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Spike VGAs Confuse, Gamecock Apologizes 105

Posted by Zonk from the just-don't-look-just-don't-look dept.
Another year, another horrifying SpikeTV Video Game Awards show done and over with. BioShock grabbed the 'Game of the Year' nod, but both the title and designer Ken Levine were denied their moment in the sun. When the winner was announced some folks from Gamecock rushed the stage and basically said 'it sucks'. They're now apologizing: "Gamecock co-founder Mike Wilson apologized for the disruption on behalf of his team. 'I'd personally like to sincerely apologize to the BioShock team and Ken Levine in particular for GameCock infringing on their spotlight at this weekend's VGA Awards show ... The award acceptance they interrupted was the LAST one we would've wanted to interrupt , ('most addictive game fueled by mountain dew' would have been a wonderful choice) as we have the utmost respect and love for Bioshock.'"
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Spike VGAs Confuse, Gamecock Apologizes More

Spike VGAs Confuse, Gamecock Apologizes

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  • That headline confuses (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:36PM (#21662839) Journal
    Who shot who with the what now?
  • My hopes that the video game industry was finally maturing into a respectable field was dashed by a bunch of game cocks. Could it get any worst than is?
    • Two words Soy Bomb [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:OMG!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by p0tat03 ( 985078 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:59PM (#21663245)

      Could it get any worst than is?

      Yes, in fact the rest of the VGAs show exactly how much worse it can get. Scrawling the names of winners on naked women in bodypaint? Sammy L. Jackson putting in a half-assed effort and cracking insulting, needlessly misogynistic jokes? I'm no feminist, and even I was offended.

      That awards show alone erased whatever sliver of mainstream respect good game developers have earned the industry over the years. Thanks a lot, Spike.

      For that piece of turd I'm now boycotting Spike as a channel indefinitely.

      • The women aren't naked. They are scantily clad. They have panties and pasties on, to be exact.

        You can see it if you watch closely here: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2920222/show/23733/ [ifilm.com]

        I admit they are supposed to 'look' naked, but they're not.
        • Pasties? [wikipedia.org] What?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Tim C ( 15259 )
          The women aren't naked. They are scantily clad. They have panties and pasties on, to be exact.

          That's not the point.

          I admit they are supposed to 'look' naked

          That is.

          Now don't get me wrong, I'm no prude and see nothing wrong with nudity in the right context (or pornography, for that matter), but this was not it. In fact, if you ask me it's just as demeaning to the males it was supposed to titillate as it is to the women; do they really think that we games-playing males are that juvenile? (Don't bother answeri

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Brian Gordon ( 987471 )
        Spike has a lot of crap, but come on they're the only ones who still air Star Trek in syndication. During the summer when they've got 2 episodes of DS9 after an episode of TNG.. on vacation no way I'm going outside during the afternoon. And Voyager has made about half my TV viewing lately, also on Spike.

        • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

          by CFTM ( 513264 )
          There's also these things called "books", they're just like TV but a little bit lower tech...and there are no images rendered for you, you have to use (another scary word coming up) your "imagination"! BUT, because you use your "imagination" the story can look and feel however you want!

          Try it sometime.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kcornia ( 152859 )
        What's even worse is that the UFC tied in with the VGA for some lame announcement. Please UFC, do not get any more associated with the ridiculousness that is the VGA. You're better than that.
        • I personally think that the UFC is exactly the same kind of ridiculousness as the VGA.

          both pander to the same sort of lowest common demoninator with gratitous violence, smack talk, and (pretend) nudity.
          Personally, I'd rather the semi-naked women to the semi-naked men.

          even if they're not in the same ballpark of lousy, they are both far below the threshold of entertaining necessary for me to want to watch either.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kcornia ( 152859 )
            Sounds like you got your ass kicked a little too much back in grade school. MMA is turning into quite a technical sport, despite your short-sighted stereotypical knee-jerk reaction to it. It's ok though, the world needs people who watch Oprah too..

