Author: VGC | John

John Scalzo has been writing about video games since 2001, and he co-founded Warp Zoned in 2011. Growing out of his interest in game history, the launch of Video Game Canon followed in 2017.

GOTY Flashback: 2014 Game Awards

The Game Awards has seen its share of ups and downs, but the Geoff Keighley-hosted awards show is celebrating its tenth anniversary this Thursday, December 12th. While we wait to see which game will take the coveted “Game of the Year” statuette this year, let’s look back at the first Game Awards.

After the dissolution of the Spike Video Game Awards a year earlier, Keighley rebranded the show and produced it himself as an independent production. With questions about whether the show could continue beyond 2014, he chose to carry over multiple aspects from his previous gig, including a similar slate of categories, a star-studded lineup of special guests, and a heavy focus on “World Premiere” trailers (including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt).

Eschewing a celebrity host, Keighley even took over hosting duties for the 2014 Game Awards, but he found himself in the middle of an awards show attempting to honor a strange year for gaming.

The industry was going through a console transition, as the PS4 and Xbox One had launched the year before. Many of the year’s biggest games were also released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and many players had yet to make an investment in new hardware. This industry identity crisis was present in the “Game of the Year” nominees, which included two cross-generation games (Dragon Age: Inquisition and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor), From Software’s Dark Souls II (which wasn’t available on the PS4 or Xbox One at the time), and the mobile-focused Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Meanwhile, Nintendo was floundering, though you wouldn’t know it from the Wii U’s performance at the show. Super Smash Bros. For Wii U (“Best Fighting Game”) and Mario Kart 8 (“Best Family Game” and “Best Sports/Racing Game”) both took home statuettes, though neither was nominated for “Game of the Year”. Instead, the Nintendo-published and Platinum-developed Bayonetta 2 earned the final spot on the “Game of the Year” ballot.

On top of all this, a coordinated harassment campaign against developers and journalists was growing in the worst corners of the Internet. Popularly known as GamerGate, we’re still dealing with the aftereffects of the campaign and probably will be for a long time. But what else can you really say about GamerGate at this point?

Ultimately, BioWare’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was named “Game of the Year” at the 2014 Game Awards, sandwiched between the aforementioned Breath of the Wild premiere and a trailer for Eve Online.

Rewatching bits of the show, I’m struck by how little The Game Awards has changed from 2014 to today. Then as now, you’ve got a lot of rapid fire awards montages, short speeches from the winners, musical performances, and “World Premiere” trailers.

The “Game of the Year” contenders can even be said to represent similar slots as subsequent years, in any given year, the “Game of the Year” category will include the flashiest action games (Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor), at least one action RPG (Dark Souls II and Dragon Age: Inquisition), a representative from Nintendo (Bayonetta 2), and a smaller game that captured the zeitgeist (Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft). You could easily map this year’s nominees onto the same template.

But after ten years, you have to wonder if it’s time for the show to freshen things up a little, but this is probably the way that Keighley likes it. And as he’s said in the past, the commercial realities of producing a show like this practically require him to seek outside sponsors and publishers willing to pay for the placement of their “World Premiere” trailers. Though it’s hard to know if any of that is true.

But other big winners during the very first Game Awards were Destiny (“Best Score/Soundtrack” and “Best Online Experience”), Far Cry 4 (“Best Shooter”), Shovel Knight (“Best Independent Game”), and Grand Theft Auto V (in the since-abandoned “Best Remaster” category). It was a strange year for gaming, but as always, we got a lot of great games.

You can find a replay of the full ceremony for the 2014 Game Awards and a complete list of winners and nominees after the break.

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GOG.com Launches GOG Preservation Program to Keep Classic PC Games Available on Modern Systems

The capital letters in GOG.com don’t stand for anything anymore, but when the digital storefront first launched in 2008, the acronym stood for Good Old Games and was meant to shine a spotlight on the company’s retro focus. In the decade-and-a-half since, GOG has positioned themselves as a competitor to Steam, often selling the same AAA titles that appear on Valve’s storefront. But their desire to be a destination for retro gaming never really went away, and earlier this month the company unveiled the GOG Preservation Program.

The GOG Preservation Program is a new initiative that’ll attempt to ensure that “classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after their developers stopped supporting them.” To accomplish this, GOG has pledged to “commit [their] own resources to maintaining compatibility with modern and future systems” for games in the program. These updates can include everything from testing whether or not a game is supported in Windows 10 and 11, all the way to fixing bugs that have existed for decades (just look at these Patch Notes on a classic Resident Evil Bundle).

