Gamers, I Am Disappoint...Again

Original Gamer: "Last week gamers showed off their willingness to pay for an unknown game from a well-known developer when Tim Schafer and his Double Fine Productions put up a Kickstarter page to raise funds for an adventure game. Within 8 hours, the goal of $400,000 was reached. As of this writing, it is very close to reaching $2 million right now. While gamers voted with their wallets and set a precedent by expressing that publishers are not necessarily needed, they failed to rise to another challenge during another big event on February 9."

[Snookies12]

This is the first time I've heard about this award show... So yeah, had no idea it even existed. o_o

[deep_fried_bum_cake]

Yeah, neither had I. This guy seems to think that just because he mentioned it on his website 2 months ago that the world has now heard of it and remembered it.

armycore
Thought about a scathing reply but that would just result in me losing a bubble. Most knowledgeable gamers care and know about games not about game awards shows.

[Snookies12]

Don't count? I go all over websites for gaming news every day... I've been gaming since the NES era... I think I count as a knowledgeable gamer. :\

[Baka-akaB]

Seriously ? enough with the snob attitude . Many dont care about awards , be they the awful vgas or anything else .

Heck the primary reason people watch the vga are the trailers and teasers reveals alongside the event

[vortis]

I agree with you deep fried bum cake.

@Baka, totally agreed.

Not to mention that the VGAs has so much marketing behind it that it's impossible NOT to know those awful shows exist given that they're all over gaming websites about a month leading up to them. Utter rubbish, though.

[armycore]

@Snookies12

This is the 15th year they've done the awards. If you don't know it by now, then yeah you're not that knowledgeable.

For everyone else, if you don't care about awards that's fine but I'm detecting that you're full of it. Especially if you ever thought that gaming needs it's own Academy Awards yet don't know about these awards.

[deep_fried_bum_cake]

Dear Lord armycore, you seriously think that everyone else is full of it. Read Baka-akaB's comment.

fei-hung

Fantastic example.

[fei-hung]

I think u have knowledgable gamers mixed up with knowledgable awards enthusiasts.

Between me and my brother, we own over 1500 dvd and BRs and we have subscriptions to Lovefilm and Netflix. We watch films from all over the world, but we ciuldnt careless about the Oscars or Baftas or Emmies.

Someone as highly knowledgable as you should know the difference in enjoying video games by playing them and enjoying awards. To give a clue, one of them only requires you to be knowledgable about games not awards, whilst the other may require both.

[armycore]

It's about knowing the industry. You may not care about who wins, but when this is something that is important to the people that make the games that you love, REALLY IMPORTANT, that should be taken into account for realizing the importance of these awards over your pretentious attitude.

[Man In Black]

You're the pretentious one here. No need to get all pissy just because no one's heard of your shitty awards show.

[Bimkoblerutso]

It's an award show, armycore...

As in, it's a show in which people in the industry give themselves awards.

Can't you go troll 4chan or something?

[SilentNegotiator]

I have never heard of some award show. I am not a knowledgeable gamer.

/s

Knowing the industry? Oh please. No one cares. Unless it's televised on a major station like the VGAs on Spike, it really doesn't matter.

The rest of the awards could be from anyone. So long as the publishers have something to stick on their game covers ("Bestest game ever!!" says DrunkTurkeyGaming.com!) and put in commercials.

That's who award shows are for....the publishers (as marketing tools) and making a development leader or two feel proud of themselves.

[fear88]

@armycore

I think we have more pressing issues in this industry like its ability to compete with mobile/casual games, innovating the playing experience, developer freedom from publishers, encouraging indie development on large platforms and steam etc. than the AIAS awards.

To say that just knowing the AIAS awards is somehow "the most defining thing to know for any knowledgeable gamer" is utter bull.

I bet you didn't even know about the Smithsonians 1 year run up to their The Art and History of Gaming Exhibit so really why is this AIAS award more important than actually keeping our industry alive and creative?

[rdgneoz3]

@armycore

"Nominees for the awards were voted on by professionals within the industry". VGA's the fans are voting, and you have a ton of advertising online ahead of it to vote. Though the only reason I'd watch it is for the reveals of new games / trailers.
And hell, I heard about the DICE summit a bit before it occurred, but never once heard anything about the awards. Still industry pros giving themselves awards is probably not gonna appeal to everyone when they'd rather vote and have their opinion heard.

