Spike TV Video Game Awards

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The Spike TV Video Game Awards (VGA) is an award show that gives awards to the best computer and video games of the year. Started in 2003, it did attract some attention, since game award shows were just starting to appear.

Contents

[edit] Video Game Award Results

[edit] 2006 Awards

For more details on this topic, see 2006 Spike TV Video Game Awards Results.
Spoiler warning: Winners of the categories follow.
Spoilers end here.

[edit] Previous Awards

[edit] Criticism

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This article has been tagged since December 2006.

The Video Game Awards (as well as G-Phoria, another game award show presented by the former video game channel G4) have been heavily criticized since its inception (the first one in particular was universally panned for numerous reasons). One common criticism is that the VGAs are merely a popularity contest. This means that console games are more likely to win or be nominated over PC games. Another controversy is that the VGAs tend to ignore games released for the Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo in general.

In the very first VGAs, Halo on the PC won the best shooter category when it was technically a two year old game ported to another system by this point and should have been an invalid choice. Also in the first VGAs, during one year's shooters nominee preview, they spelled SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs "SOCMO."

Another common criticism is too much focus on the celebrities than the games, as well as the general tackiness of the show. According to some, the organisers also over emphasize on things that visually attract audiences, such as hopping lowriders and pornographic actresses wearing revealing clothing, rather than anything actually relevant to video games. The stereotype that gamers are immature and have a low sense of humor is also prevalent.

The 2005 awards had also received criticism for having nominations for Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie and 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Both games had just been released when the special had aired, citing the possibility that the show was merely used as an advertising campaign for both games. The same could likely go for letting the TNA iMPACT! video game having a sneak peak at the awards, and possibly not letting WWE video games get nominated, since TNA iMPACT! is a Spike TV show, in hopes of avoiding more competition.

[edit] Parodies

  • The Video Game Awards were parodied on an episode of MADtv, highlighting the fictional 1st Annual Video Game Awards on June 21, 1977, hosted by Joe Namath (played by Michael McDonald) and Farrah Fawcett (played by Arden Myrin), musical guest The Jackson Five, and award presenter Mark Spitz (played by Ike Barinholtz). PONG and Asteroids were the only video games nominated for all of the awards presented, even though Asteroids wasn't released in the arcade until 1979. The categories shown in the sketch were "Best Graphics in a Video Game" ("Asteroids" wins), and "Most Realistic Sound in a Video Game" ("PONG" and "Asteroids" win in a tie). Bobby Lee accepts an award as a designer of Asteroids. Space Invaders is shown to display the future of video games, although it was released before Asteroids in 1978. [1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ MADtv Episode #1121, Air Date: May 13, 2006.

[edit] External links

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