But why are they doing this? I’ll let GOG’s Arthur Dejardin explain:

Across my desk sits someone who describes his personality as a carbon copy of Squall’s from FF8. Another colleague told me he became a financial controller because he played so much Tropico as a kid. I love rainy days because they gave me the perfect excuse to play The Legend of Dragoon for the entire afternoon back in the day.

Games shaped us. Being able to play them is an essential part of reconnecting with ourselves. They must stay accessible, playable, and alive.

Unfortunately, the classic PC games market is in a sorry state. It’s too tiny for leading platforms to give it any attention. Classic releases often get the sell-it-and-forget-it treatment, and as time goes on and technology evolves, compatibility issues arise and remain unaddressed. Head to one of the massive platforms to buy a classic game and try to play it on your Windows 11 machine: You’ll stand disappointed.

We believe that maintaining these games as compatible and playable will allow you to keep our shared history alive, reconnect with yourself, and pass on your legacy.

It is incredible to see a company dedicate themselves to game preservation like this. As of today, more than 100 games are part of the GOG Preservation Program, but the storefront hopes to add many more to the program in the future. And like all the games on their virtual shelves, the titles in the GOG Preservation Program will be available to download without DRM.

“The Eurogamer 100” is a List of the 100 Best Video Games to Play Right Now

Eurogamer has been doing a lot of interesting stuff this year to celebrate their 25th birthday (I hope you got the chance to try out the Theme Switcher to see what the site looked like through the years). And about six weeks ago they even attempted to capture “the best games to play in this specific moment” with “The Eurogamer 100”:

Welcome to the Eurogamer 100, a list of video games that aims to reflect their ever-changing nature. Rather than ranking games by their influence or significance, the below list is a suggestion of the very best things you can play at this moment, according to us. We’ve aimed to cover the full breadth of what modern video games can be – and in doing so were reminded, suddenly, that 100 games really isn’t very many at all – while everything on the list must be legitimately obtainable at the time of writing on current-generation hardware. And crucially, it has to currently be brilliant.

Our hope is that this list will be as useful as it is conversation-starting, be that through suggesting exceptional games that may not be on everyone’s radar already, reminding you of long-running classics that have remained timeless, or highlighting those that have found themselves with renewed energy and form.

The key element of “The Eurogamer 100” is that the games included have to be “legitimately obtainable” on “current-generation hardware” to be eligible, which helps make the list a fantastic overview of the last decade (more-or-less) of video games. You’ll find Game of the Year heavyweights (Breath of the Wild at #5, Baldur’s Gate 3 at #6, and Elden Ring at #8) sitting alongside indie darlings (Tunic at #12, Hades at #34, and Animal Well at #36), but I think the Top 3 (Tetris Effect at #1, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at #2, and Outer Wilds at #3) really does capture what video games are about right now.

And thanks to an avalanche of re-releases and the rise of forever games, you’ll also find a few titles that debuted outside that ten-year window, including 2011’s Minecraft (#28) 1991’s Super Mario World (#72), and 2009’s League of Legends #73.

But with such a wide timeframe and such an abundance of choices (100 really isn’t a lot), the number of omissions is staggering. That includes big favorites from recent years (neither Red Dead Redemption is present), as well as one of my personal favorites that’s still available even though it’s nearing it’s 20th anniversary (that would be Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2).

But maybe that’s for a future update of “The Eurogamer 100”. Deputy Editor Chris Tapsell said that we should expect the list to be a dynamic list, and that updates will be made yearly:

Unlike most lists out there, the Eurogamer 100 isn’t a list of the greatest games of all time, but of the best games to play in this specific moment.

We’ll then come back to the list and update it once per year, adding particularly brilliant new games that might have launched, old games that have found new life, and replacing those that may have found themselves in something of a dip.

The rest of “The Eurogamer 100” can be found after the break.

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Introducing the Video Game Research Library

Say hello to one of the next big projects from Video Game Canon… the Video Game Research Library… which is a collection of articles, videos, and podcasts that offer a glimpse into gaming’s past, present, and future through historical, retrospective, and contemporary reporting and scholarship.

Within the library, you’ll find links to investigative reports, retrospective histories, biographical sketches, commentary and criticism, editorial opinions, book excerpts, interviews, oral histories, journal articles from academic and medical professionals, development materials, postmortems, and a lot more. My goal is to create a hand-built collection of links inspired by a bit the old web.