[flankhim]

I lift things up, then I put them down!

[MRMagoo123]

@

Ive been gaming since the atari so i would say i have a fair bit of gaming knowledge and i havent heard of it and i dont really care that much either. IMO armycore your a douche that is all

[Kurt Russell]

Gaming since the ZX Spectrum... never heard of this.

[sikbeta]

lol @ Vgames awards, VGA is kind of the Oscar for VGs, right? that's enough don't you think?

[Ares84HU]

@armycore

I've been gaming since the late 80's. I play every single day at least 2 hours. Currently I own 270 PS3 games. Every single day I come up here to n4g and gt.com to check the gaming news and watch the latest trailers but I have never heard about this award show. I haven't seen a single advertisement for it nor did I see anyone talk about it up untill now. Don't hold people accountable for something that relativley has been kept a secret. Instead spread the word and advertise it and maybe people will go or watch it.

Son, I'm dissapoint with the gaming media.

[dabri5]

The awards are intended to be pretty low key. It's kind of a in industry event. Since it doesn't involve the say of consumers as all the votes are done with people in the industry, they don't try to push it as a big public event.
Everyone should watch Tim Sweeney's talk about future tech that he gave at the Dice summit.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[TheFirstClassic]

Seems like 99.9% of N4G are not knowledgeable gamers. Including me, I've never heard of this thing.

[geddesmond]

Yeah how the hell can people watch something they don't know about. I mean why didn't this journalist try and promote the event a little and let people know it was on instead of moaning when know body watches it. The VGAs were plastered all over this site and every other gaming site weeks before it even aired yet hes disappointed that clueless gamers didn't support an event.

@armycore

Dude any true knowledgeable gamer only really cares about playing games, what games are coming up and what can you do in these games. Awards are only for the developers who can use the awards to sell more of there games and hype up sequels except in the gaming industry we don't need those awards because the fanboys do enough hyping.

Not to mention that if the awards only gained 1300 views then it hardly gained enough revenue to cover costs so I would doubt the winners of these awards too because I'm sure companies like Activision wouldn't miss a donation of 50k if it gave them an award like this under their belt. Money talks in this world and sometimes it can controll people who desperately need it.

[FriedGoat]

I've been watching it for years, I like Jay mohr (the host) he was in one of my all time favourite spoofs when i was younger (mafia) and find it amusing to watch.

[maverick40]

Nor have I tbh.

[MsclMexican]

@amycore

I have heard of the AIAS...

And I was one of the 1,400 people watching it.

I stopped taking it as "the serious game awards" when the host started wearing a bathrobe, and Skyrim won best story.

-_-

Yup... a real gamer has to watch an award show.

Bull. The reason I only tune into the VGA's is for the trailers.

The AIAS was a joke as some of their awards were just ridiculous."Best award for connectivity"

WTF does that even mean?

Also your great game awards did not let either Valve nor Naughty Dog talk or say thank you even though they both tied for runner up for most awards next to Skyrim.

But Bethesda kept on coming up...

I taught that this was an award show in which the dev's could thank people, but it was just another VGA. Only the games that sold the most copies got to talk.

Really Skylander's got to have a speech and won for MOST INNOVATIVE GAME? Best Action Game MW3? Skyrim won BEST GAME DESIGN and to add insult to injury come out the day after the award show and say "Oh yeah.. we knew the PS3 version of Skyrim was broken before we released it... but thank you for the over 190 awards we have recieved"

The show was just as bad as the VGA's in terms of award choices.Hell, your reputable award show may be worse than the VGA's... because for an award show for the dev's... not everyone got a chance to speak.

You say that this was a show for our favourite dev's to shine. That is a lie... only games that sold the most copies got a chance to thank their fans.

And the show had just as many skits as the VGA's.

I mean come on.. they made a joke saying "that you can buy a VGA award" mocking the show.

