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.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Wins “Video Game of the Year” at the 2019-2020 SXSW Gaming Awards

The cancellation of this year’s South By Southwest feels like a distant memory, but in the weeks since the announcement was made, a few people had started to wonder if the winning envelopes from the 2019-2020 SXSW Gaming Awards would also remain locked away forever. Thankfully, the festival’s organizers recently fired off a press release that revealed all the winners.

Drumroll, please…

From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice won “Video Game of the Year,” and the one-armed ninja also snuck away with a win for “Excellence in Visual Achievement.” Only ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium (the “Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award” and “Excellence in Narrative”) and Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding (“Excellence in Musical Score” and “Excellence in Technical Achievement”) were able to earn more than a single award from this year’s voters.

“Gaming is a key part of the creative ecosystem that brings us together, and now more than ever it provides us with a unique sense of escape and adventure in uncertain times,” said Hugh Forrest, the Chief Programming Officer for South By Southwest. “We were devastated that we weren’t able to celebrate our honorees in person with the cancellation of our event, but glad that we’re still able to share their achievements and creative works with our community.”

A complete list of winners and nominees from the 2019-2020 SXSW Gaming Awards can be found after the break.

[Continue Reading…]

Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 Have Been Announced

The finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 have been announced… and they’re on fire.

This year’s honorees include titles from every era of gaming, though the Star Power of Guitar Hero looms large over the competition. But that’s OK, because there’s a few other firestarters vying for a spot in this year’s class, including Midway’s NBA Jam, Mojang’s Minecraft, and Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Melee.

There’s also the groundbreaking GoldenEye 007, the unforgettable Nokia Snake, the edutaining Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and the addicting Bejeweled. Rounding out this year’s crop of finalists is Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and a trio of classics from the early 80s (Centipede, Frogger, and King’s Quest).

This isn’t the first opportunity to join the World Video Game Hall of Fame for some of these games, and fans will have the chance to make their voice heard by submitting a Player’s Choice Ballot. The public can vote once per day now through April 2nd, and the three games that receive the most votes will join the 29 other ballots submitted by members of the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee.

The Strong Museum’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the entity that oversees the World Video Game Hall of Fame, will announce the inductees from the Class of 2020 at a date to be determined in a special ceremony. For now, you can learn more about this year’s finalists after the break.

[Continue Reading…]

Untitled Goose Game Wins “Game of the Year” at 2019-2020 GDC Awards

The 2020 Game Developers Conference isn’t happening in San Francisco this year due to global health concerns, but the event’s organizers still put together a a pre-recorded version of the Game Developers Choice Awards, and House House’s Untitled Goose Game won “Game of the Year.”

In addition to The Goose running away with yet another “Game of the Year” award, the rest of the indie world had a pretty good night as well.

Hempuli’s Baba Is You collected statuettes for “Best Design” and the “Innovation Award,” ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium danced away with “Best Debut” and “Best Narrative,” and thatgamecompany’s Sky: Children of the Light claimed the “Audience Award.”

But the most-decorated game of the night was Remedy’s Control, which won in three categories. The mindbending action-adventure game was honored with awards for “Best Visual Art,” “Best Audio,” and “Best Technology.”

A full list of winners, nominees, and Honorable Mentions from the 2019-2020 Game Developers Choice Awards, as well as a video replay of the show, can be found after the break.

[Continue Reading…]

Listology 3.0: The Superest Mario Games of All Time for Mario Day

Today might not be Mario’s birthday, but Nintendo has been celebrating March 10th (“MAR10”) as Mario Day since 2016.

Fans have been receiving little surprises from the consolemaker ever since, and as a big fan of Nintendo’s mustachioed mascot myself, I wanted to see what Version 3.0 of the Video Game Canon had to say about Mario’s greatest adventures. Does one of the classic side-scrollers like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World reign supreme? Or perhaps critics prefer a 3D adventure like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Galaxy 2?

