spike-vga-2008 posts

So how popular is the games industry, really? Apparently not enough to score solid ratings for its biggest annual TV awards show. Variety reported this week that the 2008 Spike TV Video Game Awards, which was broadcast on the cable TV channel on Dec. 14, only had 680,000 people watch it live. That's 26 percent lower than the previous awards show and the second lowest in the show's short history (the inaugural 2004 show had the highest ratings with 1.23 million people watching).

The article puts some of the blame for the low ratings on the Sunday Night Football match that same night on NBC. The Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants match had the highest ratings in the show's three year history. It's also states that the VGA's web site had over triple the unique visitors that week compared to 2007's show.

The annual Video Game Awards on Spike TV are over and a number of games available on the PC won many of the major catagories in the event. Most notably, Valve's zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead won for both Best PC Game along with Best Multiplayer Game (it lost the Best Shooter catagory to the Xbox 360 title Gears of War 2).

Bethesda Softworks' title Fallout 3 got the nod for Best RPG and 2D Boy's unique puzzle game World of Goo won the event's first ever Best Independent Game Award. NHL 09 won for Best Team Sports Game (one of only two Electronic Arts sports titles they released for the PC this year). Shawn White Snowboarding got the Best Individual Sport award (Ubisoft just released the PC version). Lego Indiana Jones won for Best Game Based On A Movie Or TV Show.

As for the show itself, it definately had its up and downs; from Jack Black's over-the-top intro of Double Fine's Tim Schafer as the highlight to Neil Patrick Harris flubbing the winner of the Best Independent Game award as its lowest point. In fact only a few actual awards were given on camera with a very quick montage of all the rest of the winners given out in a few minutes of screen time. Spike TV needs to dump the musical acts and make their video game awards show more about the awards.

If you have been waiting on the edge of your seat to find out who will be hosting this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards...well, you need to get out more. However, we can tell you that actor-funny musician-panda voice guy Jack Black will be taking on the hosting duties for this year's event which the cable TV network will broadcast live on Dec. 14.

Black's appearance as host is almost certainly timed to work with some world premiere game footage of the long delayed Double Fine title Brutal Legend (Black is one of the voices in the game). Other games that will have new footage shown at the event include the game adaptations of the movies Terminator Salvation and Watchmen. New footage will also be shown of Mafia II, the Illusion Softworks open world crime action game that we haven't seen in a long time in any form. More surprise announcements are supposedly in the works. As we have previously reported, Sims and Spore creator Will Wright will receive the first ever "Gamer God" award from Spike TV at the event.