Okay Geek Farm
Geoff Keighley on Hardcore Gamer's Criticism of the VGA's
Ricardo Trejo
The rage is a bit understandable, coming from a fellow gamer's standpoint – feeling like their precious hobby, or obsession, is being stripped naked out in front of everyone with little care as to the sanctity of it all. Whether it's 4chan, NeoGaf, or the chat rooms off of various blogs and websites, everyone has a voice and it's either a resounding, “Hell yeah!11! Halo & Madden!!” or “WTF am I watching?”
I caught up with Mr. Keighley during a CES panel where he addressed the backlash:
"The (gamers) watch, and they DO care, but they get “frustrated” - It's a good point though. I think we bring more value if we give them first looks and premieres to the games that they care about. Yes, there is other entertainment content around it, but I think it's a lot better than it was years ago when there would be celebrities just for the sake of celebrities - at least everyone now has a connection to gaming in some sort of way.
But when you want to have a sort of mainstream kind of value - because that show would not work if it was just for hardcore gamers. It's not going to reach 100 million viewers on Spike. What the gamers don't realize is that Snoop Dogg performing is not anti-gaming. You may not like everything on the show, but that's why it's more of a variety show. Much like gamers don't like all the premieres, and say that premiere sucks - you have to give us a little, to get a little back. If the show was just THAT; developers giving awards to developers, it's not going to go beyond the core gamer. Yes, gaming is big, but the reason why that show works is because the publishers and advertisers see that it's for a bigger audience.
Gamers are super gradient and will always find a reason to bitch about stuff no matter what. And yeah, that show is always a challenge no matter what we do since we have so many complaints."
And when I asked him about what gamers could do to get their voice heard on the show:
"Fans voted this year, it was all fan voting this year – it wasn't publicized well enough. Y'know we try to get fans more involved and have a voice inside of the show. And yeah, it's just all about the perception of it and the challenge with that show is that we've been going it for seven years and the sort of baggage from the previous years has stayed with us. And it's like no matter how good it is it will still be THAT show, that was not the show as not the show for gamers. So we almost need to reboot it, whereas my show, my weekly show, we don't get any of that because it was built from the ground up just for gamers, but with the VGA's I try to ask people 'if you didn't like the show then what is your ideal show?' And no one usually has any response.
It's a fair point though."
-Geoff Keighley, SpikeTV Host and Producer
As someone trying to sell a product, he knows who is watching and who isn't. Keighley knows the average gamers mentality, and it's true that gamers will watch even if they swear to hate it. It's mostly just to see what the hubub is all about, but then again these same people are two faced in every sense of the word - they're the ones who will pick up and hate the latest Zelda game, but will undoubtedly buy and play the next iteration on its midnight release.
