This is the second article of “Blackjack and Hookers”, which focuses on my time as Head of Outreach for the Vidya Gaem Awards, a hobbyist award show based on 4chan’s /v/. Click here to read the previous article, which focuses on the project’s origins and my years running it (2013–2015, and 2017).
Attendee walks into a bar
In the evening after Summer Game Fest 2023, I planned to attend the MIX showcase held at the Wizdome in Downtown LA. The event, however, was canceled at the last minute after the venue owner violated several fire safety codes.
In the following hours, several developers went to Torrence to showcase their game at The Completionist’s office. Others went to pubs and hotel bars, such as Angel City Brewing, the JW Marriot next to Peacock Theater, and the bar inside Hotel Figueroa. And I’m guessing some packed up and went home disappointed over what could have been.
Dave Oshry, a co-founder of New Blood Interactive, called for any MIX attendees and presenters to come to “The Fig”, and I took him up on the offer.
I was familiar with Hotel Figueroa, having stayed there half a year earlier. The heated pool in the back of the hotel was complemented by a few fire pits, and people in the bar gravitated towards them as the night went on. Oshry’s get-together, though modest, was sufficiently large enough to crowd the restaurant interior.
Seated in the middle of the restaurant (amidst a row of fellow dinners) was Oshry, who had just finished his meal. I introduced myself, he got up, and we exchanged business cards. I brought up a connection: our voters chose DUSK, the “boomer shooter” game New Blood Interactive published, as the winner of the Guilty Pleasure Award for “the game I like but /v/ hates”. I pulled out my phone to show him some of the award. He seemed to like it.
He invited people to join him at the bar, where he would pay for the drinks he promised. When I told him I didn’t drink, he bought me a Coke.
This small gathering had a diversity of players in the gaming industry. Independent game publishers, public relations professionals, organizers from the MIX, and game developers working on their own projects. Hanging out next to me was a young West Hollywood local who, like me, would have attended MIX had it not been canceled. For most of the night, we stood as two wallflowers, listening intently to what they had to say.
The developers were fairly candid — talking about the game trailers revealed at Summer Game Fest and the progress on their projects and acquisitions. More than one spoke of the struggle of capturing momentum in a deluge of game releases. How can your game or client stand out amidst the competition? It was an open brainstorming session.
The conversation then turned to the MIX, and the Completionist’s noble act of swooping in and saving a ton of developers from a wasted trip. With few in-person alternatives, an indie developer posed a harrowing question: “How did it get to the point where it’s just one person running everything?”
It was a reductionist premise, but it underscored a point many PR firms seem to miss: the gaming industry is smaller than it seems, especially at the local level. A modest event like the MIX canceling is catastrophic for those who didn’t have an SGF “Play Days” booth lined up. Even more so for the uncredentialed masses who desired an in-person demo experience like E3. They’d have to wait for the next big thing to come around their calendar, buy a ticket, and get in line.
Of course, the figure the person was referring to was someone the gaming community, and many on /v/, knew all too well: Geoff Keighley.
“The Man Who Sold the World”
Who is Geoff Keighley? Lewis Gordon’s profile story of Geoff Keighley is an excellent read, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll give the CliffsNotes version.
He’s a gamer with a lifetime of history to back it up.
Geoff Keighley’s passion for gaming started at a young age. When he was only 12, he wrote a letter to Sierra Interactive asking about the process behind creating video games. Gano Haine, a game designer from Sierra, noticed his enthusiasm and offered him the opportunity to beta-test their products. This led to Keighley evaluating various titles for Sierra, with “EcoQuest II” being the first game he tested for the company.
He was a production consultant for the first televised video game award show, Cybermania ’94. Two years later, in 1996, he founded GameSlice, one of the first video game news sites on the internet.
