The National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviewers Corp recently held their 11th annual awards ceremony, where many large platform games were pitted against their microscopic counterparts. For example, the monster award winning Skyrim was placed in the same category for Game of the Year against smaller games like Minecraft. So what’s the big deal? The big deal here is that Minecraft actually won.
If Minecraft were to win an award, the most successful independent video game of the year sounds more like it. Even an award for most extensive development of an arcade title would have been appropriate and respectable. Minecraft as the game of the year, though? The non-profit organization tried awarding lower profile games with some appreciation via random awards. The awards categories were more loaded than the Oscars. Little more was accomplished than the degradation of the nominee losers, the award winners, and mostly the site’s credibility.
Everyone loves a good underdog tale, so why pick on Minecraft? After all, it’s an inspiring story of a small town kid who finally made it in the big city. Unfortunately, though, awarding a GOTY award to a PC indie turned arcade game, especially against games like Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City, is either poor award categorizing or great pot stirring. The real question from NAVGTR’s awards is who didn’t win an award, with its whopping 55 award categories.
Over 600 poor misguided testers placed their votes for these awards. The basis behind the award selection is that game testers test, so they know how to determine real winners. Quoting the site directly, “More than any other professional group in the industry, testers spend the most time playing games and are therefore most apt to evaluate them on a technical level with intense detail or analysis.”
What deems someone more apt to evaluate a game when they’re the only ones not playing it for entertainment value? Perhaps some of the technical award categories could be best determined by a tester, but obviously not all the categories. Apparently testers also believe Alice: Madness Returns had a better art direction than Little Big Planet 2. The majority of the awards were designed with the winner in mind, and the other nominees were awkwardly chosen to create the category.
After seeing these “awards”, perhaps the Spike ones aren’t so bad after all.
5 Comments
Haha, what a sham.
Why are all game reward shows such jokes? It really just bolsters the industry not being serious enough.
I don’t get why it suddenly gets recognized when it’s been around years before. Even if it was in beta, you could still do much of the same stuff, and that’s build whatever your mind wants.
Which I believe is the only draw to this game. *shrugs* Just sayin…
I’ve put more hours into Minecraft than any other game, ever. Minecraft is better than Skyrim. The reason Minecraft could go up against Skyrim in 2012 (instead of whatever 2011′s big game was) was because the official release was in fall.
Minecraft is by no means a small game. The volume of content is almost overwhelming, especially if you let your imagination run wild in the creative side. If you mean small by audience, it’s sold well over 5 million copies. Sure, that’s 50% of Skyrim, but that’s still a ridiculous number of copies.
Also, what on earth does “PC indie turned arcade game” mean? XBLA?
Here’s the thing. Skyrim plays in the same world as Binding of Isaac, Minecraft, Waves, Terraria, and any number of other indie darlings. Many of these games don’t have the same scope but do have more craft in their focus on a specific gameplay hook and visual theme. Skyrim is excellent, sure, but I put more time into Terraria and would choose it over Skyrim in a heartbeat.
So, keeping that in mind, explain why Skyrim is better than Minecraft and how Minecraft doesn’t deserve to compete at the same level as Skyrim. Right now you’re presenting this as a given, and it really isn’t.
Your question is easily answered. Yes, Minecraft is the better game. And unlike you, I will not let it rest on assumptions. I have been an elder scrolls fan ever since Morrowind filled me with wonder, whispering promises of an open world full of interaction and a natural way of evolving your character. The next two parts felt like cash-ins. Sacrificing researching innovation of the openness and possibilities of the in game environment to just better graphics dumbed down and glossed up a potentially great series. In Skyrim I grew bored quickly seeing no potential for finding a great new story, but only the most restrictive character evolution system yet, despite the pretty final fantasyesque upgrade chart, which sure looked pretty.
Just a few days ago, I decided on clicking on the minecraft ad and seeing what the fuzz was about, knowing the xbox version to be a bitesized version of the real thing. I was amazed as this simple game filled me with wonder again as Morrowind did, pointing me at the future of the open world genre. No more searching the area for something thats usable. It all is. This is much more than a kids in the sandboxgame, this is a youngster in a collegelaboratorygame. This is one of the big steps forward and if one guy kan reboot and upgrade a genre, I wonder what a team as big and rich as Bethesda could do if dared to step up to this level.
By the way, I happen to know gametesters and have been one on occasion and trust me, they do not suddenly lose the joy of gaming when receiving a paycheck.