... only to give Modern Warfare 3 best action game -_-

Reputable my ass

[DasTier]

lol 49- 2

[Persistantthug]

But I can't blame people for not knowing what it is because they do a very poor job of advertising for it.....piss poor in fact.
I even went to their website 4 or 5 days after, and they still hadn't posted the results of the 2012 show.

But yeah, VGAs = SPIKE TV = MTV = TRAVESTY

If you're gonna use an award show or platform as your gauge for reference, then the AIAS is considered the highest honor for video games. It's just too bad more folks don't know more about it.

[Smashbro29]

I don't give a rats ass what other people think about games. Let 'em give a trophy to whoever, see if I care.

[spok22]

Is it just me or does that look like Simon Cowell?

[Dovahkiin]

Check out how big his moustache would be if he grew it, unless the picture is stretched.

[WitWolfy]

A big fat Simon Cowell that is

[Snookies12]

I had that picture saved for a while, so it was nice to see Simon in all his glory again. XD

[Hicken]

Yeah, I've heard of this. So what? Snookies and bum cake have it dead-on: awards shows don't actually mean much, even to knowledgeable gamers. Why?

We play the games we like, regardless of what anyone else says. Even if they're industry people.

armycore, your assumption about gamers is pretentious at best. And then, to assume that a mention on your essentially no-name site would significantly influence people to view... yeah, I'll just leave that where it is.

The VGAs are watched because they're easy to access, have lots of advertising, and have some exclusive reveals about upcoming games people WANT to know more about.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Spot on Hicken. Honestly the VGA's are only rlevant because of the "reveals". The awards and production of the show is a joke. Spike has its ugly mits all over that thus why it is what it is.

Awards mean little to gamers like Hicken pointed out.

[MRMagoo123]

I agree, basically if i like a game ill play it if i dont i wont even if it got a golden grammy super happy go go hello kitty game award

[jeeves86]

I have to agree with some of the other comments made here. Not everybody can stomach award shows, regardless of what they're for. Even if I can't personally stomach the VGAs, there are exclusive reveals that I want to catch and report on.

Besides, you can't hold a cancer benefit dinner every year, hardly advertise it and then blame people when nobody shows. Regardless of how great your intentions are if people don't know about it they aren't going to tune in.

[CheexInk]

How is this hypocritical? If anything it's just a case of poor advertising. If this has been going on for 15 years and it's still so low-key then I'm going to guess that they don't even care about getting an audience. And good for them if that's the case. Getting the award should be satisfaction enough, who needs a bunch of jerks watching them get it too?

[Tuxedo_Mask]

Some people watched it.

I didn't, and I didn't watch the VGAs either, but I'm sure there was someone in the audience.

[BigDog55]

Been doing an award show for 15 years and can only get 1,300 viewers?? Maybe they are doing something wrong??

[Ser]

One would think so.

I've never heard of these awards and I've been gaming for years.

[BigDog55]

I've been gaming since '77 and I haven't heard of them either!

[denero1]

I never really watched any award shows to be honest i mean how is that entertaining watching someone win an award?

at best i wait till the next day for post to come online for previews of games thats about it

[yewles1]

What a laugh, everybody getting all defensive over being called out. The A.I.A.S. awards, alongside the G.D.C.'s are THEE 2 most important awards ceremonies in the video game industry. This is the first time that one of these two events got minimal coverage from press and gamer alike. lol, now let's see if G.D.C gets looked over this year too...

[Ethereal]

I agree.

[Kingdom Come]

The VGA's are both widely advertised and offer an incentive for viewing, video game reveals. Whilst the VGA's actual distribution of awards is incredibly weak (Their nominations and awards), in the video game industry more than any, there'll never be a unanimous decision as to a worthy victor. In the movie industry there aren't two cinemas with exclusive films that people are fighting over, and, more importantly, each year, thousands of films, making it almost impossible to watch all of them, then your opinion is biased towards the films you have watched, however, within the videogames industry, we are more than likely to have purchased all the nominated titles anyway, therefor there are more people aware of the quality of each game, also, with the Xbox/PS3 divide, some people find some strange sense of achievement when a game on their preffered console wins an award.

Therefor, being the "Acadamy Awards of the Video Games industry" isn't particularly needed, there's no games we are unaware of, we've played all the nominated titles, therefor we can create our own winner and opinion...