During his college years at USC, where he majored in business and philosophy, he wrote for publications Business 2.0, Fortune, and Entertainment Weekly. He also provided E3 coverage for Comcast’s G4 network, produced shows like Game Head (later acquired by MTV and became Game Trailers TV), and made the Gears of War docuseries.
This repertoire served as the C.V. to move up to producing Spike’s video game award show beginning in 2007. That year, he was named executive in charge of video game publisher relations for Spike TV, a role which was expanded upon in 2009.
How the /v/GAs tie in
Watching Eddy Burback’s “Dark History Behind The Game Awards” earlier this year, it was evident that the “dark history” was a clickbait title: it merely documented Keighley’s association with the Spike Video Game Awards, and how he was brought on board to try and rescue the project.
The Vidya Gaem Awards, by comparison, have the “dark” history Burback’s looking for. It was founded on gamer discontent over the Spike VGAs. Created the day after the 2011 Spike VGA presentation by users on 4chan, what transpired was a full-fledged recruitment process, suggested categories, nominations phase, voting, forum, and a full ceremony exactly three months later.
58 minutes and 30 seconds into the 2011 Vidya Gaem Awards was the “Teabagging Award” for the worst video game-related event. Clinched by our then-reason for existing (the Spike VGAs), the actual award speech was surprisingly one of détente.
[…] There are few people who criticize the VGA for being not representative of gamers, but here are [sic] the shocking news… they are. At least for many. Not for me, perhaps not for (You), but for many people. Please, don’t throw your PS3 out of the window, because there’s no hope for true gamers. We need the VGAs as much as we hate them.
Without mainstream, video games would be doomed. I predict… two, three, perhaps even four years of mainstream domination. Then, even the seemingly brainless masses will look in another way. Look at more interesting games, more interesting concepts, and the market will do what the market has to do. It will adapt. And great games will be produced. […]
Geoff Keighley was available to accept the award on behalf of Spike TV. Interestingly enough, he tweeted as the show was still streaming.
It wouldn’t be long before the project would see him again, however, because in October 2012, Keighley acquired a notorious moniker on 4chan’s /v/, and the greater internet, as the Dorito Pope.
Participating in a Q&A interview for LevelSave, Keighley sat straddled by several discussion topics: a banner for Halo 4’s Double XP promotion, Mountain Dew: Code Red, and a bag of Doritos.
The video itself speaks volumes greater than just the picture, with Keighley defending brand partnerships and tie-ins as being something that elevates gaming at the macro level. As someone who facilitates those partnerships, it seems practical to advocate for them from that position.
However, this sentiment did not sit well with many on the internet, particularly on /v/. Erik Kain’s article contextualizes the situation: the gaming industry relies on information, relationships, and advertising. Keighley’s emphasis on return on investment (ROI) and the business aspect of gaming was uniquely pragmatic, but it was also tone-deaf from a consumer’s perspective.
It is easy to make the mistake, just like Angry Joe did, of thinking that Geoff Keighley was the mastermind behind the Spike Video Game Awards. I, too, believed this when I was younger, but it is an erroneous assumption. According to IMDB, the 2003 show was produced by TV veterans Albie Hecht (creator of Spike TV) and Casey Patterson, who served as executive and co-executive producer, respectively.
Spike’s influence on their product, the Spike TV Video Game Awards, would hold until their tenth and final production, the VGX.
When Spike “hit the reset button”, an emaciated product emerged. No longer was there a traditional award show present; instead, we had Joel McHale riffing jokes and ribbing the people presenting them. Keighley was there to corral it back to earth, but it seemed like a corporate mimicry of the /v/GAs, a shadow attempting to adopt the form but losing its soul in the progress. What the hell happened?
Perhaps a Viacom executive like Casey Patterson, inspired by the digital-native, budget-conscious approach of the /v/GAs in 2011 and 2012, decided to meet gamers where they were at: on their level.
What seemed evident was that VGX wasn’t exactly what Keighley wanted. It was half acquiescence to the notion that Spike’s awards weren’t personable enough and doubling down on becoming a medium for game trailers like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and “No Man’s Sky”.
