Destiny Takes GOTY, Confuses Audience, at This Year's BAFTAs

[Edl01]

To me it looks like they just took a look at the best selling games of this year and gave them awards. The BAFTA's aren't about video games and I don't feel like we should expect the coverage of an award show mainly based around movies to actually be any good.
I guess the coverage of this comes from the fact so many people seem to want games to get the same recognition that films and television get, so they put a lot of weight on the what games the a large event like the BAFTA's give awards to. However in my opinion who BAFTA's grant the awards to doesn't matter, because most people don't watch the BAFTA's for the video games(stereotyping a bit here) so it's unlikely that they put much effort into actually choosing the winners.

In this situation we should look at what awards were given by our own media, who are all likely much more qualified to decide what the best games are than the BAFTA committee.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

in fact, go back in time and look at everything that they promised Destiny would be, and then look at what we got. it's bland, it's boring, and most importantly, it's not the game they promised us.

There's an interesting question here about whether it's 'fair' to consider broken promises or outrageous hype when it comes to analyzing video game quality. Shouldn't you just look at the actual game in front of you and ignore extraneous factors? Consider also how the previous installments of a franchise have a big influence on how the newest installment is viewed.

And I don't just mean review scores - award shows judges are tasked with weighing games against one another and determining which is better. Of course it's unavoidable that game consumers will be put off by basically being lied to if the final product isn't what was promised. Should reviewers and judges be trying to ignore all this 'baggage'?

okay, ignore all the baggage, this award is for artistic achievement, yes? british academy of film and television arts. what merit did destiny have to win based on it's art? when it comes to the art of well executed code and graphical trickery, destiny falls flat, when it comes to the art of game design, destiny falls flat and feels more like an abomination of all these pieces of successful games jammed together into a barely functioning middling shooter. as someone else said above, the only accomplishment destiny can claim to have is in it's Sound department, and it didn't even win that single category. plus, on that note, fuck bungie and destiny anyways for screwing over their super-talented music lead, and then commissioning that god awful paul mccartney song. and fuck them both for managing to squeeze a god awful performance out of Peter Dinklage.

 

[Mr C]

....god damn you Brits must have some really awesome mind-altering substances.

Indeed, Alien Isolation so deserved it. The game was made in England too, if ever I would accept bias, this was it.

 

[4Aces]

Alien: Isolation was classified as horror, yet did not induce any actual horror. It relied on jump scares alone. Couple that with the laughable mechanic of an invulnerable Alien, to weapons that killed them in every other game/movie, and you can see why it did not win on Notstalgia alone. Pretty graphics are just the minimum standard these days.

Destiny just proves that Bafta is for sale. Next year it will be The Order's turn, or perhaps they are going for an Oscar?

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Eh. I'm just happy Alien Isolation didn't get even more overrated than it currently is.
I'm surprised Shadow of Mordor didn't win, but Destiny isn't honestly a bad choice. Not as if much else good came out.

 

[Loop Stricken]

"British game"? That seems so deafeatist. "We know nothing made in Britain is gonna get on the list, so let's just make sure we get *something*.

What, you mean like GTA, made up in Scotland?

 

[mrdude2010]

That makes no sense at all. Destiny wasn't even that good.

 

[IamGamer41]

They must of had even more advertisements thrown in their face about Destiny then the US did. Its obvious they didn't play it for any period of time or they would have know better.

 

[balladbird]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not praising Destiny. Hell, I couldn't give two shits about it, as I game on a PC and Destiny hasn't had a PC release. Just pointing out that the argument is silly, regardless of FC being a series. And Far Cry 4 got old before it came out. It got old halfway through Far Cry 3...

Far Cry 4 was Ubisoft counting on being able to make me like a game by simply changing how long the charismatic villain was in it.

and Ubisoft was right. XD


as to Destiny being GOTY? Eh, not my choice, but if they came to the conclusion without putting on a few pounds (never thought I'd ever get to break out a british currency joke! bucket list one step closer to done) then they can name what they will, I guess.