Off topic, the guy in the picture looks like a bigger Simon Cowell:

[IAmLee]

SON, I AM PROUD.

http://gifsforum.com/images...

[SwampCroc]

The brand new GameInformer magazine available @ gamestop currently has a write up about this very same AWARD show that the dude is mentioning...

at least the article in Game Informer was informative...

Issue 227 - Cover with "The Last of Us" - Pgs 10-15

Article headline.... "Did the Spike VGAs leave you yearning for a more serious approach to video game awards? Check out the 15th annual Interactive Achievement Awards."

Article title - The Oscars of Video Games

[Tyrannikos]

The amount of bigotry in this article is disgusting. This award ceremony IS a great thing and I did watch it. We can't expect everyone to know about it though. I RARELY see it advertised. Get off your high horse.

They don't advertise this award show properly. They just don't.

Aside from that, awards shows don't matter. It's great for the developers to be showered with praise, but we'll all go on playing whatever it is we like, whether it gets awards or not.

[CrzyFooL]

This guy is mad because we didn't tune into the IAA's on Twitch TV? Perhaps the people who covered DICE or this fine gentleman should have let us know that they were being broadcast? I, for one, was not aware.

[theDECAY]

I have an award show where I award myself for outstanding work. What? You haven't heard of it? You know nothing about anything you twat!

[tarbis]

Never heard of the IAA until now. There was no promotion of it either, unlike the VGA where you can see advertisements on many major gaming sites.
Also, those "game journalists" are too busy bashing the PSV to get hits for their sites to even care about the IAA.

[AdvanceWarsSgt]

Even if I had heard of it prior to this article, I still wouldn't have tuned in anyway. Why? Because almost nothing of value, relevant to me as a gamer, would be shown to pique my interests. At least the VGAs has reveals and trailers.

[IAmLee]

your basically saying that people who had no idea about your shitty award thing aren't knowledgeable gamers... well i'm not exactly a knowledgeable person, but i know that you sir, are a twat.

[banner]

armycore must feel like the man..

all cause he knows about an award show that no one else knew about..

ggooo armycore!

did you leave your lips at the show?

[kingme71]

Why do people care about award shows? Seems every other month the movie or music industry is awarding each other for the same thing over and over: Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, Golden Globes, MTV awards, Tonys, People's Choice, CMAs, American Music Awards. Just a glut of award shows. Not too interested in video game award shows either. I know what I enjoy, I don't care what the popular vote is. I skim through the VGAs just to catch the trailers for new stuff.

[legionsoup]

This article is really dumb and elitist. First off, I've been gaming since the Atari 2600 days. Today, I own every console and buy 3 or 4 games a month. If there's a special edition of a game, I spend extra money to get that version.

But I've NEVER heard of these awards, but I've heard of the VGAs. Why? Probably because Spike promotes their awards show, and the people who run this "serious" awards show doesn't. Just a guess.

The blame goes to the promoter of the show, not people like me who spend a crapload of money on games. Give me a break, armycore.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Dear Mr. Armycore...
Indeed I have heard of this awards show, just as I have heard of DICE. That said, Dice and this awards show are not promoted by any kind of advertising, its an industry insider award show. Developers awarding developers which is great. BUT... if the developers don't care enough to promote the IAA DICE awards, if Publishers don't care enough to promote the IAA DICE awards, if the media hardly pays attention to it and if Twitch TV (btw..who the hell has heard of Twitch TV?)hardly promotes it... why should any of us care about this awards show? Clearly its not meant for the public. If this really was a big deal and the industry wanted it to be such...we would be hearing and seeing much more about it.

So, take your elitist attitude elsewhere please. We gamers will support the developers and publishers on the things they most want... the games they sell.

[FlashXIII]

Looking at the winners I'd rather watch those awards than the VGAs. Then again gamers game not to spend hours watching some boring award ceremony.. I LOVE films and watch anywhere between 5-15 a week usually yet I've never watched the oscars, baftas or any other award ceremonies before and doubt I ever will. End of the day I have far more important things to do.

[reyray0709]

wtf..

