SpikeTV runs 2-hour commercial: VGAs 2009

Last night, SpikeTV held their annual 2-hour commercial, the Video Game Awards. Ugly chunks of plastic were handed out to a bunch of high-selling PS3/360 games, game trailers and premieres were clobbered into every minute of air time, and bad and botched jokes were attempted by celebrities who clearly didn’t give a fuck.

As is tradition at the VGAs, the awarding of talent was hidden in the obscured corners of the show while grating music performances, absurdly dressed female presenters, awkward skits, and endless advertisements completely dominated the affair.

Once again, Nintendo was virtually absent from the show, presumably because they don’t bother buying the awards for themselves (something which quite clearly other studios do). Evidence of this was everywhere: NSMB Wii and Wii Sports Resort were both absent from the Best Multi-Player category, no WiiWare games were nominated in the Best Downloadable games category, etc.

As if it weren’t entirely blatant what a complete sham the show was, SpikeTV brazenly included a Most Anticipated Game category. Either Spike doesn’t care in the least about hiding the total illegitimacy of their awards, or they don’t respect their audience in the least. I can imagine no more obvious a means of promoting sponsors except in actually running their commercials.