John Walker's Electronic House

Game Media Awards

by on Oct.10, 2007, under The Rest

Tomorrow night the first Games Media Awards are to be presented, in a rather busy London affair dragging half the games journalism industry into its vortex. (The awards remarkably don’t have a website to link to).

Now, I’ve not been nominated in any category, which isn’t too much of a surprise. For all I do, it tends to be the smaller stuff that doesn’t get the fanfares, and apparently there isn’t a category for budget sections. This does, however, afford me the luxury of being able to make moral judgments without having to live up to them myself.

At the time the awards were announced, Kieron described them as prisoners voting for their favourite guard. I’d take this a bit further, and say it was rather more like criminals voting for their favourite judge. These are awards voted for by the publishers and PRs of videogames, and thus people not really in the most sensible position to be voting for who is best at writing about games.

Of course, everyone involved could very well be utterly pure in all their decisions, voting not for those journalists who haven’t pissed them off/refused their game a cover/given their game a bad score, but for those whose writing has impressed them, in their amateur opinion, the most. I fear that even were this the absolute case, it’s going to be very hard for everyone to believe it.

As such – and again I say this with the luxury of not being in the position myself – I urge people who win to refuse their award. It’s lovely to win stuff (I’d imagine), and any recognition – in an industry where a compliment is as rare as a unicorn – is enormously welcome. But this award carries a weight.

Most of all, I just don’t get why publishers and PRs have decided to vote for awards based on writing skill. Shall they next be voting for the best greengrocers at the Greengrocer Awards, because they eat fruit and vegetables?

My motivation for writing this isn’t because I’m bitter not to be nominated. I’m relieved, because I’d be frightened to put myself to the test, never having won anything, and liking the idea of people giving me trophies because I worked hard. But these aren’t the right people to be giving out these awards, and I worry about the damage to perceived credibility for those who do win.

PS. I want to add that I think a number of those nominated are very deserving of awards. I think writers like Tom Bramwell, Kieron Gillen and Jon Blyth deserve vast amounts of recognition, and all three are inspirations for me. I just want them to win other awards.


21 Comments for this entry

  • Tombola
    October 10th, 2007 on 17:29

    I don’t disagree on any particular point.

  • Leo
    October 10th, 2007 on 18:08

    You’re all like bah humbug, but yo, check it – I *TOTALLY* fucking voted for Tom Bramwell! HOW’D YOU LIKE THEM APPLES? See? I’m a PR and I still voted for the best writer, and not someone who asked me to. I’m keeping it real, yo.

    Of course, the other people now hate me for not voting for them, but I can beat all of them in a fight so I can do a Uwe Boll if I need to.

  • Leo
    October 10th, 2007 on 18:13

    Kieron shouldn’t get an award until he dies. Then he should get the biggest award possible. Until then, though, he shouldn’t get any appreciation whatsoever.

    I cannot justify that opinion, but I will back it up with lovemaking if I have to.

  • Tombola
    October 10th, 2007 on 18:59

    I assume that my thoughts on this are at least slightly perverted by the fact I’m nominated, but my argument to John earlier – which perhaps prompted his decision to write this – was that it is unfair to imply that the people who vote lack personal credibility on the basis that they are PRs, marketing men, or whoever.

    One interesting question this throws up is: what kind of awards system is fit to bestow credit upon journalists and critics? Journalists and critics themselves would be no less prone to accusations of bias, perhaps even more so. And surely having their audience vote is similarly naive: if the wealth of forums and comment pages around the Internet prove anything, surely it’s that the active element of the audience is dominated by people who only want to be told they’re right.

  • John
    October 10th, 2007 on 19:29

    I’d say anyone who isn’t financially invested in wanting the journalists to like them/their games.

  • John
    October 10th, 2007 on 19:48

    And the Dexter Award for Perhaps Most Likely To Provide Tuna goes to…

    Anyone who goes near him!

    Come everyone, come up and collect your award!

  • Leo
    October 11th, 2007 on 07:36

    Oh, Tombola is actually Tom Bramwell.

    ANYWAY, if you’re right, John, then the winner in each category will be whoever has the biggest readership. If it’s not, then you have been proven wrong and Dexter will have to pay the forfeit.

  • Andy Krouwel
    October 11th, 2007 on 12:19

    John, I’m surprised you have faith that there might be some kind of objective ‘best writer’ award.

    As a multiple award winning programmer I’ve developed a great deal of cynicism about how pretty much all publicised awards are judged. Winning something was generally seen as a victory for marketing, nothing to do with development.

    Having said that, I don’t agree that games writers are the only ones qualified to judge game writing. You write to be read, therefore readers should surely be the final judge. It’s a variation on the same moan that theatricals constantly aim at critics: ‘You can’t judge us, you don’t make plays’. Nonsense. A play is meant for an audience. A critic is an audience member. They don’t need to know how to make a play, just how to watch one.

    The judgement of writing should not be how it was written, it’s how reads.

    Non?

  • John
    October 11th, 2007 on 13:19

    I’ve never suggested for an *instant* that “games writers are the only ones qualified to judge game writing”!!

    I have, however, suggested that PRs and publishers of games are the LAST people who should be giving out such awards. I’m mystified how this read to anyone as, “No one’s good enough to judge my writing.”

    I went on to point out how once you remove any corrupt intentions from the ceremony, you’re left with the peculiar question of why this group has decided to give such awards. I’ve in no way suggested they are unable to judge – only asked, why the hell are they?