He learned much from managing the production, but after 2013, it was time to say goodbye to Spike.
Buying in
After leaving Spike, Keighley used the business contacts he had made over his career to bring his lifelong dream of creating his own award show, The Game Awards, to fruition. Keighley shared on the gaming podcast The Fourth Curtain that he did so on the suggestion of many in the industry, including Rockstar Games’ Sam Houser at the VGX afterparty.
Keighley invested his savings in The Game Awards instead of buying a home. However, he couldn’t afford to build a stage set. Fortunately, pop star Britney Spears allowed him to use the set of her “Piece of Me” show from her Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood. Eventually, Keighley’s show premiered on Friday, December 5, 2014, at the Axis Theater.
I was 17 when I took over the /v/GAs, and didn’t know Keighley for much more than being the “Dorito Pope” and running the Spike show, so I was still skeptical. In an interview with Niche Gamer for the 2014 Vidya Gaem Awards, I shared leftover criticisms with the Spike VGAs that remained in The Game Awards (TGA). To me, it was a production that still had to earn its “value” proposition.
However, over the years, TGA has improved. Geoff Keighley grew the project with award-show veteran Kimmie Kim, and he also balanced fan expectations with the responsibility of maintaining buy-in from gaming publications and companies. He occasionally has taken an editorial edge to the presentation, such as expressing disappointment when Konami denied Hideo Kojima the opportunity to appear at The Game Awards 2015, as well as calling out abusive practices by game publishers in 2021.
It also meant, to the chagrin of fans, removing IP violations like “AM2R” and “Pokemon Uranium” from the Best Fan Creation when Nintendo objected. Also, the presence of zany, curious sponsors like the Schick Hydrobot to fund the 2016 award presentation.
Nonetheless, each year, The Game Awards has steadily walked the road to self-acceptance, all the while its creator takes the criticism like a champ.
You might even remember Josef Fares for saying that memorable line “Fuck the Oscars!” back in 2017. In promoting his game “A Way Out”, he also had a few more choice words:
[…] This is the thing. And this is my idea, it doesn’t have anything with the EA shit going on with the lootbox and stuff. No, look, look, look, I’m gonna say to you one thing. I’m gonna say to you one thing. EA has been very good to me. And to be honest with you, they’re getting, because “it’s nice to hate EA”, blah, blah, I don’t care about that shit. What I’m saying is this. All publishers fuck up sometimes, you know?
Keighley gave Josef Fares the time of day and in promoting his game, didn’t care to try and cut to a commercial break when he veered off-message. It was also pretty forthcoming of Josef Fares to acknowledge the Star Wars: Battlefront II controversy and not dismiss it.
A reformed perception
Speaking of 2017, the /v/GAs held a series of public meetings in The Game Awards Discord server that year, both three days before the show and immediately afterward. The server was quieter then — Geoff Keighley hadn’t taken an active role in promoting the server, and no Game Awards staff were present in these unofficial meetings.
This followed an earlier meeting that was held in Roblox. Seriously.
2017 was also significant because it was the first year The Game Awards implemented a “fan vote” in their winner determinations. To accomplish this, The Game Awards hired tech company Proxima and expanded the opportunities for fans to vote via platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The company’s “IRIS platform” was previously used to power fan voting in the MTV VMAs.
This would allow audience members one vote per category per platform, and the collective 10% fan-voting power would be blended with 90% of the voting jury.
Meeting your maker
The following year, in December, one of the /v/GA project managers bought a ticket to attend the show. He went of his own accord, live-posted about going on our Discord server, and said he had a good time.
The following year, I decided to give it a go as well. In November 2019, I contacted Keighley via the info@thegameawards.com email, telling him I would be in town. In the email, I touched on the fact that we had both started working on award shows early in our lives and faced a tough crowd. I commended him for working against the grain and not giving up.