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by NMerriam ( 15122 )
              Hey, if you like watching two mostly naked guys rolling around on the floor with their legs wrapped around each other to find out who passes out first, more power to ya.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Raenex ( 947668 )
            For me it's about the fighting. Pure and simple. You don't like fighting? Ok, fine, but don't claim it's the same thing as something like the Video Game Awards.

        • You're better than that.


          No, they aren't. They really, really aren't. UFC is Professional Wrestling for people for people who want to feel "with it" and "edgy".

          Chris Mattern

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by vranash ( 594439 )
        All I can say is: Somebody actually WATCHED that? I took one look at the ads, and commented to my friends on how much it sucked :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by morari ( 1080535 )
        Spike is only worth watching Star Trek: Voyager. They have the same odd duality to them that G4 does, where they kinda-sorta want to appeal to real geeks yet can't help but do everything in their power to be just like MTV and wrangle in all of the drunken frat boys who say "That's so gay!" when they get fragged in Halo on their wittle Xbox.

        And on that subject, I really miss TechTV (or Hell, ZDTV). I thought it went downhill when Patrick Norton came onto the Screensavers... Boy, what I wouldn't give to hav

        • Spike has the additional dilemma in that it tries to be the Manly Man's Network of Manhood while censoring the shit out of classy shows like The Shield. The irony of this astounds me.
    • The name is even bad. Makes them sound like chickens, or.... I'm not gonna say it.

  • Uh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by koh ( 124962 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:40PM (#21662901) Journal
    Headline No Sense, Editor Sleeps.

  • What an informative summary and set of articles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:42PM (#21662947) Journal
    What is Gamecock? What did they say? What sucked, the game or the award show? Who cares about anything that happens at the VGAs anyway?

    Rob
    • Evidently, they're some company that thinks that 640x480 isn't nearly enough for anyone.

      - RG>

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      They were a bunch of idiots dressed up in chicken suits that jumped up on stage. I thought they were supposed to be there. Part of the Bioshock entourage or something.

      I don't buy the bullshit that nobody knew about it or they "rushed the stage". It's four or five guys in giant red chicken suits. How do you not see them from 800 feet away?! It's not like some guy in a suit follows everyone up on stage and you mistake him for possibly being a level designer or something with the company winning the award.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MBCook ( 132727 )
        They seem to be some little "indy" publisher [wikipedia.org]. Their list of titles is really stand out. I think I might have actually heard of one!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Seumas ( 6865 )
          I think they did something during this year's E3. I don't remember what it was. They protested or held their own E3 or something. Other than that, I have no idea. Never heard of them before that and this.

          But seriously, Ken Levine just sat there and let them rant and then walked off the stage without ever saying a word. So I call bullshit on the whole thing. If it was real, he would have taken time to talk (why would game of the year get less time than every other award?). And even if he didn't shove them ou

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by badasscat ( 563442 )
          This is a semi-serious, only partially rhetorical question: HOW THE HELL CAN YOU PEOPLE NOT KNOW WHO GAMECOCK IS?

          I can understand if you're not gamers; it's not exactly a household name among the general population. But this is a gaming thread, for god's sake, and you'd think at least some of you would be PC gamers.

          Gamecock is the second iteration of the original Gathering of Developers. Ring a bell?

          Run by the same guys in the same town (Austin?), I *think* even in the same offices as the old Gathering.

          • Re:What an informative summary and set of articles (Score:4, Funny)

            by UltraAyla ( 828879 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @10:07PM (#21666517) Homepage

            This is a semi-serious, only partially rhetorical question: HOW THE HELL CAN YOU PEOPLE NOT KNOW WHO GAMECOCK IS?

            Gamecock is the second iteration of the original Gathering of Developers. Ring a bell?

            You've only opened up new questions. Such as: What is the Gathering of Developers?

