Louise, you are looking at the very reason why I don't like video games becoming mainstream. It becomes about the hottest new thing and the latest ticket, which is usually not innovative. As sad as it really sounds, the video game industry is going to go the same route as the movie and TV industry and get mostly turned into mindless entertainment to appeal to the masses of morons out there that buy into things that you don't really have to think about. Spike TV does just that very thing. They don't care about creating a quality awards show, they care about how many viewers they can drag in, even if it means making one that sucks.

Also, that awards show is really just a big fat popularity contest since they take votes off of the Spike TV website. In 2004, there was the category for best FPS up there and out of the five nominees I only remembered three of them: Doom 3, Half Life 2, and Halo 2. Out of the five titles nominated in that category, four were PC titles and one was a console title and the console title won. Why? Why out of all those games did the console title win considering the stiff competition? To be quite honest I have played most of the PC titles and the console title that were nominated, and out of all of them that I have played Halo 2 was, at least for me, the least interesting of them all.

I said to myself, "Beating out Half Life 2?! What the hell?!" because I somehow detected a bit of bias towards consoles, XBL, and everybody's precious Halo on the part of the viewers and voters. The video game awards on Spike TV are just a popularity contest on the part of viewers who are already lenient and/or biased towards a certain area of gaming instead of looking at the overall quality of the games and then judging them based on that. Simply put, it seems as if the awards show is just appealing to more casual game players that rely on well-known branding (Halo, GTA as examples) for entertainment as well as rabidly biased fanboys. Just my opinion.

But what really insults me about the Spike TV video game coverage is how much they talk down to the attention span of gamers. Case in point, I was watching a special there that was talking about GDC and all sorts of indie titles including Darwinia and Rumble Box (if I got the title right). It was supposed to be about the big name games but Spike could not help but interject news and comments about the bigger hotter anticipated titles inbetween segments of the special. What, do they sincerely think that I have the attention span of a freakin' peanut that I need Lara Croft to keep my attention to something that was supposed to be about smaller titles? Keep the focus where it belongs, please.

Another example of how they seems to make us look like idiots are the commercials and that show about remaking a guys living room into a gaming pad.

I just saw a commercial the other day on Spike that had a bunch of guys dressed up in costumes with one dressed up like a minotaur from WoW all acting liking idiots and I just sat there trying to find what was so appealing or funny about it because it just didn't make me laugh.

But the show about remaking a guys living room into a gaming pad made me flat out sick at what they think of their target audience. One episode shown the host and bunch of other people taking his old gaming stuff out to like a desert or something like that and blowing it up sky high with the host talking in some sort of stupid, cheesy, egotistical EXXTREME (alluding to your article above Louise) talk. I just sat there disgusted because not only was that a fucking waste of good equipment that you could have donated to someone who really can't afford much but also because it was obvious pimpage of the whole "latest always = greatest" mentality with all the new gadgets and mentioning of their brand names. I'm all in support of the TV show producers and everyone else of making money, but this and quite a bit of other game related coverage on Spike just flat out screams asskissing of the sponsors.

Well, that is the end of my rant. Peace out for now.

Lupos, if you have been here long enough you'll know that I am notorious for long posts. Just ask anyone here. In fact take a look at some of my old posts on the forums.

Anyways, it's good that you see my points. This is just points out why I'm so hating of the mainstreamification of games, the way TV talks down to those who watch it, and how money and ratings over quality ruins entertainment for myself and some others.