The email must’ve sounded saccharine to the guy whose reputation as the “Dorito Pope” was long ingrained in me. However, the sentiment was — and still is — a genuine reflection of my beliefs that people can change, and their body of work can improve also.
Look at it like long-distance running. When you’ve been an award show for so long, you’re not racing “against” the others so much as doing your own thing in parallel. Each project has its advantages, faults, and history.
Attending The Game Awards for the first time challenged my perceptions. I had never been to an industry-wide award show, so seeing a well-coordinated, professional atmosphere that effectively co-mingled industry guests with fans was nice.
In many ways, it is a “traditional” media award show; in others, it is not.
One of the things I appreciated about the whole thing was the lack of pretentiousness. You don’t have to be an industry hotshot or card-carrying member. All you have to do is find your way to Los Angeles and optionally buy a ticket. As a seat filler, I had the chance to encounter and even interact with some of gaming’s most prominent figures, in-person and without a special invitation.
The energy in the room is one of immense positivity. I’ve seen people get animated when a trailer they like is revealed, and the Xbox Series X reveal proved to be one of the most evident times a fan reaction was important (industry figures already knew it was coming out, so their reception was muted).
Lastly, I took great appreciation in the meta of seeing how the show was run, taking in all the little details, from the gaffers spotlighting multiple nominees to keep the suspense to the stagehands bringing up and down people to promote their games.
With DB and Akane seated to my left, it was an experience uniquely ours. Through a series of relocations, Gotham Casting unintentionally put us, quite literally, in front of the host for most of the event.
I sent him a thank-you email for a fantastic show, the /v/GA staff made the 2019 Vidya Gaem Awards as usual, and life went on… right into the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 and the 20/20 vision
Covid fucked up a lot of shit for the gaming industry, but not the /v/GAs. The fact that our project was always digital, always online, and always communicating (when we were in our production season) meant that everyone had significantly more time on their hands.
As the pandemic unfolded, I wrote a feature-length article about my time at The Game Awards 2019 and finalized it in October 2020. I sent an advance copy to Keighley as a courtesy and got to work on our own show’s 2020 teaser the following month.
December saw a surge in COVID-19 cases, particularly hitting California hard and leading to the state issuing a stay-at-home order. The Game Awards took place online, and though it had planned an online show since the onset of COVID, it was quite impressive. Though I had expected a UEFN-based Fortnite award show, it didn’t happen in 2020. The Game Awards would later incorporate this idea for their 2023 show.
Also, 2020 marked the first year The Game Awards extended us and the public an unexpected courtesy: co-streaming permission for their entire show. Were this Spike, there wouldn’t have been a chance in hell anyone would be allowed to co-stream, much less an award show from 4chan.
Co-streaming led to a deluge of people interested in claiming the “Twitch drops” contingent on viewing the stream for more than a certain amount of time. Though there was some controversy over how those drops were fulfilled, it resulted in quite the subscriber windfall for us: 1,796 new followers on Twitch and capped out at 4,076 concurrent viewers across all of our platforms. The Game Awards themselves claimed an 84% increase in viewership.
Months later, after a visit to the George Washington Masonic National Memorial and a stay at the Watergate Hotel, we celebrated our tenth-year anniversary with the conspiracy-themed 2020 Vidya Gaem Awards, which had a commemorative video halfway through the broadcast. I invited Keighley and his team to watch our show.
The Vidya Gaem Awards were born to rebuke the Spike VGAs, but looking at it more poetically, they were like the “XOF” to Spike’s FOX Unit. The hostility ceased when Spike held its last show in 2013.
The invitation reflected the personal respect I had for him as a showman. We came from different backgrounds, celebrate gaming in different ways, and focus on different communities. But in between there, our projects hold value to someone in the middle: gamers. 2020 would be ten years for the /v/GAs: the same amount of presentations that the Spike Video Game Awards held between its inception in 2003 to its final show in 2013.