There’s only one way to find out…

[Continue Reading…]

Nintendo PlayStation Sells at Auction for $360,000

The Sony PlayStation launched with a $300 price tag in 1995, famously undercutting Sega’s planned $400 price point for the Saturn. So it’s only fitting that in 2020, the fabled Nintendo PlayStation prototype sold at auction this afternoon with a winning bid of $300,000.

The new owner of this rare artifact is currently a mystery, but the winning bid may have been placed by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who wrote about his interest in the auction on Twitter back in February.

The Nintendo PlayStation was previously owned by Dan Diebold, who took it “around the world and back again” after his father discovered it among some “junk” that had once belonged to former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Olaf Olafsson:

At one time, this particular unit was owned by the founder, first president, and first chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. Olaf Olafsson. Olaf eventually left Sony to join Advanta Corporation, and became its president in 1998. A little over a year later, Olaf left Advanta to join Time Warner — but he left his Nintendo PlayStation prototype behind at Advanta. Roughly around this time, Advanta filed for bankruptcy and began gathering up everything in their corporate office to sell at auction. As the story goes, the Nintendo Play Station prototype was grouped together with some miscellaneous items that were boxed up with a group lot, the contents of which were veiled. A nice Easter egg for the winning bidder, indeed!

By far, this is arguably one of the most notorious, mysterious, and controversial artifacts of the video game industry. This prototype has been around the world and back again, admired and appreciated by video game enthusiasts from all over. Even though this is the closing of this portion of its narrative, it will continue to remain a pivotal piece of video game history no matter where it ends up.

According to the auctioneers at Heritage Auctions, the purchaser of the Nintendo PlayStation will also have to pay a $60,000 “Buyer’s Premium” on top of the winning bid, bringing the total to $360,000.

UPDATE (3/7/20): Forbes is reporting that Greg McLemore, the founder of Pets.com, is the mystery man behind the winning bid in yesterday’s Nintendo PlayStation auction. McLemore is an avid collector of arcade machines, game consoles, and original artwork, and he told the publication he plans to open a permanent museum to house his collection.

The Best of “The Best Games of the 2010s”

The dawn of a new decade is a great time to reflect back on what the previous ten years were like, and that’s exactly what two dozen publications did over the last few months.

Hundreds of titles (337, to be exact) were selected as part of the Best Games of the 2010s when looking back at lists such as Mashable’s “15 Favorite Games of the Decade,” Paste Magazine’s “The 100 Best Videogames of the 2010s,” Polygon’s “The 100 Best Games of the Decade,” and many others.

Like the original Video Game Canon, this Best Games of the Decade list is a statistical meta-analysis of multiple lists using our C-Score formula. The rank order was compiled by measuring each game’s Average Ranking across every list, as well as the Appearance Frequency of how many lists it was included on.

Average Ranking + (100 – Appearance Frequency) = C-Score

The lower the C-Score, the higher a game is ranked in the Best Games of the 2010s. But which games were the absolute best? You can find out below.

[Continue Reading…]

National Videogame Museum Launches Preservation-Focused Videogame Heritage Society in UK

The National Videogame Museum, located in Sheffield in the United Kingdom, has launched the Videogame Heritage Society, a new video game preservation initiative that will bring together a network of libraries, museums, and collectors.

The Videogame Heritage Society is a collaborative project that aims to share knowledge with all members about the best way to preserve and exhibit video games:

The National Videogame Museum is launching a new initiative today at BFI Southbank, leading a network of museums and independent collectors who are engaged in videogame preservation. The Videogame Heritage Society (VHS) includes the Science and Media Museum, Bath Spa University, British Library and Museum of London as well as many independent collectors. It will develop best practice and share knowledge across the museum sector and beyond about preserving and exhibiting videogames.

