I’d Like to Thank the Academy…
If a prestigious game industry body gives an award, but it’s not televised, does it make a sound?
That somewhat zen question has a pretty definitive negative answer. While the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has been quietly presenting its awards in relative obscurity since 1998, travesties like Spike TVs Video Game Awards have risen to widespread mainstream attention in a fraction of the time.
That situation might change soon, though. Last week, the AIAS announced that next year’s awards would be broadcast in a television special.
The anouncement has as many troubling points as encouraging ones. The choice of Dick Clark Productions to produce the show is encouraging — their experience with awards shows like the Emmys and the Golden Globes ensures this won’t be a fly-by-night operation. And the AIAS president’s assurance that the show will focus on “how these titles became worthy of recognition” is a heartening sign that might be interesting to people who don’t live and breathe video games.
But the producer’s contention that the show is creating an undescribable form form of video that “heretofore hasn’t existed” is a little too worryingly pretentious for my tastes. And the purported use of “insights from celebrities, consumers and well-known talents in the video game industry” could could be extremely embarassing if it isn’t handled very carefully.
But the worst part in my opinion is the name. “The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Presents: The Year in Games” is an ungainly twelve words that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue the way “Oscar” or “Grammy” does. Despite the length, the title doesn’t even mention that it’s an awards show (although since the announcement said the show will only be “based on those titles making the shortlist for the DICE Awards,” maybe the failure to mention any “awards” in the title is intentional).
And then there are the unanswered questions, not least of which being whether show be picked up by a major broadcast network or be relegated to the wasteland of basic cable. Since Spike TV and G4 already have their own awards, it’s hard to imagine which cable outlet would be in the market (Lifetime?).
So while it’s nice to see gaming’s academy awards finally making it to the small screen, I’m not exactly getting my hopes up quite yet.
on February 14th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Granted the name is rather odd, but I’m a fan of the idea of a respectable video game award show. Hopefully they’ll shorten it ot something nice and simple like “The DICE Awards,” and if they need more, then maybe a subtitle like “The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Presents The Year in Games.”
on February 16th, 2006 at 10:30 am
“The YiG’s!”
Perhaps a real broadcast company might pick this up as an obscurity thing to run on a Thursday night or something. Fox use to do that kind of thing. I mean, I know they would not take it seriously, but it would be interesting to see how it was handled.
on February 19th, 2006 at 4:00 am
I’ll be really surprised if the IAAs actually make it on TV. The presenters, while experts in their craft, are not entertainers and it’s quite obvious. The crowd doesn’t give them much to work with either, with few people clapping or cheering. Although Jay Mohr worked hard to get some response out of the crowd this year, it was still pretty dull.
Also, instead of us getting scenes from a movie or TV show that correspond to the award, there was 1-3 clips per game that were actually submitted. With games like God of War, Guitar Hero, and Nintendogs going up for numerous awards, it didn’t take long before you got sick of watching the same 5 second clips for each category of nominees.
While the awards may be respectable, minus the often criticized nomination process, they are not ready for prime time. Most gamers would get bored watching the awards, I can’t imagine what the general public would think.
on February 19th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Just because the awards aren’t very interesting/preentable right now doesn’t mean they won’t be if/when they are televised. When the show is just for industry folks, I doubt they put as much time/effort into making it really snazzy. That’s what the production company is for — to give the proceedings a spit and polish for a television audience.
At the Oscars, when one movie is nominated for many awards (happens all the time, of course) they show a different clip each time. This shouldn’t be difficult to replicate for games.