2021 — a tale of two gambles
The 2020 Vidya Gaem Awards was the result of a lot of hard work, and an amazing milestone for us to have, but the 2020 Vidya Gaem Awards would also be the last show for two of our most senior staff.
There was an internal vote held in March 2021 that posed the prospect of whether the show should transform and be more than an award show and act as a showcase for the greater internet. The result was a landslide “No”, myself included. People already know where to look for that stuff.
The 2020 /v/GA director retired after his third year running the project, and someone else who was both “new” and older than anyone leading it before took the reins. He was wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to take the project in a fresh new direction with a Web 1.0 theme.
The day before nominations opened for the 2021 /v/GAs, I flew out to LA to try my luck in attending The Game Awards 2021, cognizant of the possibility that, due to COVID restrictions, I might not be able to go into the venue. Since flights were ridiculously cheap, I could still meet up with some local friends in LA and fly back to Chicago shortly before midnight. I had paid less than $100 for an LA day trip — shit was cool.
I landed at Long Beach Airport, it was a cool 60 degrees with cloudy skies, and my friends Jab50Yen (Jab) and Firethorn43 picked me up. We also picked up Akane so he could come with us.
When we arrived, it was as promised. No dice, no seat filling, and no paid tickets this year. While Jonah and Jab could attend because the former had participated in the Zoom calls earlier that year and Jab was a +1, Akane and I couldn’t be a +2 and +3. It was disappointing, but nobody was misled.
With four hours to wait out the show, I decided to lobbycon it. With the LA Kings Holiday Ice Rink in the background and music playing nonstop, I danced to NSync’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” and co-streamed the event on behalf of the /v/GAs from an iPad Pro.
Once The Game Awards 2021 was over and done with. I got a chance to meet up with Josef Fares and congratulate him for his win, and my three friends and I did a light round of networking outside and at the JW Marriott before we grabbed some In-N-Out together, and I flew back home to Chicago.
Like in 2019 — I still gave my feedback, though not nearly as detailed on account of being unable to go inside, in the form of an email to the TGA team. Among the things I mentioned were a continued appreciation for the event, the networking opportunities, and the mobile rhythm game “Beatstar” (from Space Ape Games) present in the Google Play Games promo reel.
I also identified some security concerns and shared them in the letter. I noticed outside the Microsoft Theater that people were sharing screenshots of the tickets and AEG Security wasn’t scanning them. I also mentioned how the plus-one ticket system caused a line in the Resolutions booth with people claiming they had valid tickets that weren’t recognized.
I closed the email by thanking Keighley for dedicating at least some airtime to addressing the Activision Blizzard controversy but also suggested that he clarify the role of the Advisory Board, as people were interpreting the Board to serve a greater function than it had. I pointed out that while The Game Awards couldn’t be the “referendum on the industry”, we certainly could, and we’d do it for free.
On our project, our new director led the 2021 Vidya Gaem Awards to an impressive, smooth finish.
2022
Our next project, the 2022 Vidya Gaem Awards, employed a theme that was a mix of Dreamcast-punk and urban graffiti, and like every year we go into a theme, we take the time to try and realize that vision through personal research and lots of references. That included an October visit to Seattle, visiting a local art supply store, Art Primo, and seeing the large variety of “caps”, “mops”, and choices of spray paint available.
During my travels, I enjoyed searching for graffiti pieces and contemplating how to best reflect a punk attitude that would translate well into the larger production. Most of it wasn’t used, but we took particular inspiration from Seattle and New York in the months leading up to the 2022 stream. The place names and map layout for our fictional universe, Vidya City, were inspired by video games like Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto, as well as real topography from Seattle, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
It had also been three years since The Game Awards were open to the public. After enjoying the 2019 show and experiencing the networking opportunities in 2021, I was excited to attend again. I wrote to the info@thegameawards.com email and gave them a heads up I would be attending once more.
