I have been seeing a fair amount of moaning regarding the winner of the BAFTA Video Games Awards – Best Game this year, Mass Effect 2. The complaints revolve around the fact that Call of Duty: Black Ops won the GAME award, the only award voted by the public, yet failed to get so much as a nomination from the BAFTA judges for Best Game.
It all got my thinking about why this would happen and what it means. Is it just because the panel of experts are out of touch with the reality of gaming, or is it something else? Are the complainers missing the point?
First, a bit of background about Call of Duty: Black Ops. It holds the records for largest entertainment launch, highest earnings in 5 days ($650 million) and god knows what else. It was big and the people lapped it up. As did the critics. (I will credit Wikipedia for those facts!
The other thing that is worth understanding is how the whole process works with the BAFTAs. To enter a game you must nominate your game. You must also pay. The amount depends on when you enter and how many games you are entering. Registration for the awards just gone cost �135 + VAT for a developer and �225 + VAT for a publisher. Depending on when the game is entered, it could cost up to �335 + VAT per game. Each game can be entered into whichever category the publisher or developer desires. Industry professionals and Games-voting BAFTA members then review each category. The top six games are then moved to the jury phase. Each jury is made up of between seven and nine members of the industry and is chaired by a member of the BAFTA Video Games committee. The idea is to make each jury diverse so that all categories are judged as fairly as possible and in an informed way.
All of this info can be read on the BAFTA website in full at How to Enter the Video Games Awards and Video Games Eligibility & Judging
Therefore, the process is not quick and it is very well thought through. The people voting are all well respected in the games industry and all have relevant experience. To even be a member of BAFTA you have to have at least 5 years industry experience and have mode some kind of contribution. These people do know their stuff!
So why is that Call of Duty: Black Ops was so over looked? It was nominated for six different awards (GAME award included). This is no mean feat. It was voted as one of the top six entries in five categories by the judges and of course the public. It had 110,000 votes for the GAME award. Obviously it was a highly thought of game. Yet of those categories, it only won the GAME award, the one award that the BAFTA juries have no say in. Really, we have to look at what games did win in each category Black Ops was entered into and actually think about what the industry professionals may have really been looking for.
Best Action Game – Winner Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Artistic Achievement – God of War III
Multiplayer – Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Story – Heavy Rain
Technical Innovation – Heavy Rain
Most of those you can argue about. It is a fabulous online game, it is full of action, and the story is great. I do struggle to see it as an artistic achievement and certainly have difficulty seeing how it had any technical innovation. And it is the word innovation that sticks with me here.
You see, whilst Call of Duty: Black Ops is a great game, it does nothing innovative. It is just another FPS repackaged and shouted very loudly about. I can understand why it won the peoples vote. It is hugely popular; far more so than any of the other games that were nominated for the, BAFTA voted, best game (or any other category for that matter).
However, what did it add to the genre? What did it add to the developments and innovation of games in general? If anything, it may have set back innovation and drive. It proved that you could make shed loads of money by just doing more of the same.
Heavy Rain, the winner of three BAFTAs on the night, whilst not being the most universally loved game ever, fully deserves the BAFTAs it got (in my opinion at least). The story was amazing, one of the only times I have been moved to tears by a game. It was engrossing and exciting whilst being incredibly deep and touching. Technically, it was innovative. It tried something that little bit different. You had control of four story critical characters. Each person’s story affected the outcome of the game. Ok, the mechanics where nothing that special, but the overall achievement was something very different to anything that I had ever played.
I will admit that I struggle with the winners of Best Action Game and best Multiplayer. Multiplayer I would have given to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, not sure about action – possibly God of War III. But either way, not Call of Duty: Black Ops. I am not even going to go into Artistic Achievement. I have no idea why Black Ops was even in the category!
All of the games that won those categories gave something a little different to your standard FPS affair of old, which can only be a good thing. The same can be said about the overall winner of the night Mass Effect 2. No one can deny that it was an epic game, with great action, a deep story and huge amounts of game play. When you compared to Black Ops, it was more innovative in pretty much every way. It tried harder!
In a great discussion with a friend on twitter @gemmell2009, we talked about the fact that the game sold in the millions and how could that many fans be wrong. My comment back was that whilst boy bands sell millions and have millions of fans, it does not mean their music is actually any any good better than other people’s. In the end, they just have better marketing.
The message I feel from BAFTA is very clear.
If you want to win, stand out from the crowd in terms of what you do to expand the gaming universe, don’t just shout louder.
Innovate, don’t regurgitate.
Find out more about BAFTA at www.bafta.org