When you consider all other possible shows, a video game awards show running for two hours is already ridiculous in its concept. How do you invite all the developers to the show? Who is the best person to step up to the stage receive an award for a game? And how do any of these developer companies get by without paying any lip service to the producers of this show? Well, that third question is the one I want to answer, because the proof is in the pudding in American cable channel Spike TV’s own promotional clip of the Video Game Awards show.

See if you notice anything funny. No DS footage. None for the fastest selling handheld-nay, fastest selling game system in history. But to be quite honest, there are none either for the PSP. Or even the Wii, despite for the second year in a row being the Turbo Man in the list of must-get Christmas presents.

So Spike TV’s VGAs don’t consider portable gaming to be significant, or they just don’t care about them at all. And yeah, it’s true that footage of Phantom Hourglass (which did win the award of Best Handheld game, by the way) doesn’t look all that crisp on a large TV. Still, considering the games that are on this video, it seems that Spike TV doesn’t consider portable gamers to be hardcore gamers.

Who am I kidding, the hardcore gamers usually have some geek in them. And the Video Game Awards are still stuck in a cul-de-sac of Hollywood conformity, and probably equate anything quirky or “niche” with “uncool”. And I’m no Japan-o-freak, but they didn’t give much credit to Japanese studios since their games only won about 10% of the awards. There’s more Japan in their wacky logo than in the show itself. (edit: Afro Samurai actually made its debut with Samuel Jackson voice acting it, so that was a nice surprise) We all understand that all gamers are not geeks, but honestly, does watching a video game awards show (even if it is on an image-conscious cable channel) make you less of a geek?

The nominees for Best Handheld Game were Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, Legend of Zelda: the Phantom Hourglass, and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlord. That’s actually a surprisingly good list, and as mentioned before, Phantom Hourglass won this category. Aside from this, though, no Nintendo DS or PSP games won in any other categories. Pretty disappointing, since things look anything but grim for both systems.

1. Eric…

   I found this on google….

   Posted by Eric | January 18, 2008, 7:06 am

2. […] is probably the most prestigious award event dedicated to video games (sorry, GDC Awards and Spike TV). This year, the IAA revealed the new list of nominees for all categories, including handheld […]

   Posted by Portabalooza | Jeanne D’Arc, Phantom Hourglass, and others among the IAA nominees | January 20, 2008, 4:38 pm