            • What indeed.

              I've been a gamer for decades. Why the hell what I take a group calling themseleves GameCock's seriously?

              And then why would I listen to some well prounounced dickhead berate me for not knowing who a bunch of GameCock's are?

              You know what the only deduction I have after reading the article? Fuck GameCock. I wish I could "unknow" them now.

            • I've never heard of them either, and I used to play a lot of games (not so much in the past 2 years). I looked them up on Wikipedia and found a name that I did recognize: God Games. Now, I still couldn't remember a single game published under that name, but it at least rung a bell.

              So I looks at their list of "notable games" [wikipedia.org], but only Max Payne and Serious Sam seemed particularly notable to me.

          • Re:What an informative summary and set of articles (Score:5, Insightful)

            by brkello ( 642429 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @12:19AM (#21667615)
            I have been a PC/console/handheld gamer and a long time reader of Slashdot and I have never heard either of those names until now. And if that is all they are, it is no wonder they are forgettable. I'd rather not know who they were.
            • I've been around a long time & have heard of GoD (Gathering of Developers), but they've been gone for years... 5 or so if I remember correctly... I still hadn't heard of 'GameCock' though... A fact I'm quite happy to admit to... Who think sup these names...?

          • I hate to say bad things about fellow developers but, maybe nobody knows who Gamecock is because the sort of amateur bad-boy marking stunts they do don't work.

            If they are doing this for fun, more power to them. But, as a PR stunt, it doesn't work. They need to hire whoever Paris Hilton used.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Gulthek ( 12570 )
            Huh. I can name more than a couple of the 'implementors' of Infocom. I remember when Origin was making kickass games (Autoduel, FTW), when Lucasarts made clever games, when Apogee and iD brought us awesomeness via shareware, but I've never heard of Gamecock or this 'Gathering of Developers'.
          • OK, who are these "Gathering of Developers" dudes? Nope, never heard of them, either.

            Chris Mattern
          • Similar to brkello, I have been playing PC games, and some console games, for over 15 years. I've been reading PC Gamer, and even worked at Gamestop for two years, but I still have never heard of Gamecock or the Gathering of Developers. I think you must get your information from different sources than most gamers.
          • I think it has something to do with me not thinking very highly of GoDs work in the first place. Assembling a supergroup of developers doesn't help when the best feathers in your hat are Max Payne and Railroad Tycoon II. I'll save my attention for people who produce. Love 'em or hate 'em, Valve, Bungie, Bioware, Blizzard, and the like don't need PR stunts. PC gaming is not an arena where a personal bad boy rep will get you anywhere. Case in point, John Romero wanted to make me his bitch, too bad the game wa

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Pluvius ( 734915 )
            Gamecock is the second iteration of the original Gathering of Developers.

            Oh, OK. Now I know for certain they're not worth thinking about.

            Rob

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Pluvius ( 734915 )
              BTW, in case anyone's still reading: Gathering of Developers was a group of PC game studios (including guys you've probably heard of like Epic and PopCap) that banded together to publish their own games without worrying about the retards in the big publishing companies. Obviously it didn't work too well since the label got bought out by Take-Two Interactive, and is now known as 2K Games. Probably the most-popular game they released was Max Payne; most of their games were fairly obscure, but quite a few o
          • I play PC games. I'm a games developer - have been since the early 90s. I'm working on a PC game right now. In Austin.

            I've never heard of "Gamecock" before. I guess it's not exactly a household name in the industry, either.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rakarra ( 112805 )
        I don't buy the bullshit that nobody knew about it or they "rushed the stage". It's four or five guys in giant red chicken suits. How do you not see them from 800 feet away?!

        It's the VGAs. Five guys in chicken suits isn't that unusual. You said yourself you assumed they were part of an entourage!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Seumas ( 6865 )
          Yeah, but if you're winning the award, you surely know who is part of your group and who isn't. And if you're running the show, you certainly know who is and is not supposed to be on that stage, right?

