I’ve never really seen the show. Maybe because I live in Sweden, or maybe because I don’t own a tv, anymore (pc monitors with hdmi ports =D ). But, I did track down the 2009 award show on youtube and tried to watch it. I don’t think I made it past 4 minutes before I had to skip ahead, and I didn’t feel like wathcing the whole thing either.

Anyway, from what I have seen and heard it feels like Spike is more trying to ride on the gaming culture to garner advertisment revenues than trying to be a representation for the industry. The “Fueled by Dew” thing was just ridiculous. I mean, I love Mtn Dew, but creating a category completely based on advertising is just completely transparent.

So I guess my first question would have to be. What does “fueled by Dew” mean? Do they pour Mtn Dew into the cooling systems on their computers?

On second thought, it may be my only question. Because the big things have already been brought up by other people, so I’ll just reiterate the points.

The overblown advertisements. It’s quite frankly ridiculous. I’m, as most people, fully aware that sponsorship is a huge deal of getting an awardshow going. But there’s a difference between having sponsors and trying to push products. In the first case a company chips in and help out with the show in exchange for some exposure, while the latter a company throws money at the people in charge of the show and demand (over)exposure of their brand/product. To me, VGA looks to consist mostly of the latter kind.

The almost random celebrities. I can sort of understand this one but it can certainly be done much better. As much as I liked Zachary Quinto in Heroes (well, before the show spiraled out of control), other than that I’m not sure he’s been outspoken about games much, and he just happened to push a product to (I think it was STO) and the same goes for almost every one of the presenters. They’re there because they are known and can push products as well. Samuel L Jackson might sound like a cool choice (I’m not necessarily saying it’s not though) but he was there because of the same reason. To push a product Force Unleashed 2. That’s the ugly thing about it too. It’s not only because of Spike that the VGA is like it is. The game industry is also at fault because they also throw money at the VGA, and push their products.

I’m not against advertising or big corporations, not at all. But in my book, if you want to give out awards you have to have integrity. Something Spike is seriously lacking if you ask me.

Went on a tangent there. If they want to have a celebrity host, get Robin Williams to be host. He’s been an outspoken gamer for years, and he named his daughter Zelda, and who better to have do some mid-presentation banter than a freaking comedian?

I agree that they should get some people the gaming culture knows about and would like to see rather than mostly hollywood stars that have moderate to fleeting connections to gaming culture. Some people off the top of my head; AVGN (he’s even been affiliated with Spike, getting in contact with him should be easy), People from gaming sites such as well… BT (of course) and Screwattack, Cliff Blezinski (unless Epic is nominated for something), Shigeru Miyamoto (highly unlikely, but hey, worth a shot), Vin Diesel, Suda 51, and so on. A healthy mix of people from the industry, celebrities with connections with gaming and people involved with gaming culture.

I also think a good idea for the nominations would be to have their own selection, but leave a few slots open for the public to vote in their suggestions. Maybe have a peoples choice award even?