Last Saturday, I purposefully hurt myself. I tuned to Spike TV, a network I never watch, to check out the Spike Video Game Awards. I knew what I was getting into, but rather than rage against the banality of television, I decided to try to take the high road. Just before the live show aired I proclaimed on Twitter that I was only going to live blog nice things about the VGAs. My experiment was a difficult one. Like most people, Iâm wired for snark and thereâs plenty to bitch about on this show. But bagging on the VGAs is like shooting fish in a barrel. Itâs an easy target. And piling on a shriveled gimp like the VGAs is boring as hell.
As I suspected, my Twitter feed was abuzz with two hours of gripes. People moaned about the jokes. They complained that not enough awards were handed out. And they griped that one of the developers from Infinity Ward got teabagged. These are all valid. People are entitled to their opinions. Even the boring ones.
But tuning into the VGAs and being appalled is like stepping up to a lunch counter, ordering a shit sandwich, and then complaining that your meal tastes like poo.
The awards show is the single most artless form of communication. Theyâre stilted, stiff and generally boring. Spikeâs attempts to liven up these proceedings arenât terribly effective, but I understand why they tried. Serious awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards are only interesting to the people who made the games and the few fans who care enough about games to know who made the games they like. That is not a big audience. And awards shows such as this arenât fit for television. Theyâre just too long and too nerdy. And, most importantly, there are no celebrities in videogames.
More Pretension +1 from Gus Mastrapa at Unwinnable
⢠Bullshit Vs. The Thing Weâre After â People are willing to forgive a ton of bullshit once theyâve found, zeroed in on and starting soaking in the thing theyâre after. This is why one person can love a game like Skyrim while the same game drives another person batshit crazy.â
⢠Searching For Something Shared â I held out hope that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Worldwould help unify the gamer tribe. But, predictably, we fractured and fought.â
⢠I Am In Love With The Binding of Isaac â To me the true revelation of The Binding of Isaac is how wholly it merges theme and gameplay. The plot and mechanics are interwoven with such imagination and intelligence that Iâm convinced that Edmund McMillen is some kind of mad, broken genius.â
People donât watch the Oscars, the Emmys or the Grammys because they love to watch the distribution of statuettes. They watch these interminable, corny, lowest-common-denominator ceremonies to catch glimpses of their favorite celebrities. Thatâs why they donât broadcast the dozens of technical Oscars that are handed out. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of below-the-line tech folks deliver thank you speeches. Sadly, nearly everyone who makes videogames is the equivalent of cinemaâs unsung tech heroes. One of the biggest failings of the videogame industry is that very few people are famous for making games.
It is a miracle that a network would allow a show to spotlight these no-names for even a moment. The world just doesnât care. And no award show, no matter how serious and respectful, is going to change their minds. Maybe Iâm getting old, but Iâm over crusading for change where change seems impossible. Hollywood isnât going to stop making bullshit summer movies. The music industry isnât suddenly going to put millions of dollars behind making Mike Patton the worldâs most famous male vocalist. Television isnât going to, totally out of the blue, start being really smart and thoughtful.
Your favorite TV show is a minor miracle. The people who made that show awesome had to climb uphill, fending off advertiser influence and bonehead executives, just to make that show as smart and entertaining as it is. And then they had to hope and pray that the dimwitted American public would respond to ads, tune in and make that show a profitable enterprise. Our culture is stacked to coarsen, ruin and dumb down anything smart, provocative or beautiful.
Just this week I tuned in to the cable network Bravo â which was once a channel that broadcast opera and classical music â to find them airing the marijuana comedy Friday. On the sci-fi channel, I recently caught an episode of The Prophets of Science Fiction that dealt with the visionary author Philip K. Dick. Over the course of a half hour the show told me precisely three things about the author and repeated them over and over just in case I was too brain-damaged to absorb them. We are trapped in the world of Idiocracy and thereâs no escape. You can hammer your fists on the walls of this stupid cage until theyâre bloody, but you wonât change a thing.
Iâm done with rage. I spent most of my 20s railing against anything and everything I deemed beneath my superior intellect. It was exhausting. And, frankly, Iâm amazed that I didnât bore my friends to death. I approve of those who chose to ignore shit that is beneath them. Theyâre most surely the happier people. And they donât subject the rest of their world to their whining.
The third option is the most noble and the most difficult. And that is to infiltrate and change the system from the inside out. I truly believe that there are people working on the Spike VGAs that are trying to do just that. It isnât easy to make good TV. And it is even harder to make good TV about games. Iâve been a fly on the wall during attempts to make eSports work on broadcast. And I know enough people at G4 to know that the solution to our TV problem isnât as simple as everybody thinks. But theyâre trying.
Thatâs why the Spike VGAs has a few smart moments, a few minor miracles. What other TV show is going to give airtime to Wheatley from Portal 2 or devote five minutes to Jose Gonzalez performing âFar Awayâ from the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack?
Iâd rather support the rogue agents who made these moments happen and encourage them to keep fighting the good fight than shit on them (and score a few feeble points for myself) because somebody chose the wrong color for a health potion.
Itâs okay if youâre mad about the VGAs. Congratulations on your bold opinion. Have you considered speaking out against cancer and murder? When youâre through telling the world how smart and tasteful you are, please join us. Weâve got a ton of more interesting stuff to talk about.
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Pretension +1 is weekly column by Gus Mastrapa about the culture of videogames. If you enjoy being told youâre wrong youâll absolutely love it.
Gus Mastrapa is a freelance game critic who contributes to Kill Screen, The A.V. Club, Unwinnable and many other fine publications.
Republished with permission.
