It wasn't just a clown car with 90 clowns, it was a three ring circus. Not once was there mention of the nearly 6,200 positions lost by layoffs this year, at a time when gaming has never been more profitable.

This event needed a kid going up and being cringe at the end. At the end, it felt like the industry jerking itself off.

[–] TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 78 points 11 months ago

it felt like the industry jerking itself off

I mean, that's pretty much ALL awards shows

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 24 points 11 months ago

I don't know why people still watch these things. It's the same every year. There has never been a good gaming award show.

[–] avatar@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The event is a celebration - why would they bring up layoffs?

[–] Why9@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This isn't a show where CEOs get jerked off. It's not a celebration for the 1% at the top who get to smile and pick up an award after laying off hundreds of developers that earned them that trophy.

Developers make the games that are being awarded and shown off as "World Premiers". They get laid off right after launch as they're no longer needed once the crunch is over.

Acknowledging this would make the malpractice known to many of the viewers who are watching.

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Says who? Just because you (or others) don't want it to be a show where CEOs/higher ups get jerked off doesn't mean it's not. The vast majority of categories are awards for games, which is an award for the game company and those companies are owned by "higher ups". The people who end up owning most of the awards will be the CEOs/higher ups. The show is very much about jerking off those CEOs/higher ups.

Which means you can't bring up the shitty things they do because next time Bungie will refuse to partake (not that their nomination wasn't a complete joke because they laid off the community managers who got them that nomination). CDPR loves to crunch so they might skip it next time, which would be a much bigger thing considering they actual won something. The show will never address the big issues in gaming because that's not what the show is about and those issues are not for the people who the show wants to impress. Kojima is a huge name in the industry and a close friend of Geoff, and you could see Keighley shitting his pants live on air trying to bring light to the shitty behavior of Konami. If such a big name already makes him shit his pants then I don't see how him doing anything of the sorts for anyone less than Kojima.

Let's just stop pretending like the show is supposed to be anymore more than vanity event to make important people feel like they're important. Not to mention year after year the show feels more like a vessel to feed you ads. You can't even give people time to give their speech, but there's always time to shove ads down our throat?

[–] Why9@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Ok I misspoke. This shouldn't be a show where CEO's get jerked off.

When a game gets an award, it rewards the entire process, from planning till release, with all the numerous developers coming together to make that vision a reality. Starfield didn't get any recognition, neither did Call of Duty, Overwatch 2 or the many other games that fester with malpractices. Sure, the CEO will pick up the award, but to get there you need to do things right. It's difficult to stand up on the stage as a truly scumbag company.

E3 died because companies pulled out. If there's enough community backlash to these events, and people stop actually appearing to pick up their awards or stop allowing their games to appear on TGA (and all you see on there are indie games and smaller studios), TGA will have the music played for them and be told to "wrap it up".

When the allegations against Blizzard came to light, they were banned from appearing at TGA, and could only be nominated. I do think Geoff is aware of the public perception of the show and is trying to balance making money, and giving time to winners. What happened to Neil was unfortunate as he was one of the first winners and Geoff Keighley did say he found people had too little time to talk and stopped enforcing it as the show went on.

I don't understand your point about Kojima. Isn't him calling out the company precisely what he should do? Sure, he needs to do it tactfully, but I don't see anything wrong with his delivery. That he sequed into a musical performance was hilarious and actually pretty cool.

I do agree with you about the ads though. The OD segment was far, far too long, for what wasn't even a teaser. I still don't understand what Gonzo was doing there, and the Alan Wake musical number (as well as the Hell blade 2 one) were fun, sure, but I'll take longer speeches over those anyday. The show is not without fault but it's the public who vote on the winners and make it what it is. I'm sure there's enough discourse this year about his failings for him to fix things next year, and I'm sure he'll address them.

What I'm concerned about though, is the lack of AAA titles. "World Premiere" seemed a bit grandiose a term to use for many of the titles shown. Everyone was waiting for Elden Ring, Titanfall, a surprise Nintendo announcement or, hell, a Fallout New Vegas remake maybe? Something?

We got Monster Hunter Wilds as the only really big game there. Light no Fire and Hellblade 2 are good offerings from established devs but hardly headliners. Major studios still don't think TGA is a platform worthy of their products and if public perception doesn't drastically improve, it may never be.