We should be proud of the Game Developers Choice Awards

In December of last year we all sat down, set our TV to Spike and watched another edition of the Spike Video Game Awards. And as it is with every year people took to twitter throughout the show to complain about every little thing done. Somewhere between teabagging award winners and Felicia Day eating cupcakes it was clear that people were yet again outraged.

I brought this up then and I still think it’s true now. I went in knowing full well what to expect from the Spike VGA’s. The show runs late at night on the same channel that shows “Manswers”. If you expected any less than what we got you were kidding yourself. It doesn’t change the fact that this is the mainstream version of what people outside of the gaming industry might see us as and that’s unfortunate but, considering the show from last night, I think it’s clear we can take solice in the fact that it’s possible to create both an entertaining and classy video game award show.

Last night marked the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. The first half, the Independent Games Festival Awards, hosted by Andy Schatz and the latter half, the Game Developers Choice Awards, hosted by none other than Cliff Bleszinski. The show was streamed for the third consecutive year on GameSpot allowing for anyone to watch with, for the most part, limited hiccups.

Anyone who watched the show last night can attest to the fact that this is the awards show that everyone wants from the game industry. It was a serious celebration of the teams that work their tails off creating the games we enjoy as well as an entertaining show to watch. There was never a point throughout the show that I didn’t feel that a lot of care went into making the show work. Both Andy Schatz and Cliff Bleszinski did a fine job hosting and heck I even laughed at some of their jokes.

Throughout the awards one thing always remained the same. There was never a moment where people accepting awards were rushed off staged because they went on too long. For the most part acceptance speeches were kept short but it always felt like developers were given their chance to thank the people who needed thanked and give credit where it was due. There were no big game reveals, no awkward skits, no flashy holographic displays. It was a simple, well thought out and well executed awards show. Granted there was the occassional Mega64 video to break things up a little but each one I felt was very well made and entertaining in their own right.

Most notable from the night were the acceptance speeches given by the winners of the Ambassador and Lifetime Achievement Awards. The Ambassador Award was given this year to Ken Doroshaw (Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the Entertainment Software Association) and Paul M. Smith (Jenner & Block LLC). They led the legal team in the court ruling that content-based restrictions on games are unconstitutional. The speech given by them last night served as a great reminder that not only is protecting the first ammendment significant but that we should be proud of the fact that our medium is quite possibly one of the most creative forms of expression that we have. It’s important that we’re not limited in that expression and I have to say it was great to see credit given to them on a night in which we also honor those who deliver the games that we love each and every year.

Then of course there was Warren Spector, a man who needs no introduction, who made it his point to make sure that it was understood that he was not alone on the stage last night. “Game development is the most collaborative endeavor I can imagine.” Warren gave a humble speech that highlighted the necessity to work towards the things that make us unique. Not to imitate other forms of media but to do what we do best. “Find what makes you special and then never settle in pursuit of that. Do that and you’ll discover, if you didn’t already know, that games can be something more than a way to make some money for yourself.” It was a speech that highlighted the fact that if we can then we must.

Last nights Game Developers Choice Awards, as it is every year, was a great representation of what this industry can be. Developers got the acknowledgment that they deserve so much and we, as an industry, got a show that we can be proud of. I don’t know if a show like this will ever air on TV for more than just those tuned into the gaming industry to see but I do know that we’re more than capable of creating an award show to happy about. The Spike VGAs will continue to be just the way they are and that’s fine. Just remember this December when you’re complaining about this years show that we still have something really special to look forward to every GDC.

One day they’re just going to take over.

So I think at some point in the future I’m going to need to get a new dedicated shelf for these guys….

That’s not even including the giant penguin I have sitting elsewhere.

It started innocently enough but eventually each trip I took resulted in an addition to the collection. It doesn’t feel like much now but I have this fear that one day I’ll wake up with hundreds covering every last bit of space I have left.

Something I rather appreciate about this little collection thing is every one of them has some sort of story or meaning behind it which I think is rather cool. Most have been given to me or were made specifically with me in mind. It’s slowly becoming a thing that whenever we’re on a trip somewhere or we see something penguin related everything just stops and money is spent.

It’s like I always say. You can never have too many penguins.

Avalanche City makes the best first impressions.

In excitement for the fun. tour to start I did a little bit of digging to see who would be opening for them. I found that throughout all of March a band called “Avalanche City” would be opening for them. Unable to find who would replace their spot in April I figured I might as well check them out. This was probably the greatest decision of my life. You see the following video was my first experience with Avalanche City:

Anyone that knows me can probably guess what my reaction to that video was. At the same time I’m horribly disappointed that they won’t be opening for fun. in April. Some of the worst news I’ve heard in a long time.