On December 8, 2022, I woke up early, headed to the airport, and boarded a 5:00 AM flight to Los Angeles. Four and a half hours later, I landed at LAX. Much of the day was similar to my experience three years ago, but a few things were different.
I ended up taking a bus instead of getting picked up. The fact I had flown in early meant my two local friends, Jab and Akane, were still working their day jobs. I checked into my hotel, dropped my bags off, and checked the nearby neighborhoods. I got in line sometime around 2:30pm.
I was in contact with The Game Awards’ head of co-streaming, Andy Phillips, and planned to meet up with him. As the seat fillers began filling in the theater, I updated him with the row I was seated in, in case he wanted to meet up. It didn’t work out due to logistics, but I appreciated the transparency.
Both Akane and Jab didn’t arrive until later. Akane was sitting over in house left, and Jab came sometime after the Christopher Judge speech. Although I took some personal offense with what Keighley said to Judge after his extensive award speech increased the amount of Steam Decks Valve had to give out, it belied a significantly streamlined ceremony. It was evident he took stock of what people were saying: no more marathon presentations.
Sometime between that and the next musical performance, Jab arrived and found a seat next to me.
The TGA crew had implemented several suggestions that I, and many other show watchers, had suggested for a long time. In particular, mixing the audience louder in the stream, incorporating “reaction cameras” in the winner reveal, and promoting The Game Awards fanbase front and center by holding Q&As and community events.
It took sufficient time, effort, and money, but viewers like myself have never been shy to give guidance to those who seek it. Similar to game developers who respond to negative Steam reviews by fixing bugs and engaging with constructive criticism, making an effort to address feedback in good faith can help improve others’ perceptions of you and, ultimately, lead to a better end product.
What did I think of TGA 2022? Well, I enjoyed Halsey’s performance, the premiere of Death Stranding 2’s trailer, and the reveal of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. While I don’t stake much emotional investment in any of the nominees or winners, seeing God of War: Ragnarok “clean house” in that award show must have felt good for the Sony Santa Monica team. And of course, the continued presence of industry veterans like Reggie and Troy Baker always fills the room with positive energy.
At its climax, a cinematic, masterful reveal of Game of the Year mixed the soundtracks of various games into an illustrious medley. The “TGA Flute Guy”, Pedro Eustache, became an overnight sensation. The TGA Orchestra did a wonderful job, and I can’t help but think the composition struck a chord of the nine years expended to get to that point. Emotive was the word for many people — for me, it was compassion.
The man who sold the world, Geoff Keighley, broke free from Spike TV after realizing, much like we at the Vidya Gaem Awards did, that it was run by people who frankly didn’t care about gaming. In the years after being clowned on as the Dorito Pope, he had to experience the cruelest irony of all in 2017: Doritos offering branded regalia (1:10:20) to him for a sponsorship opportunity.
Like our 9th year (2019), I’m sure The Game Awards 2022 was fairly difficult, but it was nearing its finish, and their team would have a hell of a time debriefing in the week afterward.
As the Game of the Year medley came to a finale, the applause from the audience was thunderous. Pedro Eustache recognized the prominence of his part and threw out a celebratory shaka to the drummer behind him. Josef Fares, winner of 2021’s Game of the Year Award at the TGAs, pointed to the orchestra and smiled. “Goosebump, I told you.”
“Alright.” Fares opened the card for a split second before realizing the gaffe.
“Game of The Year winner… is…”
Fares opened the card again and turned his attention toward the audience.
“Elden Ring!”
As the Elden Ring developers high-fived those seated in the front row, a dark spirit invaded from the rear. A minor, who had bought their ticket online, quickly approached the stage unnoticed. Ushers in the venue that could have stopped him were missing, perhaps due to a cinematographer’s desire to make a visually appealing shot.
The only person on stage who appears consistently uncomfortable with the interloping figure is Miyazaki’s interpreter, who the teenager taps on the shoulder as they walk up together.
