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I watched the Academy Awards for the first time, a few weeks ago. The MPAA's screener ban (instituted in part to cut down on indie competition, under the ruse of piracy prevention) had apparently backfired, as the 2003 nominees consisted of perhaps the most well-chosen bunch of the right movies, for the right awards, that the Academy had ever selected. I thought, hey. Why not.
After an hour and a half, three hundred commercials, Billy Crystal's singing, Billy Crystal's unfunny jokes, Billy Crystal's just-this-side-of-unkind remarks to Clint Eastwood and others, endless Hobbit awards, and Billy Crystal, I wandered away. I now thought I understood, first-hand, the general antipathy for award ceremonies.
With this in mind, I was unsure what to expect when I walked into the IGDA Game Developers Choice Awards. I had read about the Gunpei Yokoi ceremony the year before; that had sounded unconventional and sincere. Yet: it was still an awards ceremony. How long could I tolerate the pomp, I wondered.
As the three of us entered, late by the clock, a pair of large men pressed pamphlets for the Independent Games Festival (of which I had not previously heard), tickets for a raffle, and passes for a free T-shirt and two post-ceremonial drinks into our hands. The crowd steered us to the left; down a hallway that reminded me of the place backstage of where I used to have my dance recitals: fairly close, mostly fancy, a little grungy, and a lot long. At the end at the right, a doorway sliced into the hall, into a small auditorium. Tables and chairs filled the floor; people filled the tables and chairs and the stadium seating on both stories. Above either side of the stage, jumbo screens displayed the Awards logo; below, bartenders stirred. The show had not yet begun.
Barely a minute after the three of us found our seats, the lights dimmed, the smoke machines puffed, the spotlights spun, and a different show began than I thought I was there for. Rather than the expected Game Developers Choice Awards -- the ceremony where, in theory, the best contributions and contributors to the videogame industry are honored by their peers from around the world -- I was greeted by the Independent Games Festival awards. That would explain the pamphlet, then. It would also explain those curious low-budget games I had seen crammed into a corner of the show floor, earlier in the day. All right, then. I was familiar with warm-up acts. I could dig it.
I will not pretend to report the findings; neither Brandon nor I wrote them down, I had never before heard of any of the games, and if you are concerned I am sure you can dig up the results elsewhere. A game which seemed to involve microorganisms won a lot of awards. One winning team dressed up as pirates, and strode to the stage in character. Few were allowed speeches, which was probably just as well. One team seemed almost annoyed to be presented a commission by Cartoon Network, making what might have been an underhanded comment about what an opportunity it was to develop a Baby Stewie kart racer.
It was over soon enough; the GDC proper began about when it needed to, without a pause in the queue. The screens on either side of the stage flared with a professional-grade logo animation and fanfare. Scenes from perhaps a dozen of the year's most-acclaimed videogames wound together, to a jazzed-up version of the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme. A guy walked onstage. No, a pair of guys. Before they said much, they spent five minutes thanking every sponsor in turn -- revealing, to my surprise, that the classy logo animation and montage were provided by G4. If nothing else, those guys seem to have presentation down. Perhaps they do have a greater function.
The first several awards shot out with little delay: the Game Innovation Spotlight honor was presented to each of Sony's Eyetoy Play system, Capcom's Viewtiful Joe -- for revitalization of an old genre through a new visual style -- and Nintendo's Wario Ware, Inc.: Micro Megagame$. In all but the last case, the designers in question were present. Their speeches were short, and sincere. In place of the team from Nintendo R&D#1, however, Nintendo sent the American translator for Wario Ware up to accept the award. He spent his time emphasising that he would not pretend to have designed such an ingenious game -- a game unlike any other... aside from the four-player Gamecube edition, to be released later this year! Please anticipate it! Only Nintendo could bring you a game like this! Cute.
Rookie Studio of the Year award went to Infinity Ward for Call of Duty (a game I have maybe-purposely filtered out of my vision until now -- though that says more about me than the game itself). The well-considered Excellence in Writing award went to BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic. When I say the award is well-considered, I mean that this is a great category which I would expect to be overlooked. I am not so sure about KOTOR -- which, while enjoyable enough for its part, has yet to thrill me as much as BioWare's other games. Since I have not played any of the other nominees, however, I suppose it might as well get an award.