Anyways I think this is just a post to say that people should go check out Avalanche City. You can listen to their album on their bandcamp page here. Also this is a post to say how much I hate that I can’t buy this CD anywhere. I’ve searched high and low and I just can’t find a place to purchase their CD at a reasonable price. (Importing from Amazon is pretty expensive unfortunately.) Amazon MP3 is really failing me on this one. UGH!

One Foot forward: Thoughts on fun.’s latest album “Some Nights”

A friend of mine introduced me to fun. a couple years ago by linking me to a song of their’s entitled “Walking the Dog”. Despite liking it at first I never really got into them until I just by chance happened to see them in concert at the beginning of Summer last year. “By chance” meaning that I just sort of found myself tagging along with some friends to a concert and fun. just so happened to be there. Of the three bands that took the stage that night it was fun. who just made things work in their own way. There was an energy and charisma to their stage presence that made watching them loads of fun. (HA!) I feel really terrible about that last sentence please ignore that.

At any rate I went home that night of the opinion that fun. was an awesome band to see live and that I really needed to check them out now. Their CD was bought a few days later and the rest is history. I fell in love with ‘fun.’ and for quite some time have been anxiously awaiting their Sophomore release. Which of course brings me to Some Nights which was released on February 21st.

Some Nights kicks off and ends on two really high notes. Some Nights (Intro) and Some Nights themselves are two songs that absolutely crush it. They manage to bring something unique while still retaining that fun. flavor that I enjoy so much. Simply put fun. is at their best, as you’d might expect, when the songs are just straight up fun to listen to and these first two songs are exactly that. From there you get We Are Young and Carry On, which are totally great in their own right, leading into It Gets Better. It Gets Better is just not the fun. that I know and love. While I’m not a person who goes out of their way to hate on autotune the use of it on this particular track is a bit much for me. Although in truth it’s the lyrics that just don’t click. Something I’ve grown to expect from fun. are lyrics that just roll together really well. That’s not there in It Gets Better.

A friend and I joke that from that song it really does get better as the remainder of the songs are mostly great. Why Am I The One, All Alone, All Alright, One Foot, Stars and the bonus track (Out On The Town) are great songs. Heck I’d argue that Stars and Out On The Town are right up there in the top four songs of the album.

I really don’t usually mind the use of autotune. There’s a lot of it in Some Nights and while none of it is offensive I have a feeling that it’s use will prove to make this a rather divisive album among fans. For instance the second half of Stars is like autotune-x-treme or something. It’s not bad but rather unexpected I suppose.

At any rate I’m totally digging the new album. Nate Ruess’ voice is seriously insane. I guess you could call me excited to see them in April again.

It’s a whole new world, dood!

So this is pretty exciting I suppose. Although I guess to all two of you it really isn’t. This counts as the fourth design that PSPenguin has undergone. For a while there this was a video game site with reviews and such but when I joined PSNStores a lot of that stopped. Heck the only reason PSPenguin ever happened was a good friend of mine pushing me to go out and make something. (This coming at a time in my life that had me really trying to dig deep into website design.) And so PSPenguin has sort of turned into a personal blog of sorts. Funny how that works.

This is the third wordpress theme/design/thing I’ve made totally from scratch and while I don’t think this one is necessarily “OMG Amazing!” I’m proud of it. I’m proud of everything I’ve been able to learn in the past year. To be honest when I look back at site designs I made a year ago in comparison to now I notice a huge amount of improvement. That alone keeps me pretty happy with where I’m at so far and of course excited for the future.

Design wise this time I put a lot of focus on just keeping things very simple and friendly with all sorts of screen resolutions. PSPenguin should now display great on phones, tablets, as well as larger resolutions. There might be a few little hitches I’m still working out but for the most part it’s fit for any screen size. I think that’s really cool but perhaps that’s just me.

Anyways pretty straightforward stuff. Blog on the left, an about me section on the right and underneath that is my latest tweet. I have/had a section for things I’ve been doing lately. Stuff like what I’ve been reading, listening to, watching and playing. Some jQuery to make it scroll and be all ‘awesome’ and such. But I want to take some more time to make that fit better for smaller resolutions and I think I can probably make it look a bit nicer.

Along with this I’m going to try my best to just write something on a daily basis even if it’s of little importance. It’ll be nice to have a blog to just..uhh…blog my thoughts every once and a while. Should be fun!

Also I want to give a big huge (yes, both) thanks to Greg Heapy (@AcidCrashX) for helping out with the logo and site favicon. I really quite like them a lot and he was nice enough to offer to help out because that’s how awesome he is!