The audience, most of whom wouldn’t have been familiar with award show seating protocol —noticed nothing amiss. I myself thought he was a QA tester or someone in the game’s cast.
Of course, gifted with hindsight, you already know what happened. He didn’t work on Elden Ring: he successfully crashed the stage of gaming’s most prominent award show.
Midway through the Elden Ring speech, Fares took out his phone and recorded a 10-second video, featuring the crasher nervously pacing back and forth as Fares pans to show the thick of the crowd. The crasher attempted to locate a stable standing spot but found it difficult to maintain composure. Nobody thinks much of it — people are nervous at award shows all the time.
The developer’s winning speech ended, and the send-off music began to play. The mic was cut. Everyone, myself included, was thinking that was it. But it wasn’t. The crasher had one card left up his sleeve: approaching the mic to give an extemporaneous speech heard around the world.
“You know, real quick I want to thank everybody and say that, I think I want to nominate this award to uh, my reformed orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton, thank you everybody.”
The Rain
We get away with everyday shit
But everyday shit catches up to you
And when it does, you can’t say shit- DMX, “The Rain” (2003)
The in-theater audience didn’t exactly hear what was said, as his mic was cut mid-sentence, but I did hear the part that had to do with nominating an award to his “Reformed Orthodox Rabbi, Bill Clinton”.
Several publications and social media figures interviewed the crasher, asking him what he meant by that. In an interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier, he denied the “Reformed Orthodox Rabbi” thing as being some sort of dog whistle. To me, it was a dog whistle, but it was one so finely tuned and particular that nobody would hear it except for the dogs.
Being both Jewish and having a profile of the 42nd U.S. President for nearly five years at that point, a question pierced my mind.
Was this kid giving me a shout-out?
Snap back to reality. Keighley walks onto the main stage, completely flustered, thanks everyone for coming, and bids all a good night. He was certainly not going to have one.
Everyone in the theater got punked, including us. Jab and I got up from our seats and walked towards the exit. Behind us, a woman dressed in bright red with a smartphone full of text asked us both a question.
“Did either of you catch what that kid said?”
Jab answered, “I think I heard him say something about Bill Clinton.”
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck. I checked my phone. It was bad.
JohnCuck: @beatstar you want to explain what the fuck that was
Space.Muffin: The fuck did that thing say?
shuttah: something about bill clinton
RedMarz: Is Bill Clinton there? I just looked away for one minute and I see chat going crazy
A lot of the people online knew me for my Bill Clinton avatar, so I had to change that shit fast before people started drawing lines that didn’t exist.
I want to be clear: I never met, spoke to, or knowingly interacted with this person. If any of his online friends egged him on, none of them worked for us. I emailed the contact listed on his social media to corroborate any association, but he never responded.
This non-involvement extends to our entire team — we’ve worked hard to make a local presentation that gives our voters an opportunity to suggest categories and nominees that fit /v/. People should know that if it were us, interfering with a mainstream award show like this is a great way to get sued.
Frank Sinatra once said, “Some people get their kicks stomping on a dream.” I would rather bring the fight against companies that exploit their workers than hurt the person whose talent and goodwill for gaming was exploited by a company for years.
I took a picture with the TGA statue behind me, prepped some notes for the email I would later send to Geoff Keighley and his team, and walked out of the theater a reformed, orthodox member of society.
To Live & Learn in LA
I hung out with a few people in the Microsoft Theater for a while. I must’ve crossed paths with the Majima cosplayer no less than five times. Akane returned to the hotel and had a soak in the tub. I pretty much stayed until the theater kicked all the guests out.
Jab DMed the group chat, which consisted of them, me, and Akane.
Jab50Yen: After party in the conga room
beatstar: Word
Jab50Yen: Oh nvm you need an extra ticket I think
Jab50Yen: There’s at least that marriott one
beatstar: Word?
