Yesterday Keza MacDonald wrote a piece for her Pushing Buttons column in The Guardian posing the question if there should be more of a focus on The Awards portion of the Video Game awards rather than the extreme focus on trailers. Last week I wrote about how much fun I had watching the show with a few friends while hanging out on Discord and I can tell you… it wasn’t the oppressively long Christopher Judge speech that excited us, it was all of the shiny new trailers. Granted at the time it felt like that speech lasted about twenty minutes, but it seems like in truth it was somewhere in the neighborhood of nine, but it did absolutely destroy the momentum of an otherwise delightful evening. So when posed the question if the show should focus more on the awards I have to tell you a very clear and resounding no.
Award shows are generally awful. The viewership has been in a freefall for decades, and I think more than anything this is due to the impact of the internet. When you can just find out the winners the day after the show… why watch the show? I remember as a kid watching these not necessarily because I wanted to… but because there was a significant lack of other things to watch at the same time when confronted with my rural existence and having only three channels. As an adult, however, I cannot tell you the last time I watched part of one of these award shows. That said I make a point of setting aside time every year to watch The Game Awards live broadcast, because it effectively sets the tone for the next year’s game announcements.
The other problem with Awards shows is that they are generally lagging behind the trends, yet still trying desperately to act like cool kids and pander to them. I remember the exact moment I stopped caring about Awards shows… the year was 1989 and the Grammy’s added a new category for “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance”. I tuned in largely to watch Metallica who was going to be doing a live performance of One. We all assumed they would win because the And Justice for All album was such a powerhouse. They even managed to get good presenters, Lita Ford and Alice Cooper. Then I remember my jaw hitting the floor when the award went to Jethro Tull… some fucked up jazz fusion holdout from the 70s. I’ve since as an adult listened to Tull and it is “fine” but not really my jam, but I remember holding a grudge against the band and the Grammys for years as a result of this.
I think it is telling that the highlight of the Oscars is generally the live musical performances of songs from films. For years they have leaned hard on trying to make the entire proceedings more entertaining and not just a sequence of reading cards and playing brief clips of films. Whether or not the Oscars are a success is generally entirely dependent upon whoever they got to run the show, which is generally speaking a comedian. Basically, I think there is a disconnect between being a serious awards show and also being something that is fun for the audience to watch at home. As much as we might appreciate the effort that goes into creating the things we love… it is so much better to consume the Monday after by reading a quick synopsis rather than listening to yet another “trying to thank everyone” speech.
So while I love Christopher Judge as Kratos… and loved the hell out of him as Teal’c before that… I have no interest in listening to him ponder the success of his role when I could be watching trailers instead. That probably sounds harsh but it is the truth. I want him to be recognized for the effort that he has done, but also my spending $70 on a video game is already doing that. I think the harsh truth is that the Awards are for the Industry, but the broadcast is for the people. Give the people what they want, and at least in the case of the Game Awards… it is more video game trailers. We have long joked about how the entire show is just a bunch of trailers with occasional brief intermissions to hand out some awards, and that is honestly a good thing. In a world without E3 as a cogent thing… The Game Awards have sprung forth to fill that gap and give us our Christmas Wishbook experience of pondering the shiny things that are just beyond the horizon.
At least that is my take on this. I am sure there will be many others. If you have a particular stance, feel free to drop me a line below.
Industry awards… and I speak for any industry because they all have them at some level… are very much an inside baseball activity. My daughter was part of drama for two years in high school and they would do a three hour end of year award ceremony that was the most boring thing I’ve ever sat through because it was 99% “you had to have been there” things, and ran an hour long to boot, which apparently happens every year. And I had a child getting an award. I was invested.
Some work okay as general entertainment. I think the Academy Awards is okay on TV, though I say that as somebody who walks in and out of the room as my wife watches it, because movies have some general entertainment value and people like a contest. But even then most people just want to know best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, and are done. My wife wants to see what people are wearing. The press wants any controversy, mistakes, or if any film got snubbed.
And I think the Grammys do okay because you get some music acts up on stage.
But beyond that, general public interest is pretty low.
I will say, however, if your industry is big enough, and I think the video game industry absolutely is big enough, then having your own show for your own people on a live stream so people who cannot attend can watch from home, is perfectly fine. I am not sure I would try to boost viewership with things like Steam giveaways for a general audience. Just accept who the target audience is and focus on them and make it an inside baseball event and don’t pay any mind to those of us curious to peek in.
I pretty much agree with you. I always thought any kind of awards show was pretty much pointless for the general public.
For example, a movie winning a certain number of oscars never made me want to watch it any more than if didn’t win any. Same thing for games and anything else that has an award show.
Having said that, I think it is a great think for people in the industry as it is a recognition of their work from their peers. But for everybody else… Yeah, it doesn’t really offer anything.