    • What is Gamecock?
      Good question. I went to their website and I still can't figure it out. They seem pretty lame to me.
  • I'm sure they're planning to apologize to the viewers of the Spike VGAs as well... all two of them.
    • I'm sure they're planning to apologize to the viewers of the Spike VGAs as well... all two of them.

      Well, I'm sure Zonk and kdawson will appreciate it.
    • no, seriously. Was this award show actually shown on TV? This is the first time I've heard about it.

  • Disingenuous apology (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:48PM (#21663055) Journal
    You know, it sure sounds like they were thinking "It's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission". I'm not impressed by their apology. It was a douchebag thing to do and a simple apology is insufficient.

    FTFA:

    it totally sucks that Ken Levine didn't get to speak after making such a fantastic game

    Yes. It does totally suck, so don't you think some act of contrition, other than empty words, would be appropriate?
    • They should allow Ken Levine to cut off one of their horses heads and place it in bed next to them on a random night of the week. Oh wait... not THAT kind of act of contrition.
    • Yes. It does totally suck, so don't you think some act of contrition, other than empty words, would be appropriate?

      To be fair, it saves Ken a lifetime of humiliation at family reunions of being known someone who gave a speech on a Spike TV event.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      Exactly. They were jerks before this, and nothing has changed. They are desperate to get their names out... Desperate enough for rubber red chicken costumes and crashing an awards show so they can guarantee not to be invited back or to others. Way to go, dumbasses.

      Oh, and I -still- have no idea what they're about, and I hope nobody else learned because of this, either.
    • Personlaly, what I would do is I'd give Mr. Levine "equal time" in one of my titles. Just put footage of him saying *anything he wants* for, say, two minutes into the game. Advertise his new game, mock my own products, mock me personally, whatever. Given the state of Spike TV and the VGA awards (and also Gamecock) he'll reach probably just as many people as he would have on the show :)

      No, scratch that. That's not quite right. Want to know what I would have done? I wouldn't have done that in the firs

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mink ( 266117 )

        I go around calling myself LrdDimwit because nobody ever takes that name (funny that)

        You just don't hang with enough Zork [wikipedia.org] players.

  • Wow! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:49PM (#21663071) Journal
    MTV Networks called upon a bunch of its own talent like Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt from the Hills and A Shot at Love's Tila Tequila...

    Star power like that and you dweebs are still complaining?!?

  • Seriously.. these [amazon.com] people don't have anything to do with videogames.
  • They did get their name out to those of us that had not heard of them before.

    However, they did also make sure that most of us over the age of 15 won't ever be buying games from them, fake apology or not.

    Not like the name "gamecock" is going to be hard to remember. For better, or in this case, worse.
  • This makes me never want to buy a game from Gamecock, apology or no.
  • I would never have known they even happened. Somehow I think I would have been better off.

    If nobody watches the Spike Video Game Awards, did they even happen?
  • Not the game itself, but the massive copy protection it's wrapped in for PCs.

    You not only have a limited number of 'activations', that is, machines you can install it on and times you can install on the same machine, you ALSO need the origional disc, which has flakey software.

    Last night, it failed on me again, even though I do in fact have the origional disc. So I had to download the cracked version to play.

    Makes the retail version less and less desirable, who to I trust more not to screw up my machine, Son

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gknoy ( 899301 )
      I recall reading that many of the reviews, and even sales, of Bioshock were for hte Xbox360. That's the one that most people seem to be acquainted with. Yes, the game is One Awesome Hurrah for PC Gaming (albeit chock-full of DRM), but I suspect many people that knew (and cared) about the DRM issues bought it for their 360, if they had one.
    • You've just communicated why I buy Xbox games and not PC games (whenever possible.) Sure, Xbox has all kinds of DRM, but it doesn't screw with me just putting in the game disk and pressing "Start" on the controller whenever I like.
    • Pretty sad when random Warez downloads are safer than the real product. Kind of like how the music industry has become, with illegal MP3 downloads being safer than sticking the CD in your machine.

