Welcome to Modojo, 
"I'm Hardcore, You Sux" won't cut it anymore
Written by Dantastic on Friday, November 11, 2005
I have an idea. We all love games right? Some of us even like games more than movies. If the movie industry has the Oscars, why don't we have the same award ceremony for games? We could honour all those people that make games great! Oh, what's that? It's already been done and it’s nothing more than a marketing event targeted to a mainstream audience? Damn, I'm not watching because that’s not me, I'm a hardcore gamer!
Well, as I said, unfortunately the idea has been done, and they are called the 2005 Video Game Awards which air on SpikeTV in December. Now I won't get into the tired rant that these awards are nothing more than a huge marketing event. When you see that big-time movie hottie, Charlize Theron, is up for an award simply because the producers were ga-ga over the fact that they were able to book her presence, you know you’re not going to take things too seriously. Really, no matter how big the God of War fan you may be, the phrase "God of War rules because it won the Mountain Dew Game of the Year award" will never appear in your next forum post.
The awards are shallow, that's established. Do they accurately acknowledge the true heroes of gaming? Of course not. Then why are they on? No matter how much we would like to fight it, our beloved gaming industry has become the billion dollar corporate machine we always feared it would be filled with celebrities and big money. However, so has the movie industry and the Oscars are considered important and respectful. What happened to our industry? Unfortunately, this doesn’t surprise me as much as it does concern me.
I always considered our industry a little bit different than the movie or music industry. We browse gaming news all day long, read interviews with developers, and even have our favorite developer studios. We are a very involved industry that is very active in anything gaming. How then can our award show be this shameful? Once I heard about the Video Game Awards, I browsed some of the forums & comments around some of the popular video game sites on the web. After sorting through hundreds of posts, I didn't see one positive message supporting the awards show. The posts range from intelligent long arguments dissecting the state of the gaming industry to simple insults like "these awards sux". Understandable, right? We are the hardcore gaming community, those awards are for the dreadful mainstream. The hardcore gamer won't watch these awards because the awards sux and the mainstream gamer sux, right? I wish it was that simple.
After digging deeper into the subject I glanced through the complete list of nominees for some of the awards until I finally came to the "Best Video Game Site" award. The nominees are IGN, Gamespot & 1Up. Ironically enough, most of the posts regarding how the awards show sux came from members of these sites. Now who the three sites are that have been nominated is not important. Whether you visit any of the sites is also not important. However, no one can argue that these sites were not made for the gamer who does more than buy whatever Pokemon game comes out at Wal-Mart. Many of us who consider ourselves enlightened gamers visit, write for, or even build sites just like these. Therefore, are we not being heavily taken into account for these awards shows?
I ask this question because for all the bashing of this event I see, I fail to see a valid point being realized. Every gamer who is going the extra mile to read & discuss gaming is now a very important piece of today’s gaming market and has the ability to influence its direction. We spend more time discussing our industry than any other industry out there yet we feel more separated from its public image than anyone else. Our gaming awards are going on and all of us, “hardcore or not”, need to be concerned, because that is our image right now. Is it an accurate one? No, it’s not. At least, I don’t believe it is. It’s time for all of us to take an active role in our public image and do more than laugh it off as “not us”. This IS us and unless we take action, then maybe we start polishing our Mountain Dew Lifetime Achievement Award for Ms. Theron.
