It’s somewhat ironic that this particular story is happening on the eve of the 2023 edition of The Game Awards. You see, video games have been around for decades, but the shows that have “honored them” are actually a bit fewer and far between than you might think. After all, many people don’t consider them “art” or “interesting” to this day, so now imagine what it must have been like in the 1980s and 1990s when people were trying to figure out how this fit into society. The 1999 Annual Interactive Achievement Awards were one of the exceptions to that rule, and that’s what we’re talking about today.
This was the 2nd annual event for the 1999 Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, and it was two hours long and featured some legendary games and creators being there to take their bows for the games they made. If you want to glimpse how good that year was gaming-wise, here are the nominees for Game of the Year. See if you can recognize these titles. You might have heard of a few of them: Half-Life, Alpha Centauri, Grim Fandango, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Metal Gear Solid and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
So yeah, a few games you MIGHT have heard of if you’re a “dedicated gamer.” Who knew how good we had it back in 1999? We won’t say who won, though one of the winners should be a little obvious, but you can check out the full thing below and see just how different watching video game award shows were about 25 years ago.
One of the ironies of this story is that while that particular award show stopped, it would be “surpassed” by various attempts at doing video game award shows in the future. For example, the now-defunct channel Spike TV had a video game award show back in the early 2000s, and that’s what would eventually become The Game Awards that we have now. That one is run by Geoff Keighley, who has basically cornered the market on American productions featuring video games, for better and for worse.
The next edition of his show is tonight, and there are many questions about what will happen in it. Specifically, they’re trying to predict what “weird event” will happen in it, but we digress. Weirdness aside, today is the 10th anniversary of The Game Awards, so if nothing else, this show has lasted, and it continues to honor those who make great games.
