Game culture hits another low - the 2013 Spike VGX awards.

[Segatarious1]

How do you feel about this? Do you feel that you are represented by the trash that that the video game industry gives you as an award show?

These are the major players in the game industry, the major western studios, and the thing is built by Geoff form Game Trailers, along with 'analyst' Michael Prachter, a major 'icon' in the game industry.

And this is the best they can come up with? The show is a total embarrassment, from start to finish. You cannot find a baser subculture than gaming these days. How can people defend games as art, given this culture? How can anyone who watching this believe that the game industry has even an ounce of respect for them as either a person, or as a consumer of products? All you are getting from the major players behind this 'award' show, is bad game cinema, extremely crude,  demeaning jokes and commentary, sadistic violence, and empty hype.

Serious question - are you proud of this game industry? Do you watch this show with your friends or spouse or significant other? Can you defend any of this in anyway, and still keep your pride as a human being?

Someone please post a link to the entire show, if it exists. I cannot find it right now...

[HardcoreSadism1]

Aren't you a basement analyst though? ^_^

[James1]

Nope

[darkrage61]

Meh, I never pay any attention to awards shows(I don't even watch The Oscars, boring!) so I really couldn't care less about what games win the awards, I think you're making way too big a deal out of this.  Gamers represent themselves, the games don't represent them, and the awards shows certainly don't speak for all gamers(Angry Joe was very openly critical about Spike's VGA show).

[Steve1]

[QUOTE]Can you defend any of this in anyway, and still keep your pride as a human being?[/QUOTE]

Should be edited to read........

[QUOTE]Can you defend any of this in any way?[/QUOTE]

and then people can have a civil discussion.

[velcrozombie1]

I downloaded a torrent of this show back in 2010 when Neil Patrick
Harris was hosting, partially because I think he's a funny guy and
partially because I wanted to see the reveal trailers. I'm pretty sure I
didn't make it more than about 5 minutes before I just started skipping
ahead in 10-minute chunks. After a few minutes of that I just gave up
and deleted the file. It truly was one of the most cringe-worthy and
uncomfortable things I've ever seen, and nearly everyone who showed
up on camera during my brief watch looked embarrassed to be there.

Having said that, this was the eleventh year that the show has been
televised. Was there something especially egregious that happened this
year? I forgot that it had even been on until you brought it up. I'm not
so much in opposition to it as I am oblivious to it. It's like asking me if
I feel insulted, as a music lover, by the results of the American Music
Awards or, as a film buff, by the MTV Movie Awards. Those shows were
made for an audience that I have nothing to do with. They don't affect me
in the slightest. I do think, based on my limited exposure to it, that the VGX
is terrible; because of that, I just won't waste my time on it, and I'll advise
other people to do the same.

It's not as if I walk out of my house each day with a big red G branded on
my forehead, even if I am kind of nerdy-looking.

[Segatarious1]

I take for granted the results would be very 'corporate' and predictable. No one would be surprised on GTA 5 being GOTY, it was the big blockbuster of the year, overall uneven quality be damned. The industry HAS to hype it. Whatever came out of the tube, after all that work, on one of the most famous gaming franchises of the day, had to be hyped. And the fact that it DID NOT win awards in the other categorizes it was nominated, and they went to the likes of Ass. Creed, well that just tells you the love has to be spread to all the big boys.  That is part of the topic of dicussion, sure, but my emphasis is on the 'feel' and vibe of the show.

Steve wants a civil discussion, and so do I! That is why I so strongly object to the utterly antisocial and completely demeaning nature of this award show . To me, it is just such a stark and damning contrast to the meida narrative of the last console cycle that game buyers have 'matured' and so has the industry. Watching the VGA's, give me one example of that, of the maturity in blockbuster video games today. It is terrible. We do have civil and thoughtful discussion on this board. Why can not the VGA's do the same? Why can not the industry produce games that are not completely consumed by their own negative stereotypes? Every major game this industry produces, outside of Nintendo, boils down to blood, guts, profanity and spectacle. Its a pornographic industry, look up the definition of pornographic if you mistakenly thing pornography only relates to sex.

[darkrage61]

Your dead wrong about all games being about blood and nudity, what about Mass Effect? Tomb Raider? Remember Me? Last Of Us? Beyond Two Souls? Heavy Rain?.  Many critics have praised those games for their maturity and story-telling, have you played any of them? 

I'm far more offended by your stereotyping of hardcore gamers then by the actual VGX show, I saw bits of it once and I personally found it much less mind-numbing to try and sit through then the Oscars.

[Oltobaz1]

Steer,
I know you recently explained in another topic how you didn't phrase your opinions as fact, your last post, especially the last few sentences, seems to suggest the opposite.

[Segatarious1]

Most of those games lean heavily on dark violence and profanity, darkrage, and none are deep in their storytelling.

It would be best also, if in this topic, you kept your examples to games that were presented or shown at this years VGA's for your examples. I would not bring up 'Citizen Cane' to be a redeeming example in a discussion about terrible, cookie cutter, vapid movie blockbusters of our time, it is not relevant. Not suggesting any of those games you listed are Citizen Cane, obviously, especially Heavy Rain, which is boring and leans on QTE's quite heavily. That is an example of a game trying hard to be art, but not coming close. If Heavy Rain is the Citizen Cane of gaming, we see how far the gap between those industries truly is. And who, today, is working to close that gap? Not the games making up the VGA's.

Also you claim I am stereotyping hardcore gamers - again you miss the point. The show already did that for me. This is why I made this topic, to get opinions from REAL people, and see if they are finally disgusted by this mess, which gets worse every year. You should be an enemy to this show, instead of brushing it off, if you are sick of the gamer stereotype, which so heavily shapes the games that you play.

Why blame me for talking about it? I want to know, why should the industry have it both ways? If they want to be seen as mature and as an art form, when will they produce art, instead of doubling down on fart jokes and blood letting?