[chaos-lockheart]

LOL, at first i thought it was some serial killer that stole a little gaming girls console she bought type of articles.

[MetalNCarnet]

No one watched the awards show because no one knew about it, and it was not on TV. Its not like they went out and marketed the crap out of it.

The only reason I have ever watched the spike VGAs is because of the new game debuts and announcements. Other than that, I could care less about any kind of awards. Does Skyrim getting GOTY get me free DLC? No, then who cares.

[Dark_king]

Never cared to watch professionals stroke each others egos.I decide what games are good and bad I judge them all and the winners get a far better prize my money.Thinking you know more about the industry then those who haven't heard of this show shows your ignorance armycore.Games are an always have been about games not awards.I don't buy a game because of awards I buy it because I tried it and I enjoyed it.That holds true to nearly everyone here,the awards were not the reason they bought a game the idea that it was something they could enjoy was.

Edit,An your going to get bubble raped for insulting members for speaking their minds.

[Kamikaze135]

It's the shows fault for not properly advertising. You can't blame gamers for a lack of support for something they had no idea existed.

[Baka-akaB]

I see that he managed to make himself looks even more pompeous and arrogant .

Knowledge of the award got little to do with knowledge of the business of games It is just that knowledge that pros gave themselves awards , as they aint some higher authority

At least thanks to you , I looked up the list of awards , and i find them to be a joke , and even less interesting than BAFTA awards , wich were coma inductive enough .

Most innovative skylanders ? It is innovative to propose a platformer game locked with the various purchase of toys ?

Action game of the year mw3 ?

best rpg , game of the year and outstanding story Skyrim ?

Are you sure those even try to set themselves apart from the VGA ? All i've seen are the same popular titles getting the same autocongratulations , deserved or not .

Subjective opinion nonewithstanding , the video game media world aint even close enough and near the same ballpark .

However currently flawed , and however fallen and wretched it became , the music , book and , tv series and movie media and awards systems are far better organized and equipped to reward products so far .

Video games award so far are an incestuous affair , with mostly western publishers and mainstream success auto-promoting and congratulating themselves .

You wont find any kind of dark horse emerging , nor any surprise hit . Mostly complacent rewarding based on mainstream popularity .

So yeah i dont need to tune in on some show to learn that they fancy cod every year because it sells 20 million units .

When we'll have better shows , a press worth something , decent guests , and honest picks of games from more than a pool of the 20 most famous ones and studios , maybe we'll start caring .

Meanwhile the old far that i am wont care and watch the trailers reveals from the vga , on youtube 1 min later

[JoeSchmoh]

I don't care about videogame awards, but I thought that was so RAW that the new Metal Gear Rising game was revealed at the VideoGameAwards and it's being produced by platinum games. Idiots all over the internet b*tching because they want a game with stealth elements, yet it's not even solid snake's game, so why would it be a goddamn stealth game!? People just like to bitch about something RAW so they come off as if they know how to criticize ANYTHING! "Oh, it's just a Bayonetta Metal Gear"

"tired of gaming being marketed as only for MTV-loving teenagers that are playing games after watching Jersey Shore marathons" The guy who wrote this article knows what he's talking about.

[skyblue14213]

The last gaming show that I watched was years ago which was the spike vga show(I think it was the first airing of the show). It was nothing but trash imo and I stopped watching after 10 minutes.

As for the aias award show, I would have watched it but I did not find out about it until now. I frequent gaming sites just about every day and I did not hear about the show until now.

If the aias award show appears next year I will watch it. The fact of the matter is that a lot of gamers like to complain either because they are followers and want to go with the crowd, they have nothing else to do but troll. Or gamers honestly did not know about the show until now.

As for gaming journalists, they should feel ashamed at themselves because it is their job(the one's that get payed for the profession) to notify the gaming populace of such events like the aias award show. It's ridiculous because we gamers will get 10 or more articles talking about any one particular game but we hardly hear a blurb about stuff like the aias award show.

[mabreu]

Umm...Spike is not the only offender here. You also have G4TV which mostly has hot chicks with no brains pretending to be serious. This is the world we live in, folks. Nobody cares for the art behind gaming, they only care about how much money is being made.