"I'm Hardcore, You Sux" won't cut it anymore

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.

Add/View Comments (0)

A Classic Launch

The days become shorter and nights become colder. Many people out there dread the coming of winter, but not us gamers. For gamers it means launch season. Whether you'll be picking up an Xbox 360 or not, you can't help but feel the excitement that a console launch brings. The Xbox 360 is almost here and although I'm not as excited about a console launch as I was when I was younger, I still can't help but get sick with the launch fever. In honour of yet another console launch, I bring you a classic launch story of my own:

9.9.99, The Sega Dreamcast Launch

The Dreamcast launch on 9.9.99 meant more than just a new console for some of us. For the few diehard Sega fans that remained, it meant our favourite company was back from the dead. In North America, the Playstation was destroying our beloved Saturn and despite all of our pleas that Virtua Fighter was a better game than Tekken, we knew Sony had won the war.

Everyone knew that this was Sega's last shot. One more failure would mean financial ruin for the company and an exit from the home console business. Looking back, I'm not quite sure why so many of us cared whether or not Sega would make another console. The Playstation was a quality console. It was a well-made product, handled 3d games perfectly, and most importantly had an amazing library of games. It was everything we hoped our Saturn to be. For some reason, we just loved our Saturn and although most of us owned a Playstation as well, we held our Saturns in the highest regard.

While standing in line at EB waiting for my Dreamcast pre-order, you couldn't help feel how special this launch was. While everyone else was in Playstation heaven, here is a group of people who believed in a product that everyone else believed would fail. We were a group that still enjoyed the odd game of Virtua Cop. We remember our childhood as being filled with non-stop "blast-processing" Genesis fun. Even though we were stared at while carrying the ridiculously sized Nomad on the bus, we continued to play on. Some of us even bought the 32x when it was so obvious Sega had no real plans with it. So when the nice man handed me my bag of Dreamcast goodies, complete with a special edition Dreamcast bag for pre-ordering (gee thanks EB), I knew that all those years of toughing it out would finally pay off.

When I finally hooked up my Dreamcast and turned on the console, a sense of relief came over me. Sure I had to trade in everything I owned to afford the console. Sure I wouldn't be eating lunch for the next few months. All those thoughts went away when I saw that bouncing swirl hit that soft white screen. The first game I played was a cooky new football title from Visual Concepts called "NFL2K". The fact that this brand new title kicked the crap out of Playstation's beloved Madden, meant a bright future for Sega. After I was done playing, I noticed the a dial-up modem in the back that could be one day used for online play and a VMU that would change the state of gaming forever. Surely this was the greatest console of all time and it would only be a matter of time before people realized it.

...

Long story short, EA said screw you Sega, Sony poured millions into marketing the Playstation, and the Dreamcast was dead. Although we had some fun times along the way with the likes of Virtua Tennis and Power Stone, our beloved Dreamcast was gone forever and our favourite company would never make a console
again. I'll probably never play my Dreamcast again but I know I won't ever sell it. To me its more than a console, its a memory of one of the greatest days ever for a gamer, 9.9.99.

Add/View Comments (1)