Every year all the major game publishers gather at the media convention known as E3 to show off their wares and future products. Journalists from all the major media outlets likewise get an opportunity to preview the latest and greatest. And from the meeting of these two large conglomerates comes the biggest scam in all of gaming known as the Game Critics Awards’ “Best of E3” honors.

Game publishers tout this award as if it is the equivalent of an Oscar or Golden Globe. Upon review of their game’s websites, this award is featured very prominently on those games bestowed with the honor. The unsuspecting consumer, seeing that a game has won an award, the “prestigious Best of E3” Game Critics Award, no less, associate high quality with this product. Pity the buyer who pays $60 for a game based upon this falsehood of an honor. The real winners in this lie are of course the game publishers who rack in billions and billions of dollars based upon the falsehood perpetrated by media journalists.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Game Critics Award, this definition can be found on their website:

Game Critics Awards, an independent group of journalists from 36 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry.

Each year the Game Critics Awards present its Best of E3 awards. These awards recognize the games that will shape the future of interactive entertainment, as demonstrated via hands-on playable form at the 2007 E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles, CA.

The media outlets they are talking about include:

Pretty much every major media outlet in the country is included in this list.

The basic premise of the award is simple enough: to “recognize the games that will shape the future of interactive entertainment.” At E3, the journalists get to play with the games and decide on whom they think will revolutionize gaming. The awards include categories such as “Best in Show,” “Best PC Game,” and “Best Action Game.” The awards build hype for games they think people should look out for. On paper, this sounds like a great idea. However, in practice, nothing is further from the truth.

The first problem with the award is that it is too hastily put together. Games, unlike movies, cannot be thoroughly reviewed in 90 minutes. You need a few days of play testing to make a final judgment. Given the breadth and chaotic nature of E3, I doubt if these journalists get to spend much time at each booth to review the games. The most I assume they get is one hour. How can they within the span of a few minutes bestow the title of “Best” to anything? How can they lend their name and credibility to something when they haven’t thoroughly done their homework on it? It’s about as silly as giving an Oscar based upon a movie trailer. Imagine the Academy doing that!

To give an example of such shoddy reporting, World of Warcraft never received any awards. How can the greatest multiplayer game of all time not win any awards? If there’s a game that “will shape the future” of gaming, it’s certainly WoW. In 2002, it was nominated for Best Online Multiplayer game but lost to Star Wars Galaxies. In 2003, it was nominated again for Best Online Multiplayer but lost to City of Heroes. Yet again in 2004, it lost to Halo 2 for Best Online Multiplayer. How can any of those games that won compare to WoW? If there’s anyone laughing, it’s Blizzard at the bank. Also, during those years, never once was it nominated for “Best in Show,” “Best PC Game,” or “Best RPG.” Guess who won “Best in Show?” Doom 3 won in 2002. Can you believe that? Doom 3! Other than pretty graphics, the game was terrible. Who plays Doom 3 anymore? There are plenty of other examples that will make you scratch your head in disbelief if you look at their website.

How can this have happened? What are these guys smoking when they reviewed the games? The fact is, for a role-playing game like WoW, it’s hard to judge in a few minutes. You really need to spend days and weeks with it to get a feel for it. For a game like Doom, it’s easier to enjoy in a short amount of time. If these journalists do their due diligence, they will have found that game play in Doom gets boring real fast. For a five minute review though, pretty graphics works wonders. Unfortunately, WoW lacks snazzy graphics. And we all know that graphics sells games, not game play. Yeah, right.

The second problem with the Game Critics Awards is that they are judging products that are unfinished. Games take years to develop, and game publishers tend to showcase them really early on at E3 to build hype. What journalists see might not be what consumers get. It’s not just game play that might change but the bugs that are in the game too. What if the game they recommend has numerous bugs upon release? With today’s profit driven publishers, games routinely get release that have tons of bugs in them. Game publishers have really no incentive to delay the release of these games when they know that if their game is a “Best of E3” award winner, there will be lots of hype surrounding it. Consumers will buy it because it has the Game Critics Awards seal of approval. Hey, if it is the Best of E3, it must be a good product, right? This is one practice the industry needs to stop and media journalists are definitely not helping the cause.

For example, let’s take the game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. In 2006, it won Best Online Multiplayer. I played the beta in June 2007, and let me say this; the game is nowhere near prime time for multiplayer action. It is still very buggy. The servers are laggy and the hit detection is off. Now, if it is that buggy in 2007, what was it like in 2006? How can these journalists recommend a game that has lots of bugs in them? What are they thinking? Are they putting faith in the publisher that they will iron out all the kinks by the time the game releases? I’m sure publishers can be trusted to delay the release rather than push a defective product. Yeah, right.

Let’s call the Game Critics Awards for what it really is, the Vaporware Award. These reporters are essentially giving out prizes for things that don’t exist. The emperor wears no clothes and the journalists don’t notice. I don’t know if these journalists are just plain dumb or if they’re being deceitful. I’ll give them the benefit of doubt and say they’re just dumb. I mean, how gullible are these people? Read what they say about Killzone, “Special Commendation for Graphics” winner in 2005:

After speaking with Sony, this was indeed only a demonstration of what can be expected of PS3 – a visual target. But if it is any indication of what games are going to look like, all we can do is wait with bated breath and hope for greatness next year.

Even after Sony tells them that those trailers are not actual game play footage, they still give them an award for Best Graphics with the hopes that game play graphics will be as good. Has any PS3 game looked anywhere near as good as those “visual targets”? It’s 2007 already, 2 years removed from 2005, and we still aren’t even close. Where is Killzone now, by the way?

And don’t even get me started on Spore, a game that was won multiple awards, including Best in Show in 2005, 2006, and will probably win again in 2007. If the game was so great 2 years ago, how come it’s not ready today? With no release date in sight, I wonder how great and ready it could have been. Now, I’m a huge fan of Will Wright and Spore might still turn out great, but I don’t think journalists should give out awards so easily based on reputation or hype alone. If that were the case, Spielberg or Scorcese should win an Oscar every time! A lot can happen between now and release date. Journalists need to take that into account.

To be fair, they don’t always get it wrong. Sometimes they get it right too, like in 2006 when the Wii was Best in Show or 2003 when Half-Life 2 won. However, there were far too many errors to ignore. For such reputable media organizations, they need to have a better track record.

It’s a tragic shame that such large news organizations are participating in this sham that is the E3 Game Critics Awards. I don’t have anything against E3 itself or the media organizations themselves, but I don’t think journalists should be giving out awards to vaporware. Game publishers, no doubt, enjoy this dog and pony show because these awards will help sales when the games are released. In the end, consumers lose because they see a seal of approval from these reputable media organizations and think they are buying a high quality product. They will have no idea how hastily the games were reviewed or if the game reviewed is the same game they’re buying. Awards should really only be given when a game is production ready.