To Vote or Not to Vote
Monday, 24 January 2011
Today I voted in the Game Developer's Choice Awards (good luck Minecraft!) and declined to vote in the 14th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. This was because the latter event (unlike the former) would not allow me to abstain in any category - I had to pick a candidate to vote for in each category, even if my choice was between games I have not played and games I did not want to win. What am I supposed to do in such a situation - vote for a game I know nothing about, or pick one at random? Neither is appealing.
I'm afraid I tend to despise these industry award ceremonies because they provide trophies for games that have already acheived phenomenal commercial success. I have no interest in determining which 100 million dollar project gets a cup to go with their big pile of money. When the industry has an awards event which, like IGF, allows games to be judged on their merits and not on their notoriety sign me up as a judge. Until then, I will continue to register a lot of abstentions, and decline to vote when I am not allowed to abstain.
Interestingly, the IAA did allow me abstentions in some categories but not in others. I found that sort of odd.
Posted by: Clayton Hughes | Tuesday, 25 January 2011 at 05:55
Clayton: wow, I didn't realise. I guess I must have abstained in one where I "wasn't allowed" to abstain... It put me in a bad mood yesterday morning, hence this post. :)
But I do dislike award ceremonies that are naturally dominated by what is already commercially successful. The one saving grace of the Oscars is that they actually do allow some marginal films with artistic merits to enjoy box office success that otherwise would not have done so.
Thanks for noting about the abstention weirdness!
Posted by: Chris | Tuesday, 25 January 2011 at 10:12
As a player, there aren't ANY industry awards of any kind that I take seriously, for many of the same reasons as you.
Posted by: Rik Newman (Remy77077) | Thursday, 27 January 2011 at 18:54
Rik: the fact is, it would be hard to do a videogame award properly. But if you aren't going to do it properly, as a critical assessment, it just becomes an empty popularity contest and I just don't see the point.
Best wishes!
Posted by: Chris | Tuesday, 01 February 2011 at 11:06