“This group is for anyone who cares about or works in videogame preservation,” said British Games Institute Chairman Ian Livingstone. “We recognise that in the UK and around the world, the expertise in this field isn’t just locked inside museums and heritage institutions, but also inside a wide range of dedicated and passionate private collectors. The VHS will bring everyone together to preserve the important heritage of videogames in our country.”

More information about the Videogame Heritage Society can be found at The BGI‘s official website.

House House’s Untitled Goose Game Wins “Game of the Year” at 2019-2020 DICE Awards

I guess The Goose can cross “Win a Few Major Awards” off of its To-Do List. And that’s because House House’s Untitled Goose Game won “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game,” “Outstanding Achievement in Character,” and “Game of the Year” at this year’s DICE Awards.

While the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’s voting body (which is comprised of more than 30,000 members) loves The Goose, it was Remedy’s Control that took home the most statuettes last night. Predictably, the outstanding action game won “Action Game of the Year,” as well as “Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction,” “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition,” and “Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction.” Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding was the only other game to win multiple awards, with the AIAS honoring it with “Outstanding Technical Achievement” and “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design.”

A nice array of other games were also big winners at the 2019-2020 DICE Awards, including Sayonara Wild Hearts (“Portable Game of the Year”), Apex Legends (“Online Game of the Year”), Super Mario Maker 2 (“Family Game of the Year”), Mortal Kombat 11 (“Fighting Game of the Year”), Baba Is You (“Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”), and more.

The complete list of winners and nominees for the 2019-2020 DICE Awards can be found after the break, along with a video replay of the ceremony.

[Continue Reading…]

The Only Known Nintendo PlayStation Prototype is Being Sold at Auction

The failed collaboration between Nintendo and Sony to produce a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES has become the stuff of legend. The details of the falling out have been documented pretty extensively over the years, and war stories from all the major players have appeared in both David Sheff’s Game Over and Blake Harris’s Console Wars.

While we all know the story, what became of the small batch of prototype consoles produced by the two companies has always been a mystery. More than 200 Nintendo PlayStations were reportedly produced, and it’s assumed that most were destroyed, but one managed to escape the trash heap by hiding out in “a box of junk” previously owned by former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Olaf Olafsson.

After his stint at Sony, Olafsson would take a job with Advanta Corporation, and this “box of junk” went with him, but when the financial company went bankrupt in 2009, the Nintendo PlayStation was left behind. It was found by Terry Diebold, who worked in Advanta’s maintenance department, and eventually made its way into the hands of his son, Dan.

Now, after game historians have examined and repaired the one-of-a-kind artifact, it’s going up for auction. The Diebolds are selling the prototype through Heritage Auctions, and as of this writing, the current bid is sitting at $145,000. And it’s unlikely to stop there, as proxy bids will continue to be taken until the start of the live auction on March 6.

So what will you get for your money? According to Heritage, the console features a fully-functioning Super Famicom cartridge slot:

We at Heritage can attest the prototype is working, as we’ve played a couple of rounds of Mortal Kombat on it using a Super Famicom cartridge.

The CD drive is also functional, but as no software was produced for the Nintendo PlayStation, all it can do is play music CDs:

Though the CD-ROM drive was not currently working when it was found in 2009, it has since been repaired by Benjamin Heckendorn, a YouTube personality known for his console repair videos. It now has the ability to play music CDs like the commercially produced PlayStation, but there is no proprietary software that’s known to have been made during the prototype’s development.

Heritage refers to the Nintendo PlayStation as “one of the most notorious, mysterious, and controversial artifacts of the video game industry” and it’s hard to argue with that.

Bite-Sized Game History: Diablo’s Satanic Panic, Background Weirdos in The Simpsons, and the World’s First Glimpse at The Sims

Sometimes, a game’s secrets are buried so deep that they take decades to find. But as long as you know where to look, other secrets are sitting out for all the world to see and just waiting for an eager player to discover them.

Let’s examine three games from the latter group in this edition of Bite-Sized Game History.

[Continue Reading…]