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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The Game Awards Thread (2020)

 

What cringe are you excited about?

Confusing game trailers 4 15.38%
 
A game you like winning t... 1 3.85%
 
Josef Fares going insane once again 4 15.38%
 
Geoff Keighley looking uncomfortable 9 34.62%
 
Hydrobot’s Revenge 1 3.85%
 
Awkward backstage attendee interviews 0 0%
 
Cliff Bleszinski insulting PC gamers 0 0%
 
Hideo Kojima barred entry once again 1 3.85%
 
Watching someone use a VR and actin’ a fool 0 0%
 
The unknown cringe 6 23.08%
 
Total:26
sales2099 said:
DonFerrari said:

I'se seem more hubris from people hating TLOU2 than bragging about it in this thread.

Well it’s a divisive game. It split its own community in half with the treatment of Ellie and Joel. And then you have people who didn’t like the left wing aspects in general. That’s on Druckman imo. 

Is the actual goty thread different at least? I didn’t go there but I assume it’s more positive in its dedicated area.

Can you please explain what’s the left wing aspect in general like if I’m a two years old



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shikamaru317 said:
Jpcc86 said:

Alternatively, they really should take away that 10% voting power the audience has in the future. Giving audiences any voting power is a joke in my eyes.

Why would they do that? If it's just the critics voting, it's like the many other awards out there, so what is the point then? The audience needs real power to decide what wins awards. If it's just critics then it's even worse than the government, at least with the government we get to vote to elect our politicians who will then be voting for us, but game critics aren't voted in by the general population, they don't represent us. Critics like what they like, which is often very different from what general audiences like. It's the same way with movie critics, they have proven time and again that they don't represent what the general audience likes with their review scores and award shows. 

There is a category that is purely voice of gamers, and this one can be affected by public opinion as well since if two games are very close among critics the public opinion would give a ledge.

sales2099 said:
DonFerrari said:

I'se seem more hubris from people hating TLOU2 than bragging about it in this thread.

Well it’s a divisive game. It split its own community in half with the treatment of Ellie and Joel. And then you have people who didn’t like the left wing aspects in general. That’s on Druckman imo. 

Is the actual goty thread different at least? I didn’t go there but I assume it’s more positive in its dedicated area.

The community got split because well, some people really over react.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

kazuyamishima said:
sales2099 said:

Well it’s a divisive game. It split its own community in half with the treatment of Ellie and Joel. And then you have people who didn’t like the left wing aspects in general. That’s on Druckman imo. 

Is the actual goty thread different at least? I didn’t go there but I assume it’s more positive in its dedicated area.

Can you please explain what’s the left wing aspect in general like if I’m a two years old

Oh don’t listen to little old me, I got no horse in this race. 

Buuuut based on what I read online, people didn’t like that a strong, unreasonably muscled (given the world state how she can get enough daily protein for that body is almost impossible), possibly transgender lead character was shoehorned in as the spotlight over fan favourites Ellie and Joel. To summarize: the progressive message mattered more then what fans wanted. 

Something like that, but take it up with your own people. I never played this game nor plan to. 

Last edited by sales2099 - on 11 December 2020

Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

shikamaru317 said:
Jpcc86 said:

Alternatively, they really should take away that 10% voting power the audience has in the future. Giving audiences any voting power is a joke in my eyes.

Why would they do that? If it's just the critics voting, it's like the many other awards out there, so what is the point then? The audience needs real power to decide what wins awards. If it's just critics then it's even worse than the government, at least with the government we get to vote to elect our politicians who will then be voting for us, but game critics aren't voted in by the general population, they don't represent us. Critics like what they like, which is often very different from what general audiences like. It's the same way with movie critics, they have proven time and again that they don't represent what the general audience likes with their review scores and award shows. 

If the point is to award what public likes, why not use sales instead? 

I doubt even 10% of people who bought any of those games bothered to vote, in reality most of them must not be even aware of gaming award shows, so how can a intenet poll be a true representation of what public likes ?

Of course, be prepared to see Call of Duty winning on yearly basis because that's what general public likes



shikamaru317 said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

If the point is to award what public likes, why not use sales instead? 

I doubt even 10% of people who bought any of those games bothered to vote, in reality most of them must not be even aware of gaming award shows, so how can a intenet poll be a true representation of what public likes ?

Of course, be prepared to see Call of Duty winning on yearly basis because that's what general public likes

If that was the case, CoD would have won people’s choice this year, but it didn’t, Tsushima won. Just because CoD games sell well doesn’t mean that most of the gaming population thinks CoD is Game of the Year.

I find myself in the middle here. I do think we can't base it off sales, as the hordes of youths playing mind numbing games would skew it. I find critics just as problematic in the other direction when they tend to favor "artistic" games as opposed to ones that really made an impact on the market.

It's like all those small movie festivals, hardly any of those winners make a splash or are noticed by the people yet they win their little awards. What I'd like is the middle ground. Have it based on a gamer poll (not critic), but they have to be at least in their mid 20's to vote and have to have played multiple systems/platforms over their life so far.



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shikamaru317 said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

If the point is to award what public likes, why not use sales instead? 

