the industry at the event, but what quickly became clear was that it was actually a not-so-subtle way for EA to constantly remind us that Star Wars Battlefront is a thing that we should all definitely play. Each interview was essentially just a few minutes of them being asked to tell the audience how great Battlefront is, no matter their actual feelings towards the games, which led to some interviewees such as Cliff Bleszinski resorting to use of VERY diplomatic language to describe the game. Obvious advertisements such as these can often make the experience of watching The Game Awards an unpleasant one. They leave you with the impression that the awards are simply a vehicle for the AAA industry to shill their products. Perhaps it would be better if these adverts were less overt In the future, because currently, this part of the show is just painful.

Furthermore, a big draw of the show is usually the big announcements that usually happen. Big games such as Skyrim got their original announcements at past versions of this show, which means that every year, people get ridiculously excited about what could be revealed, but when the biggest announcement of the night is the reveal of a crowd-funded Psychonauts 2, you know that you’re in a bit of trouble. Reveals of more Telltale escapades are hardly going to cause excitement anymore, and neither are HD ports. If this show wants people to be truly excited, it has to do better. Big announcements are going to draw viewers in, but big announcements these are not.

This isn’t to say that the show was all bad, and indeed the show did include many great moments that should be celebrated. Greg Miller’s heartfelt acceptance speech for Trending Gamer of the year was a particular highlight, thanks to him celebrating all the people who work on games in any respect. Of course, undoubtedly one of the biggest moments of the show came towards the end, when host Geoff Keighley announced that Konami had banned Hideo Kojima from attending the awards for some reason, resulting in a beautiful eruption of boos and jeers from the audience. By this point we all know that Konami are pretty much the worst, but it was nice to see them get recognition for being inept and awful. Praise must go to Geoff Keighley  for being willing to openly shame Konami for their actions, despite his close relations with the games industry, and therefore for him delivering to us this beautiful moment of collective hatred for the company.

The Game Awards had many problems this year,that much is undeniable. Announcements were weak, adverts were far too prevalent, and the awards themselves became almost like a sideshow. However, despite these issues, I feel that it is important to remember how important having an event to praise games truly is. Great games are forgotten far too often, and far too easily, but the awards help to prevent this. They show us why games are great, and that must be praised. Let’s just hope that, next year, the adverts aren’t so damn irritating…
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