Does the library represent the full history of video games? No, of course not. But it is a good start and I want to add new links as often as I can.

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Boss Fight Books Season 7 Announced: “EverQuest”, “Untitled Goose Game”, “Outer Wilds”, “Dance Dance Revolution”

Boss Fight Books celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year, and now they’re back with a brand new batch of books. A Kickstarter campaign for Boss Fight Books: Season 7 promising four new volumes in the series began on August 20th.

If you’re unfamiliar with Boss Fight Books, the publisher produces “documentary-style books about classic video games” that tackle the “history, meaning, and legacy of a single video game”. Would you like to know which titles will be included in Season 7? Drumroll please…

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Nintendo Offers Up a Video Tour of the Nintendo Museum… Which Opens on October 2, 2024

It’s been three long years since Nintendo announced their desire to transform a shuttered manufacturing plant in Kyoto into a Nintendo Museum, but with a grand opening planned for this Fall, the consolemaker is finally ready to give fans a sneak peek at what’s inside.

The video tour, which has been embedded above, is hosted by Shigeru Miyamoto himself, and it actually starts on the second floor in the “Make Connections” exhibit. There, museum patrons will be able to browse Nintendo’s 135-year-history of games, toys, and playing cards. This massive display case overlooks the first floor, which will feature eight interactive play exhibits. Miyamoto shared three of those exhibits during the video.

“Ultra Machine SP” is based on an indoor pitching machine sold by Nintendo in the 60s and 70s and will let you take the plate in a replica of a typical Japanese home. “Zapper and Scope SP” gives players a Zapper or Super Scope and lets them loose on a 13-player light gun game that attempts to modernize one of Nintendo’s first moves into the video game space. And you’ll get exactly what you expect in the “Big Controller” exhibit, as two players will attempt to complete a Nintendo-themed game challenge together using an extra-large controller.

With this combination of museum gallery and interactive play-based exhibits, the Nintendo Museum seems to be very reminiscent of The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. But as with all things Nintendo, I’m sure a few surprises are still being kept under wraps.

The Nintendo Museum will open to the public on October 2, but to help control attendance, Nintendo is currently offering tickets through an online lottery. You can reserve your tickets, and learn more about the rest of the museum, at the Nintendo Museum’s official website.

David Wolinsky’s Oral History of Gamergate, “The Hivemind Swarmed”, is Now Available in Bookstores

We’re ten years out from the online harassment campaign that came to be known as “Gamergate” and I’ve still never been able to wrap my head around the idea that some people thought a torrential barrage of death and rape threats was an appropriate response to writing about video games in a way they didn’t like. The creator of the Don’t Die interview series, David Wolinsky, was similarly baffled by Gamergate, and he recently spoke to a number of “major figures in gaming, tech, media, and politics” to get the real story behind the hashtag.

Wolinsky’s The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, the Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet is an oral history of Gamergate, but it’s also an examination into how the harassment campaign later influenced the alt-right movement:

An incisive oral history that brings together the voices of major figures in gaming, tech, media, and politics to reflect on the long shadow of Gamergate

With The Hivemind Swarmed, oral historian and documentary researcher David Wolinsky invites readers to sit in on a series of urgent, intimate conversations between some of the most distinguished voices across entertainment industries and media as they reflect on the longstanding impact of Gamergate. What went wrong, and what can we learn from Gamergate to help us build a more equitable online world?

The backstory: 10 years ago, a disgruntled software developer named Eron Gjoni posted online to accuse his ex-girlfriend, game developer Zoë Quinn, of sleeping with game critics in exchange for positive reviews. He offered no evidence to back up his claims. However, his posts were picked up by extremists in the gaming community who built a vicious online movement targeting women, minorities, and progressive voices. Rallying under the hashtag #gamergate, they sent their victims round-the-clock death and rape threats. Game companies, for the most part, declined to take action as their female employees were harassed out of their jobs. The FBI launched an investigation but found “no true threat.”

Gamergate holds the grim distinction of being the first modern online harassment campaign. It arguably served as a model for the alt-right movement that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House. And it highlighted a toxic media culture—not just in gaming, but in film, TV, journalism, and more—in which leaders, through their passivity, took the side of the oppressor. Now, 10 years later—in the wake of #MeToo, Charlottesville, the Trump years, and the January 6 insurrection—the questions discussed here are more important than ever.

The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, the Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet was recently published by Beacon Press and it’s available in bookstores now.