I doubt even 10% of people who bought any of those games bothered to vote, in reality most of them must not be even aware of gaming award shows, so how can a intenet poll be a true representation of what public likes ?

Of course, be prepared to see Call of Duty winning on yearly basis because that's what general public likes

If that was the case, CoD would have won people’s choice this year, but it didn’t, Tsushima won. Just because CoD games sell well doesn’t mean that most of the gaming population thinks CoD is Game of the Year.

Well on that note, seems PS fans are the bulk of voters. If we give the audience more sway PS exclusives will win every year. So in that regard, maybe a panel of judges isn’t the worst thing in the world. 



Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

shikamaru317 said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

If the point is to award what public likes, why not use sales instead? 

I doubt even 10% of people who bought any of those games bothered to vote, in reality most of them must not be even aware of gaming award shows, so how can a intenet poll be a true representation of what public likes ?

Of course, be prepared to see Call of Duty winning on yearly basis because that's what general public likes

If that was the case, CoD would have won people’s choice this year, but it didn’t, Tsushima won. Just because CoD games sell well doesn’t mean that most of the gaming population thinks CoD is Game of the Year.

No, it means gaming population is not aware or doesn't care for award shows, only a minority on internet cares enough to vote 

Ghost of Tsushima isn't the pick of general gaming community, but the pick of the small part of gaming community who cares for awards 



Dulfite said:

Have it based on a gamer poll (not critic), but they have to be at least in their mid 20's to vote and have to have played multiple systems/platforms over their life so far.

So essentially making a critics panel out of people who think they are better than other gamers. Genius

The answer for me is none. Awards must be voted by people who works in the industry. It means devs, essentially, but also designers, graphic artists, musicians, voice actors, screenplay writers and I wouldn't mind people from other industries that are similar like comic artists or animation producers. Critics could be included, the keyword is what is the criteria to sign them, having a random blog isn't enough 

In essence, people who understands how to make games. That's how grammy panel is choose, everyone who is a singer, songwriter, producer, music engineer, etc etc who has show some proficiency in the field can become a Grammy affiliated

Also, not everybody vote to all categories on the Grammys, some people vote only on their own field. Keeping the same energy, makes sense for voice actors vote mainly in voice acting performance categories meanwhile designers vote mainly on design related categories 

My only concern about that is music albums can be done with 10 to 30 people even if the biggest productions of the year. Even if everybody votes in their own album it will hardly overcome the more than 10k votes in the whole community 

Meanwhile for games big dev teams can easily manipulate results if they vote politically to favor their own studios. They would need a rule to limit the number of affiliates working on the same studio



IcaroRibeiro said:
Dulfite said:

Have it based on a gamer poll (not critic), but they have to be at least in their mid 20's to vote and have to have played multiple systems/platforms over their life so far.

So essentially making a critics panel out of people who think they are better than other gamers. Genius

The answer for me is none. Awards must be voted by people who works in the industry. It means devs, essentially, but also designers, graphic artists, musicians, voice actors, screenplay writers and I wouldn't mind people from other industries that are similar like comic artists or animation producers. Critics could be included, the keyword is what is the criteria to sign them, having a random blog isn't enough 

In essence, people who understands how to make games. That's how grammy panel is choose, everyone who is a singer, songwriter, producer, music engineer, etc etc who has show some proficiency in the field can become a Grammy affiliated

Also, not everybody vote to all categories on the Grammys, some people vote only on their own field. Keeping the same energy, makes sense for voice actors vote mainly in voice acting performance categories meanwhile designers vote mainly on design related categories 

My only concern about that is music albums can be done with 10 to 30 people even if the biggest productions of the year. Even if everybody votes in their own album it will hardly overcome the more than 10k votes in the whole community 

Meanwhile for games big dev teams can easily manipulate results if they vote politically to favor their own studios. They would need a rule to limit the number of affiliates working on the same studio

Isn't that basically what the Game Developers Choice Awards are? Not every awards show has to be exactly the same. Different shows have different groups doling out the awards and there is nothing wrong with that. 



Warning: long read.

I think I'm gonna jump right into the debate of what should be taken into account when rewarding video games or any other kind of artistic or cultural product.

First of all, absolutely everything that I'm going to say here is of course subjective, because it's only my opinion and opinions are only true to people who have them, but they are as false as they can possibly be to other people with their own different opinions. This is obvious, but I want to leave it written here because it's also partially relevant to some of the things I'm going to say. So let's go.

The way I see it, neither sales nor the audience opinion should ever, by any means, be taken into account in an awards ceremony or any other event or festival showcasing products whose quality is to be rewarded with some kind of prize or recognition (the exception, for obvius reasons, being any especific award that is expressly thought to represent the public opinion). Why so? I'll start with sales.

Simply put, sales are a terrible way to measure quality. There may be lots of books, movies, music albums or video games that are real masterpieces and never get mainstream nor have a big impact on consumer's habits, and there may also be real pieces of crap created by very untalented people that sell tons of units. Those are the extreme cases, and also the hardest ones to find, but, in the middle, there is a wild variety of grey: products of (very/not so) good quality that sell more or less bad, products of (very/not so) good quality that sell more or less well, products of (very/not so) poor quality that sell more or less well and products of (very/not so) poor quality that sell more or less bad.