Somewhere around here, the procedings were interrupted by a lecture on game design by internet... presence Strong Bad. While his online escapades can be hit and miss, this episode was a decent success. His idea of a modern videogame involved feeding a hippo. This led into the award for best game design -- which, likely to the surprise of few, went to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. David Chateauneuf was direct in his acceptance speech: "I'd like to thank UbiSoft... because they're my company."
As well-considered as the writing category is, I do have some issues with the Excellence in Audio award. While most of the contenders this year (which, to the surprise of at least two members of the audience, did not include Akira Yamaoka for Silent Hill 3 were nominated on the basis of score or overall sound design, the winner -- Call of Duty again -- won for Chuck Russom's work on sound effects. As nice as the gunfire noises were in the clip shown, I wonder if the craft shown here is really comparable to that involved in music composition. In the future, I propose three different categories: One for effects or overall sound design; one for music; and one for acting. Brandon made the obvious joke when I suggested the third category ("what voice acting?") -- yet what if what good acting there is, were publicly honored as such? I like to think we might see an improvement, before long.
While we speaking of Akira Yamaoka, I am only now becoming aware of just how much control he has gained over the Silent Hill series. From mere (if inspired) composer, he has gravitated not only to a producer role but to that of art director. I wonder where Junko Kawano has made off to. Yamaoka did not win this year, however (in the category I would not have expected as his strength); instead, the award went -- rightly -- to Eiji Aonuma's Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.
Parappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsura was honored with a First Penguin award, for his foundation of the now-omnipresent music and rhythm genre. Clips sped past of games he has either designed or inspired, including both the obvious Dance Dance Revolution and the less-so Samba De Amigo. BioWare won again for best new character of the year, out of a less-than-thrilling nominee pool, for the battle/translation droid HK-47 of KOTOR semi-fame. Ray and Greg from BioWare were then awarded for community contribution; it seems they have been really nice and helpful guys, from serving on the IGDA board to contributing to local children's charities. This is the first I have heard of it, which I suppose is another credit in their favor.
Then there was the Maverick award, given to PopCap Games for making people pay attention to web games with Bejewelled. The Prince of Persia team picked up another bookend for Excellence in Programming. At about the time that I began to shift in my chair, a certain Mark Cerny was given a Lifetime Achievement award. Again, his name was new to me. Apparently the only videogame he has ever been credited with is Marble Madness -- a classic of Atari Games's golden age, sure. Aside from that, his influence seems to lie mostly in inspiring other developers -- such as the Naughty Dog and the Spyro and Rachet & Clank teams. Next to the likes of Yu Suzuki and Will Wright (who was on stage to present Mark Cerny with his award), Mr. Cerny seems a curious choice. Perhaps I would do well to research him more deeply.
At the end, KOTOR was pronounced Game of the Year. I suppose it was down to that or Prince of Persia. I have little comment here; maybe next year, the games will be more interesting and maybe next year I will have the money to have experienced more of them. The ceremony ended at just the right time; any longer, and it would have become annoying. The moment it did, the post-awards party began -- as did the surge for food. Since I don't drink, I gave away my alcohol coupons with my T-shirt pass. I ran into the Viewtiful Joe designer, yet had little to say to him since I... well, I have yet to play his game. I saw Kevin Gifford in person, though chose not to bother him since he looked vaguely angry. And I left in a good height of spirits.
Brandon and Vince complain to me that this show was pretty boring. While that might be so (particularly next to the previous year), it struck me well in another light. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and sincerity behind the ceremony. It was about as professional as it needed to be, and it moved as quickly as it could. It might not have been as well-organized as possible, yet a little confusion and awkwardness is not without its charm. I never felt anything but good spirit during the whole episode. There were no egos clashing. There was little real competition. Like as not, the winners would congratulate the other nominees and express how much respect they had for the others' work. One fellow -- the faces have begun to blur for me -- summed up the tone behind the awards, when he denied any special reason he should have been chosen over his peers. He credited his muse, saying "as long as you are true to yourself, the only difference between me and you being up here is luck."
I like that. As the videogame industry becomes more mainstream, I wonder how long we can hold onto that thought.
Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh
prefers Billy Hatcher to Billy Crystal.
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