      At one point, the major downside to downloading illegal software was that it may contain a virus and you couldn't trust the person who cracked or uploaded it. Now, we still don't know if we can trust a particular warez file, but we are certain we can't trust the publisher's CDs. So might as well take the chance

  • Video of the event (Score:5, Informative)

    by DaleGlass ( 1068434 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @05:19PM (#21663535) Homepage
    I never heard of this, so I searched around, and found this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wIDDAtVLRZw [youtube.com]

    WTF #1: Game awards are announced by writing the game's name in body paint on a naked woman
    WTF #2: The gamecock people

    I suddenly remembered why I don't watch TV anymore, sheesh.
    • This is what people are getting worked up over, up to the point where the summary blatantly lies about what they said? Seriously?

      Rob

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alsee ( 515537 )
      Nobody cares about Spike's VGA. Nobody knows or cares about whatever happened. Nobody wants to watch the Youtube video of whatever happened.

      Or at least they didn't, before your WTF #1.

      -
  • Show that one thing Spike do not know is games, one of the nominations for Wii game of the year was Zelda, a 2006 title, while BioShock getting GOTY they gave best shooter to COD.
  • If they didn't intend to interupt the game of the year award, why did they? What was it they were trying to do? (Besides be attention whores) When they heard "And the game of the year is Bioshock" what did they think was going to happen when they got on stage and talked before the guys who made the game could talk?

  • What if we gave an awards show and... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @06:26PM (#21664485)
    I really wish next year game developers simply didn't show up. These awards aren't doing anything to further the industry. It's embarrassing, really. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening are slim to none.

    And regarding GameCock's behavior? Well, with any luck, cosmic karma will pay them back for that little stunt of theirs. I'll be sure to boycott any of their products from now on.
  • The award acceptance they interrupted was the LAST one we would've wanted to interrupt

    Then why did you? Assholes.
  • http://www.gamecockmedia.com/press.html [gamecockmedia.com]

    If they really gave a shit about offering a sincere apology, they could at least mention it on their own website.

    Gee, I hope nobody edits their wiki page in a similar manner....
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamecock_Media_Group [wikipedia.org]
  • Here's a video [youtube.com] of it, if anybody's curious. The guy with the accent actually got some time to talk (beyond the end of the video); it wasn't as bad as 1UP made it out to be, and everybody except Levine seemed to act like it was a planned thing, so I don't really know what to say about it.
  • Wow, Gamecocks portfolio includes games like 'Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball', 'Hail to the Chimp', and 'Dementium: The Ward', need I say more? @_@
  • As the guy who handles the gaming stuff and someone who actually reads f13 you should know who Gamecock is and that they would never say Bioshock "sucks". They were doing some of their typical anti establishment speal and they screwed up by interrupting Bioshock's acceptance speech time. They screwed up and admitted it.

    For those asking by the way Gamecock is G.O.D. games (or the people who ran it anyways).
  • Sounds like a well thought out marketing strategy that slashdot helped make even more profitable.

    Q. What is the purpose of an awards show for a gaming company?

    A. Publicity.

  • Does anyone actually watch the VGA's? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FreeKill ( 1020271 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:44PM (#21666329) Homepage
    I consider myself a pretty big gamer, and that awards show has absolutely zero appeal to me. In fact, I would say it's an insult. The show basically groups us all into some kind of category where they think the only gamers are, I'm assuming, MTV watching, Pot smoking, ADD afflicted, crack heads judging by the content of the show I've seen in a few youtube videos... Well, maybe that's true, but that show looks terrible!
  • Am I the only one who got confused because VGA means "Video Graphics Array"? Never mind "gamecock", somehow I'm not inclined to learn what that is.
  • ...sorry couldn't resist.

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