The "Oscar" of the game world
On December 10, 2021, the eighth TGA (the game awards) arrived as scheduled, and as the world's largest annual game awards conference, it was called the Oscar of the game world by players (of course, this is just the official statement). From its inception to its current best-known game award (not one of its kind), TGA has only spent eight years to have this achievement inseparable from its founder, Geoff Keighley. Since leaving the previous game show VGA (Spike Video Game Awards) in 2013, Jeff began to use his extensive connections in the game industry to attract sponsorship from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Valve, and the first TGA was finally held in 2014. Since then, the development of TGA has been rising, from 1.9 million views in 14 years, to 11 million in 17 years, and then to 83 million in 20 years.
Kojima and Jeff. Jeff has been in the game media circle for many years, and his contacts are rich, as can be seen from the investment of Noh to Mizoya and Villefort
There's a reason for TGA's success. Regardless of the controversy caused by TGA's selection criteria and selection results, TGA does have unique features compared to other awards in the promotion and commercialization of games. Compared to the previous VGA's confusion and unprofessionalism. TGA's venues and sponsorships are all about the game, and the atmosphere is full of atmosphere. Compared to the high and low scores of other game awards reviews, TGA is more like a grand gathering. The song skewers and game previews during the awards process make it more ornamental than other awards. These practices have undoubtedly greatly enhanced the spread of TGA, whether you are a core player or not, you can see some of the things you want to see. This is especially true in China, at least in the gaming space, where I've only seen TGA's live awards.
In fact, the TGA calls itself the Oscar of the game industry, which is not accurate, after all, the oscar is too famous. From the perspective of judging, the TGA, which is dominated by media reviews, is more like the Golden Globe Award in the game industry than like the Oscars. TGA's awards are mainly media reviews, supplemented by player reviews, while the Oscars are Academy Awards, and there are fundamental differences in the selection method. So who is the "Oscar" of the game world? (Regardless of authority, only the method of selection)
Metacritic's media rating is to collect most of the media ratings, and TGA, are all media-led scoring mechanisms, so for the TGA selection results, mc's game score has a high reference value
Awards you don't know about
The answer is the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTA Awards). Strictly speaking, this is currently the only academic game award in the game industry, organized by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Originally a film award, it has been established since 2004 with the development of the game industry, and it has been held for 17 years. BaFTA this award maintains a high degree of professionalism, compared to other awards, will pay more attention to the quality of the game itself rather than the commercial value of the game. For example, in 2016, Overwatch swept the major awards, but BAFTA gave the game of the year to Shenhai 4. But the popularity of this award in China is too low, and you can only see the news of this award when Steam has discounts on related games.
When Steam is promoting games, you can often see this mask logo
In addition to the academic school, there are also awards jointly awarded by developers, which is the GDC (Game Developers Conference) that began in 1988. Fundamentally, this is a development exchange conference of developers within the game, not an awards ceremony. The convention usually lasts about 4 to 5 days and is held in San Francisco every spring. Awards are not the key at the conference, where a variety of strange technologies, hardware, games and ideas are gathered and exchanged. Because it is an internal communication activity, the content shared is more technical and relatively small. In Terms of time, the selection of March is much later than the annual awards of various games, and the impact may not be as good as that of TGA, but the significance of the GDCA awards is that it is more inclined to the internal choices and awards of developers, and its IGF focusing on independent games is also more inclined to the experimental game experience with a smaller audience. Niche, groundbreaking games shine even more here.
The search results on the b station are all lectures during the conference, the exchange and collision of ideas in GDC is the focus, and the awards are only mutual affirmations between the big guys
Having said all that, there is no mention of awards that are judged by the player. The Golden Joystick Awards should be the most well-known award after the TGA, in which the winning games are voted entirely by players, and have a history of more than thirty years. In recent years, TGA has also created the "Voice of players" award to move in this direction. The popularity of this award in China is not high, and there is not even cooked meat in the award ceremony of station B.
The Golden Joystick Awards have been around for 37 years
From the perspective of its judging criteria, this will be more friendly to those games with a large player base, and there will also be cases such as ticket swiping. It's incredible that Protos can surpass Final Fantasy VII: Remake and Doomsday 2 in 2020 to compete in Game of the Year. For me, the authority of the golden joystick is not as great as the awards mentioned above. In this 2021 award, there was actually the "Ultimate Game Award in History", which showed me speechless at the time, do the people who set this award know the meaning of this name? No matter who the winning game is, the award can't really belong, and it's just a gimmick.
How great the Soul System is, how stupid the "Ultimate Game of All Time Award" is
Awards don't matter
Having said all that, each award is judged differently and has a different focus. But for now, there is no absolute authority in the game critics. After all, as far as the entire game industry is concerned, compared with other industries in the film and television industry and the clothing industry, the development time is too short. The game was really valued and began to develop for only two or three decades. Therefore, the relevant education, judging and media awards are not mature enough. Game design majors are now offered in only a few schools. In China, this situation is even more serious, and the boutique game has entered the public's vision after Steam entered China. So some say TGA pheasant, some say golden rocker pheasant. If you look at the requirements of the film and television industry, this statement is not a problem, but we still need these media and awards.
Although it is a declarative sentence, it always feels a little arrogant
We need these awards, to broaden and learn about games that we don't know about; to keep absorbing new members into this huge family. TGA may indeed not be professional enough, but it is lively enough to bring together people inside and outside the game circle, light and heavy players, and let us discuss the game enthusiastically. As far as the spread of the game is concerned, it has allowed more people to learn about the boutique game. But the result of its judgment is actually not important. No one will deny the greatness of "Last America 1", "Portal 2", and "Red Dead Redemption 2" because they did not win the award. Everyone has their own first, every game, and ultimately what needs is the approval of the players. Each game should be judged by the player after playing it. The media and the institutions just give us a better understanding of the game, and for us, any awards ceremony is just that.