    An award voted for by readers – with no “professional” justification for their choices – with all its flaws, would be a lovely thing.

    I’m the VERY last person to be making such a moronic argument as the theatre example you give. I make my living by judging games that I could never have made in a million years.

    How on earth have you conflated my pointing out that people with a multi-million financial interest in wanting journalists to like them should not be presenting awards, with my suggesting that no one is good enough to judge writing?

  • Willem100
    October 11th, 2007 on 15:39

    “Kieron described them as prisoners voting for their favourite guard. I’d take this a bit further, and say it was rather more like criminals voting for their favourite judge”

    Wouldn’t the analogy be better if you said: “prisoners voting to pick the best guard” and “criminals voting to pick the best judge”? If you ask prisoners to vote for their favourite guard, they’ll do what they were asked. It’s a matter of choice, so they never really vote for the wrong candidate. If they were to vote for the best guard, they’d be expected to vote for the guard who is actually the best. Of course, here, it’s less subjective and they’ll vote for their favourite guard.

    See what I’m getting at?

    Sorry. :(

  • Rev. S Campbell
    October 11th, 2007 on 22:06

    “it is unfair to imply that the people who vote lack personal credibility on the basis that they are PRs, marketing men”

    Cough. I don’t want to come over too Bill Hicks here, but Isn’t that the DEFINITION of lacking personal credibility?

  • RAM Raider
    October 12th, 2007 on 01:21

    What I love about this post is if it had been on my blog, Walker would be first in the comments section bleating, “What? Corruption, stupidity and incompetence in the games industry? I have never, never, ever in my professional career encountered such a thing. Ever. Ever. EVER. You’re a cunt.”

    He’d be right about the last bit, though.

  • Rev. S Campbell
    October 12th, 2007 on 06:52

    Except, of course, that there’s no mention of corruption anywhere in the post. Or, come to that, stupidity or incompetence.

  • John
    October 12th, 2007 on 08:23

    If it had been on your blog Rammy, I’d have dropped dead of shock that you were posting a reasoned diatribe that actually met the remit you claim to exist for : )

    You know, rather than attacking the websites helplessly nominated by these cretinous awards for not being advert free, rather than the awards themselves.

  • Rev. S Campbell
    October 12th, 2007 on 09:26

    BEST PLAYSTATION MAGAZINE
    Official Playstation Magazine (Future)

    BEST NINTENDO MAGAZINE
    Official Nintendo Magazine (Future)

    BEST XBOX MAGAZINE
    Official Xbox Magazine (Future)

    BEST GAMES WRITER ON NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
    Steve Boxer (Guardian)

    Congratulations, Kieron and Tom. You’re truly part of the industry now.

  • Andy Krouwel
    October 12th, 2007 on 12:16

    It was this line that prompted my reponse:

    “Shall they next be voting for the best greengrocers at the Greengrocer Awards, because they eat fruit and vegetables?”

    Which seems to be stating that consumers shouldn’t be judging producers. Seemed like an odd thing to say, so I brought it up. Sorry if it sounded acusatory though, I should of course have used ‘one’ where I said ‘you’.

  • John
    October 12th, 2007 on 13:50

    It was about relevance, not ability. And was hardly the crux of my post.

  • Martin
    October 13th, 2007 on 11:07

    Bramwell and Gillen are both good writers and Eurogamer is a mighty fine website, so at least something not-awful came of this.

    Quoth Tombola: “it is unfair to imply that the people who vote lack personal credibility on the basis that they are PRs, marketing men, or whoever.”

    What what what? It’s totally fair to say that – not because chaps like Leo aren’t jolly good eggs and whatnot, but because their job presents a huge conflict of interest. I’m sure there are plenty of PRs who can put this aside, but I’m absolutely certain that there are plenty who can’t as well.

  • Tombola
    October 13th, 2007 on 16:02

    “What what what? It’s totally fair to say that – not because chaps like Leo aren’t jolly good eggs and whatnot, but because their job presents a huge conflict of interest. I’m sure there are plenty of PRs who can put this aside, but I’m absolutely certain that there are plenty who can’t as well.”

    I certainly don’t deny there are some PRs who won’t be able to put aside their loyalties and prejudices, I just don’t believe it’s an absolute. I wouldn’t like my reputation as a writer to hang on what the people I compete against do or say, for instance, and I don’t see too much of a distinction between arguing it does and arguing all PRs lack integrity.

    (That said, I did pick up food poisoning the night after I won, so perhaps it’s bigger than any of us understand.)

  • Rev. S Campbell
    October 13th, 2007 on 18:00

    Marketing people lie for a living. No matter how lovely they might be – and many are perfectly super people – that’s still their job. So it’s utterly fair to imply that they lack credibility. Of course, maybe you think that the three official magazines really are the best in their fields, in which case you can make the argument that they’re honest and accurate regardless. But otherwise, it’s a bit like saying that someone who opens fire randomly from a shopping-centre overpass with an assault rifle isn’t necessarily a bad person, on the grounds that he happened to hit a paedophile.

    Not giving EVERY award to a loathsome cunt is pretty much a pre-requisite for attaching any kind of credence to cynical “awards” events like this. The fact that some people who deserved awards got some here doesn’t change the core of what this event was about one iota, and John’s already done a pretty good job of identifying that. Credibility? Two words: Steve fucking Boxer.

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