 

[Arawn]

We will never agree. And by "we" I mean gamers (or whatever you like to call yourself). Someone will always hate Game A, and favor Game B. If Game A wins something people will be angry or think something is wrong. While others will cheer the decision and think nothing more of it. I'm in that later group, but I'm not about to defend their decision in any way. Awards aren't the reason I buy games. Weaker willed people might just give a shot should the label say it received "XZY award for 20XX" I get them based on my own research and advice from friends with various views. Just because a move wins an Oscar I don't go out and buy/watch it. In addition I don't get anything when a game I like wins. The developers might actually benefit more. The next time they pitch an idea they can mention their past awards.

 

[PonceyMcTosserFaic]

So the British do have a sense of humor.
I always did like the British.

 

[hermes]

The BAFTAs have always been fairly embarrassing when it comes to Games.
Lest we forget, they gave a Lifetime Acheivement award to Peter Fucking Molyneux.

The guy worked on Populous, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper (the good one) and Fables. The guy is a public face, one of the historical faces of games design (together with Wright and Miyamoto), and proponent of gamesjams. He sure seem a lot better candidate for a lifetime award thanDavid Braben (creator of Kinectimals) and Rockstar Games...

David Braben: Who also created the concept of open world games, procedural creation and pioneered the entire space sim genre. David Braben who worked on the cheap and affordable educational tool known as the Raspberry Pi, which many use as an emulation machine to relive games of the past and help make the barrier to entry for future coders (But why would the vidja garm industry need those... Ubisoft doesn't seem to. AMIRITE?). Lest we also forget Frontier Development also worked on the zenith of a game that was RCT3 which still has an active modding community and player base to this day.

You take jobs like Kinectimals and Disney Land Kinect Adventure to pay the bills so you can make RCT3 and Elite: Dangerous.

Whatever you think of his past works, what he has done for the Video Games industry is truly remarkable. That is why he was awarded a fellowship.

Ok, point taken. His CV is a lot more impressive than his Wikipedia page makes it look.

I still think the OP was reductive at Molyneux. He may not be into some of his games, but to think he doesn't deserve a recognition from the British Academy when he is one of the most influential British designers in the medium is ridiculous (and yes, I understand the irony that that was pretty much the same attitude toward Braben only because I am not so familiar with his body of work; for which I apologize)

 

[elvor0]

"British game"? That seems so deafeatist. "We know nothing made in Britain is gonna get on the list, so let's just make sure we get *something*.

I know people have already pointed this out but I feel like it needs to be said again: Grand. Theft. Auto. Five.

Heck you got Rocksteady too, and they won GOTY and Gameplay with Arkham Asylum and City. Media Molocule with LBP swept the awards in the year they were in. Peter Molynoux, David Braben...etc etc.

The Baftas are also to celebrate British development, not just an awards ceremony. Even if the results were....dubious this year.

 

[Lightknight]

....god damn you Brits must have some really awesome mind-altering substances.

this, Far Cry 4 was the actual game of the year. Destiny just sounds to me like Borderlands so I've already done it.

So... You haven't played it? Are you just parroting what someone once told you about it?

I've played both borderlands 1 & 2 as well as Destiny and beaten crota on hard mode, so I can say with all honesty that Destiny hsa a loot system similar to borderlands, but worse. It has bosses like borderlands, but they are all boring bullet sponges. Overall Destiny should not have won this GOTY there were far better games out that are so much better designed, and don't milk you for more money after you put down $60 dollars on it ($90 if you bought special edition).

Yes, I'm still playing Destiny and I've got to say, not even close to GOTY.

They've got the visuals and the mechanics down. The worlds are vibrant and well worth exploring.

But it's a half-game with a story that does not pay off in any way. I'm currently still playing in hopes that some day they'll make it a whole game. If it was ever completed, then I'd actually cheer a GOTY award.

Sadly, the story is just not there and I never feel like I've actually accomplished anything in the game. At least with titles like WoW and every FPS title ever you generally feel like at the end of the day that you've succeeded at something.