Jab50Yen: Yeah same hotel we were at last year
Jab50Yen: There’s a girl that wants to meet y’all
beatstar: Nice, lets
The woman in the bright red dress leaving the theater was Shannon Liao, a video games reporter working at the time for the Washington Post. Jab and I featured in her live coverage as onlookers seeing the crazy shit unfold. Shortly after we got acquainted, Liao introduced her colleague, Nathan Grayson. I didn’t recognize his face, but I sure recognized the Twitter profile when Jab pulled it up on their phone.
I exclaimed “I remember you!” in an incredibly shrill voice. I had reached out to Grayson years ago after listening to his Kotaku Splitscreen podcast episode “Video Game Award Shows Are A Mess”. I live-reacted to it via a deluge of DMs, gave my thoughts on the competition, and ended by plugging the /v/GAs as a grassroots alternative.
It was certainly a mouthful, but the guy at least entertained what I had to say. He wrote back and gave his thoughts on the guy, emphasizing the non-personal part of Keighley’s TGA, which contrasted with the celebrity-heavy Spike show.
Two months after that interaction, I reached out again to Grayson to remind him of our 2020 stream later in the week. He said he’d check it out.
The /v/GA’s head writer was incredulous: “You contacted Nathan fucking Grayson of all the Kotaku publishers lmao”
What’s the big idea? It’s not like the guy was going to fuck me.
Bad jokes aside, the WaPo duo seemed skilled at networking with the crowd, so Jab and I followed their lead and tried our hands at it.
Jab was my wingmate for much of the night, and while Jab worked for a band, I introduced myself to most as just an attendee. The crowd looked to be one that captured the gaming industry well, and it wouldn’t have been appropriate to discuss our project at a show that’s not ours. Especially after what happened earlier.
Just like in 2021, I met a ton of people there, but there were a few interactions that stood out. Below are three examples.
Josef Fares
I noticed Josef Fares in the JW Marriott lobby and asked his thoughts on what happened earlier that night with Bill Clinton Kid. It was a short and sweet conversation. The man, never too cool to talk to anyone, gave his thoughts: “I thought he was supposed to be there.”
We agreed Keighley needed better security, and I thanked him for his candor.
Completionist
Before Karl Jobst and Mutahar investigated Completionist over his family’s charity, I heard Completionist’s own perspective on what caused the G4 reboot to fail. It was mostly what I had thought: Comcast Spectacor, a sports television company, tried to turn a profit on a gaming network while operating out of Spike’s defunct playbook. Wikipedia sums it better, but that was pretty much the sentiment.
What particularly stung was the fact he was locked out of his G4 emails when the company shut down, and that kept him from playing games that studios sent him for review.
Christopher Judge
Outside the JW Marriott, Christopher Judge was being embraced by fans coming at him from all angles, congratulating him, wanting autographs, selfies, and videos. It was a great night for him, and he did his best to oblige.
He couldn’t find the exact words to encapsulate years of progress, but I knew where his heart was. I watched for a few minutes, marveling at the respect fans had for the face of Kratos. God of War: Ragnarok was a game that meant a lot to these fans. For Judge, the role meant everything.
I thought of his speech and thought back to a time I moderated a benefit Q&A for donors at my local community college. I shared personal stories that were important to me but rambled and lost my train of thought. I didn’t have millions of people watching, but I did embarrass myself in front of a captive audience. I also had someone who made it worse by trying to shame me for it. Two elderly women came to my rescue afterward. They were angels. At this moment, I had to be that comforting voice for someone who had just been in a whirlwind and was thrust into another.
“Listen, I don’t want a picture or an autograph, I just wanted to say what you said was from the heart and from the soul.”
Christopher’s Judge’s fatherly face teared up. “Thank you, man.”
Blackjack and Hookers III, which deals with my time at MAGFest 2023, meeting Keighley at the New York Game Awards, and the /v/GAs presence at PAX West, will release soon™.