Hence, with such a vast spectrum, how can we possibly use sales to measure quality? Sure, a best-selling product has probably made a huge impact in society, but the big question is, is that what's being rewarded? In a category that would especifically evaluate the impact that a product has had, then surely so. And, in that case, sales would indeed be of extreme relevance and usefulness. But that doesn't apply when we're deciding if a certain product is the best in some artistic or technical category, or the best overall. What we're measuring there is quality, not impact, and sales have little to nothing to do with that.

In fact, if a person comes to me trying to sell me, let's say, a book, and the only reason or one of the reasons that person uses to make me buy that book is that a lot of people have already bought it, I'll probably not buy it. If you really want to sell me the book, then talk me about what the book is trying to tell me, including not only the story, but the overall content (topics, points of view, etc.) that would make me consider buying it. Or talk me about how all that content is expressed: is it well written? Does it show proper use of the language and all its richness and resources? If so, then I may be interested in buying that person's book, but not because of how many people have paid for it so far.

That applies to other forms of art as well: if we're talking about music, the expertise when playing instruments or the sound of the voice matters a lot; if we're trying to measure the quality of a film instead, then illumination, acting, photography, FX, etc. come into play; and, if it's video games what we're evaluating, the depth and variety of the game mechanics, or how well the core loop is made, are very big points that we should consider.

However, who's actually, thoroughly and proactively, looking for all those technical aspects when consuming a certain artistic or cultural product? Following the book example, when someone is reading one, that person is generally not looking at every little detail in the text while exclaiming: "Oh, what an awesome asyndeton!", or "Wow, this alliteration is just magnificent!", or "Damn! This hyperbole is so well made that I wanna jerk off thinking about it!". No one does that, because all what people do instead is just enjoying the product they have in their hands.

Of course, there are many people who may sometimes think of how well played an instrument is in a certain song, or how well a certain scene looks in a movie, or how well implemented a mechanic is in a game. But, as a general rule, they aren't puposedly searching for anything of that when listening to a song, watching a movie or playing a game. They're just enjoying it.

And that leads me to my second point, which is the reason why I don't think the audience opinion should be taken into account on events that reward the quality of certain products: people tend to think that what they like is good and what they dislike is bad, so the more they enjoy something, the better it is for them, and vice versa. But that's not necessarily true, and here's where my initial statement comes into play: our opinions are only true to us (what I'm writing now is probably a bunch of bullshit for a lot of people), and those opinions that are only true to us are also influenced by a lot of external factors that are completely irrelevant to the quality of the product, like our taste, our mood at a specific moment, our political views, our passion for a brand or even something as arbitrary as our love or hate for another person who happens to (dis)like the product we're consuming.

That, of course, is also true when it comes to some decision-makers who, in whatever event, decide that a product is the best at something, but the difference is that, when we let other people reward an artistic or cultural product, we're assuming that those people are able to put all their biases aside when measuring quality. Of course, their opinion is still there and it is what it is: just an opinion, therefore subjective, but at least they can (theoretically) have a more complete picture than most of us, because they have (presumably) dived deeper into all those aspects and little details that we usually just take into account superfluously or even overlook altogether.

Whether those decision-makers really put their biases aside and have a more complete picture of what they are evaluating or not is something I don't know; it would be arguable at least. And that's why I never care about any awards ceremony: since I don't know anything about the professionalism of the decision-makers and I don't have any means to know about it, I just don't give a damn.

But, even if those people are not being professional, adding the audience opinion into the formula is not going to improve the results by any means; on the contrary: if those results are already shallow and biased (which, as I just said, I don't know), with the general public votes they would be even shallower and more biased. So, in the end, that would only make bad what is good and worse what is bad.

Also, as a side note (although I have to admit that this is what made me join the debate in the first place =P), I'd like to add something in relation to this, using this statement as the base for my argument:

It's like all those small movie festivals, hardly any of those winners make a splash or are noticed by the people yet they win their little awards.

For a product that has already had a big impact, as it could be a Hollywood blockbuster, prizes don't matter beyond the extra recognition and money that comes with them. But, for little products or people who have no means to generate a big impact, those little awards can mean the difference between failure and success. Being a winner or even a nominee in a certain festival or event raises talk and gives visibility, and many people who wouldn't have shown any interest on a certain product (or get to know of its existance in the first place) may give it a chance and even like it, just because of it being a winner/nominee at that event.

So, even if I don't particularly like these awards ceremonies, I think sometimes they can be useful and play a positive role in giving little works the spotlight, even if just for a few hours or days. Not always, but sometimes. And that's another good reason why sales shouldn't be taken into account when choosing the winner or nominees for an awards ceremony (and with this I come full circle): because you leave out many products that not only deserve to be there, but can also take good advantage of being there.

TL;DR: the way I see it, neither sales nor the audience opinion should be taken into account in an awards ceremony, for reasons. Also, my opinion is entirely and deeply susceptible to be bullshit.

Last edited by Verter - on 12 December 2020

I'm mostly a lurker now.