Last week, I watched the VGX live stream. And after a week and being prompted by a survey I have some thoughts on the event.
Below is the response to the survey question: "Any other feedback you have for this year’s VGX…"
Give us:
More industry representation.
More real exclusives (no, "there's more zombies on the bridge this time… I promises", "we have Cranky Kong", and "look here's a slightly better render of Titan Fall" don't count as exclusives…)
More actual reporting, marketing, and love for games! Where was the staff support from GT and the advisory committee? Geoff could have done great, but it seems like someone at Viacom told him to let McHale lead the entire event.
Respect your audience and the industry? Really, you gave Mega64 2 minutes of our attention? They are disrespectful jokes making themselves look bad and make the industry and fans look bad. Demand respect, grow up! We aren't a bunch of complaining twelve year olds that are running around hopped up on Mountain Dew. There is a time and a place to be goofy and funny, this was not it, and was an embarrassment.
Use your talent! You have rising people in the industry such as Kyle Bossman and greats like Pachter and Beer. These guys have a great sense of joking around, keeping things light, but never making me feel like I should be babysitting them and making them sit in a corner.
I am ashamed to say that I watched through the entire VGX this year, hoping that you would pull something out of the terrible rubble you were building, but the only thing that did impress was a developer that paid his own ticket to rush to the event and show early beta gameplay capture (No Man's Sky). And I was rather excited by Broken Age, although you seemed to be more excited about Jack Black and Elijah Wood than the game itself!
This is not meant to sound like I am a fringe Indie game fan-boy trashing the gaming media or the AAA publishers and developers. I almost exclusively purchase AAA games. I get excited for the new Assassins Creed games and can't wait for a lot of the major releases next year. But this was sickening. Step up your game, show viewers respect, show developers respect, and honestly most of all: show yourselves some respect. You are better than this garbage.