“The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom” is Getting Ready to Rock in Winter 2025

Blake Hester put together a sprawling Oral History of ‘Guitar Hero’ in 2021 for Waypoint after sitting down with all the key players from Harmonix, RedOctane, and Activision.

But rather than leave the stage, Hester’s coming back for an encore with an expanded version of the original article, The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom, now in a book-length special edition package featuring die-cut tabbed pages and an amplifier-esque textured slipcase.

Altogether, he spent roughly a year tracking down and interviewing more than 30 people involved in the development of the game, the selection of the music, and the creation of all those plastic instruments. What followed was a tale worthy of the best of Behind the Music. A story of towering success followed by a crash back down to Earth… with redemption possibly existing just over the horizon.

Guitar Hero never taught anyone to play the guitar… but it sure felt like it. Game nights became head-banging parties that all your friends were invited to. As the fanbase grew, so did the setlist, with A-listers Aerosmith, Van Halen and Metallica all lending their unforgettable back catalogues. As the craze spread, so too did the play-along opportunities, with 2007’s Rock Band adding plastic drums, bass and vocals to the mix. It seemed like the party would never end… until it suddenly did.

The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is the definitive story of a game that, entirely fittingly, lived fast and died young. Building upon Blake Hester’s celebrated 2021 history of Guitar Hero for Vice, it widens its gaze to cover the evolution of the Rock Band series, from its first tentative press of the red fret button to its insane overblown crescendo of songs, hype and impossible-to-pack-into-the-loft plastic peripherals.

The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is currently seeking funding through Volume, and will be published by Read-Only Memory in Winter 2025 if it reaches its goal by July 19th.

UPDATE (7/3/24): The crowdfunding campaign for The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom has added another option for those interested in learning more about the birth (and quick death) of a new game genre. In addition to the Deluxe Edition ($80) and the Harmonix Signed Edition ($100), prospective buyers will also be able to pick a less-deluxe Standard Edition that’s been priced at $60.

John Romero’s “Doom Guy” is Getting a Documentary and a Dramatic Adaptation

If you’ve ever seen him give an interview, you know that John Romero, one of the co-founders of id Software and the co-creator of both Doom and Quake, is one of the all-time great talkers. No matter what the question is, he’ll give you a story that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Romero’s wordsmithing was definitely one of the big reasons why his recently-published memoir, Doom Guy: Life in First Person, was so well-received by readers.

According to Deadline, the famed developer will get another chance to tell his story in an upcoming documentary adaptation of Doom Guy. The project will be directed by Rob McCallum, who is probably best known as the creator of a few other game-themed documentaries, including 2015’s Nintendo Quest.

Speaking about Doom Guy, [McCallum] said: “John Romero’s journey is the missing antidote for all of us misfit toys looking for hope and kindred spirits in the darkness of the world. It’s an unbelievable rock n’ roll, boundary-shattering, thrill ride grounded in humanity, integrity, patience and clever chess moves slathered in innocence, tenacity and pure coolness.”

In addition to the documentary, Golden Possum Productions and Naomi Harvey will produce a dramatic adaptation of Doom Guy as well. We don’t know which actor will step into Romero’s well-coifed mane, nor do we know if this adaptation is planned for cable or theaters or streaming. But hopefully it doesn’t suffer the same fate as the USA Network’s planned adaptation of David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, which fell apart shortly after it was announced in 2019.

World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 Includes Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, SimCity, and Ultima

Once you see this year’s crop of inductees to the Strong Museum’s World Video Game Hall of Fame, you might be surprised that they didn’t get the call as part of an earlier vote. But less than four dozen titles have been selected to join this inner circle, so it’s also easy to see how some groundbreaking games could slip through the cracks.

And that’s where we are with the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024, which welcomed Atari’s Asteroids, Cyan’s Myst, Capcom’s Resident Evil, Maxis’s SimCity, and Richard Garriott’s Ultima into the fold during a ceremony earlier today. It’s true… but I can hear the questioning tone in your voice.

Wasn’t Asteroids the game that solidified the space shooter as the dominant style of arcade game in 1979? Yup. Didn’t Richard Garriott practically invent the RPG with Ultima? He did. Wasn’t the CD-ROM-powered Myst more popular than any other PC game in the 1990s? You got that right. And aren’t Resident Evil and SimCity beloved classics that people continue to replay every year? That’s a big yes.

The curators and researchers at the Strong Museum also filled in some gaps and had a few nice things to say about each inductee.

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