It’s the question I’ve been asking myself for a while now… Has the Game of the Year award become as worthless as the Nobel Peace Prize? It is a bold question, but one that is worth exploring.
If you have been living in a cave or just don’t run with circles of people that discuss these things here it is for you. President Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. If you catch the video on YouTube you can hear the shock and awe reactions from the Nobel Press at 0:18. These are some serious reporters you hear shitting themselves. If you listen to the Nobel Committee spokesperson (and understand Norwegian) he states Obama wins because of his efforts to curb nuclear proliferation. If that’s the case where is the prize for Hideo Kojima and his work on the Metal Gear series? By the time the Nobel nominations had closed Kojima had accomplished more in this area than Obama.
This made me think, is Game of the Year primarily a popularity contest dominated by the new kids on the block? Every holiday season a gamers bank account shrinks while their wish list grows. It is the nature of the industry and the market to have the high point of the cycle near the holiday season but why do few GoTY titles drop in the first half of the year? Recently a few titles have attempted to buck the trend such as GTA IV or MGS4 last year, but in general the major release window is now, Q4. An amazing and memorable title worthy of GoTY should have staying power more than 6 months, hell more than 1 year! Plenty of people are still playing CoD4 and Fallout 3, both are considered GoTY material. I plan on playing Fallout 3 for many years to come thanks to the expansive world and available DLC. Next year should be interesting to test the memory of gamers and the media with so many major titles moved to Q1 and beyond such as Splinter Cell: Conviction, God of War 3, and Brink all considered GoTY material.
GoTY shouldn’t be driven by pure staying power, but it also isn’t a popularity contest. Every installment of the Halo or Call of Duty series is not GoTY material. Sacrilege to many gamer ears but let’s be honest, big names may help sales but they don’t always make titles the highest possible quality. GoTY worthy titles should comprised of certain key components such as value, originality, quality, and accomplishments or contributions.
According to the Nobel committee if you have enough potential you can win… by this logic Too Human should have claimed GoTY. We all know better than that. Instead of letting the popular choice win or going what could have been good or the +1 of the latest franchise I would like to see some real quality, rare titles as Game of the Year. The kind of game that is so awesome you bother trying to explain it to your clueless grandmother. The game you lose sleep over or dream about. That is the Game of the Year. Not the new kid who has “potential” but really just showed up to the party a few minutes ago and flashed a few smiles.
Great article Keith! I must say, I agree wholeheartedly.
Meh, it’s a weak award anyway. Regardless of when the game drops, the award almost ALWAYS ends up as the “Game of the Year that Had the Biggest Advertising Budget Along with the Best Branding Strategy- Oh, yeah, and also had Pretty Graphics”.
I think that’s the point of this entire article.
What Keith is saying here, is that GoTY would have more impact if it was about original content, and value, and NOT about the game with the biggest budget and pretty graphics.
They should wait for a year or so to give out the GoTY awards because by then everybody knows which games are the best and are still being played voraciously (like CoD:4). This is my same theory with not starting the college football Top 25 poll until October.
Are we talking IAA awards, by the way? Or any of the 453 GOTY’s given by magazines, websites, etc? Or some other? To beat a dead horse, severely, I’m gonna just say that no FPS should be eligible for any awards until people stop playing Counter Strike (1.6, especially). CS should be the de facto winner in the FPS catagory every year until it’s dead.