The Video Game Awards were an interesting experiment. While many would argue that the Video Game Awards were simply processed piles of dung, I thought last year's event was a big improvement over the previous ones. Considering that the awards show we know is now dead, we've got to look elsewhere for our fix. While we don't envision there will be too big a shift from one to the other, Geoff Keighley has taken the show to the web. Essentially, not enough people were tuning into the Spike TV broadcasts to make The Video Game Awards a strong enough investment.
This may turn out to be for the better, though. Keighley and his associates won't have to abide by the rules Spike TV lays out for them, which means a lot less crowd-pleasing and a lot more video games. The list of gaming industry bigwigs that Keighley and his team have recruited to vote in the inaugural Game Awards is something else:
- Lou Kesten Associated Press – USA
- Federico Cella Corriere Della Sera – Italy
- Dale North Destructoid – USA
- Tony Mott Edge – UK
- Victor Lucas Electric Playground – Canada
- Darren Franich Entertainment Weekly – USA
- Andy McNamara Game Informer – USA
- Sophia Tong Gamesradar – USA
- Ben Howard Gamespot – USA
- Brandon Jones Gametrailers – USA
- Jeff Gerstmann Giant Bomb – USA
- Keith Stuart The Guardian – UK
- Tal Blevins IGN – USA
- Jean-Marc Wallimann Jeux-Video – France
- Ludwig Kietzmann Joystiq – USA
- Jamin Warren Killscreen – USA
- Keza Macdonald Kotaku – UK
- Todd Martens L.A. Times – USA
- Nacho Ortiz Meristation – Spain
- Evan Lahti PC Gamer – USA
- Robert Khoo Penny Arcade – USA
- Chris Grant Polygon – USA
- Joachim Hesse Spieletipps – Germany
- Katsuhiko Hayashi Famitsu – Japan
- Mike Snider USA Today – USA
- Jeremy Parish US Gamer – USA
- Chris Kohler Wired – USA
- Ben Silverman Yahoo! – USA
It's also been revealed, through a tweet made by Keighley himself, that there will be over a dozen world premieres at the event. There's no telling what size or scope these games will be until the event itself, but a handful of them will surely be pretty monstrous. There's only so many big gaming events each year, and it feels like a lot of developers missed announcing their games at E3 this year.
Here's what Keighley tweeted:
"This Friday night we will showcase more than a dozen world premieres
@thegameawards Which games would you like to see? More to share soon."