I guess Destiny's creative staff have confused minor quest accomplishments with real world accomplishments. *sigh* It is almost painful to have a game with these truly tight mechanics, excellent lore, and amazing visuals only to have the story be what's crippled.

 

[Covarr]

I was thinking about making a list of games that should have won instead but you are missing Wolfenstein and Dragon Age Inquisition but besides that good list

That would be because I didn't play them and cannot personally attest to their quality. All the games I listed weren't just better received than Destiny, but games I enjoyed myself more than Destiny.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Carnagath]

Last year was pretty disappointing imo. Shadow of Mordor made me especially sad, because I absolutely loved its atmosphere and combat, but the nemesis system was just repetitive and ultimately pointless, and once you realized that, all that you could do was finish its cliche boring story and be done with it. Far Cry 4 was fun, until you unlocked the north part of the map, where it started really outstaying its welcome, also it basically had no story and no ending to tie it together. Wolfenstein was ok but the Id engine is just such a bloated flaming dumpster of popin and muddy blurry everything that looking at the game soon gave me a headache. Can someone ban this engine from ever being used again, EVER, please...

 

[sumanoskae]

Disappointing. But hey, Avatar got nominated for an Oscar, so I guess we're finally catching up to films! (Shoot me). What always gets under my skin about Destiny is that Bungie and company treated like it was the next big thing before it was even out.

It was like they had already decided it was going to be a hit on our behalf; the fact that they assumed me or anyone else would fall head over heels for a game so devoid of imagination is, frankly, rather insulting.

This is just more ammo in the gun; they're probably going to release some kind of GOTY edition that includes all the DLC and go on for years about how Destiny "Revolutionized the industry" by mimicking the two most fucking saturated genres there are. As if all the artistic development the medium has gone through has lead up to their soulless, corridor grind of a game.

This is why I think we need a museum of some sort to commemorate the greatest achievements of the medium; something set up by people who actually care about video games, and know what they're fucking talking about. Microsoft and Sony seem hellbent on eradicating console gaming history; think of how many great games will be lost to history because nobody can find a machine to play them on.

 

[sumanoskae]

I can only conclude that the Wii U doesn't exist in Europe...

Seriously, has this game won ANY awards? It's one of the greatest, purest gaming experiences in years and I feel like because it's both Japanese and on the Wii U, that somehow invalidates it from winning anything.

Bayonetta won't win any awards for the same reason that Comic Book movies won't win any Oscars; the people running these things are blatantly biased towards certain kinds of games.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I can only conclude that the Wii U doesn't exist in Europe...

Seriously, has this game won ANY awards? It's one of the greatest, purest gaming experiences in years and I feel like because it's both Japanese and on the Wii U, that somehow invalidates it from winning anything.

Bayonetta won't win any awards for the same reason that Comic Book movies won't win any Oscars; the people running these things are blatantly biased towards certain kinds of games.

Well, it's not Bayonetta's fault that the game was an exclusive on a poorly-selling console without a lot of good games.

I mean, I haven't bought any of the next-gen consoles because they don't have many good exclusive games, and the only console game I'm looking forward to in the near future is Persona 5. I just don't think the Wii U is worth the price of entry for a bare handful of games.

 

[sumanoskae]

I can only conclude that the Wii U doesn't exist in Europe...

Seriously, has this game won ANY awards? It's one of the greatest, purest gaming experiences in years and I feel like because it's both Japanese and on the Wii U, that somehow invalidates it from winning anything.

Bayonetta won't win any awards for the same reason that Comic Book movies won't win any Oscars; the people running these things are blatantly biased towards certain kinds of games.

Well, it's not Bayonetta's fault that the game was an exclusive on a poorly-selling console without a lot of good games.

I mean, I haven't bought any of the next-gen consoles because they don't have many good exclusive games, and the only console game I'm looking forward to in the near future is Persona 5. I just don't think the Wii U is worth the price of entry for a bare handful of games.

I never said Bayonetta was at fault, nor did I advocate the purchase a Wii U. I picked one up for Smash Bros., that's it. I think the console wars are nothing more than a nuisance; an arbitrary road block that makes gaming less accessible.