This Thursday (February the 28th), much of the gaming industry’s eyes will be focussed on the events unfolding in Las Vegas, as through the bright lights and searing heat, the AIAS (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) announce the winners of their fifth annual ‘interactive achievement’ awards. It’ll certainly be a glitzy, and rather self-congratulatory affair (I’ve never quite seen the point of these ceremonies – The Oscars, anyone?), as the various bigwigs grin smugly and parade their wares in front of the predictably large press attention, safe in the knowledge that the publicity of the won’t do their product any harm whatsoever.

Not that there’s anything fundamentally wrong with this concept, providing you can take it with the pinch of salt it deserves, after all, practically every imaginable (including the glamorous tile adhesive business) has it’s own annual ceremony. No, the problem with this particularly event (I won’t deliberate over the validity and bias of any other such occasion), from what I can gather, is that it isn’t quite as impartial and balanced as the AIAS might imply.

I first became aware of this, when Scott Miller (of Realms), noted with amazement that had been snubbed, even in the awards nominations! Indeed, this seemed to me quite a misnomer from the beginning, before I realised how the nominations system actually worked. Max seemed to have been passed-over, in favour of seemingly ‘lesser’ games, in terms of both commercial and critical successes.

Take a look at the nominees for the ‘Innovation in Computer Gaming’ category:

Black & White (Lionhead Studios/Electronic Arts)
Dark Age of Camelot (Mythic Entertainment/Mythic Entertainment, Inc.)
Majestic (Anim-X/Electronic Arts)
The Sims: Hot Date (EA – Maxis/Electronic Arts)

The first two I can abide by, but Majestic and a expansion pack over Max Payne? Hmm. What’s more, three of the four games are from giant publisher Electronic Arts; is this coincidental or are we noting a bias here; well, the situation is even more complex than that.

The Academy nominations system appears to be something of web of red tape, the process being far from transparent. It’s an organisation made up of industry companies, and the employees eligible from them to be members (companies such as EA, Sony, Nintendo, etc.). Members, along with a peer panel, can then elect the nominees for the various categories of the Awards, before voting secretly on-line for the ultimate winners. Non-members can submit their games (and the Peer panel may also select non-members games), but Scott Miller points out that neither he, nor Remedy, were ever offered the opportunity to join the Academy, nor were they made aware of the upcoming Awards. There is also a fee for submitting a game for review as a non-member.

To complicate matters further, The ‘Game of the Year’ category is something of an exception to the rule, in that non-members products cannot even be considered for the gong this year, hence placing a misbalance on the Award as representative of the industry at large, and even members must pay to enter for this one.

The full list of nominations and categories can be reached on the AIAS homepage by clicking here.

Penultimately, this is what the AIAS’ PR representative sent me when I quizzed him on the awards:

“The short answer is any title released during the eligibility period is considered for an award, and this is not limited to titles that were submitted- titles that were not submitted but should be considered were either written in or added in during our peer panel review process. When you have company members that include Sony, EA, Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubi Soft , Infogrames, Disney, Insomniac, Oddworld, and a host of other publishers and developers you are going to see some of the same names in both lists as the bulk of distribution is handled by these companies. Membership is a totally separate function then the awards.

The purpose of the Academy's Interactive Achievement Awards is to recognize and honour outstanding interactive content and creative and technical achievement in the creation of interactive software entertainment. Interactive Achievement Award recipients are determined by a vote of qualified Academy members. As such, selection as an Interactive Academy award finalist or recipient represents the strongest possible peer recognition. No person may become a voting member of the Academy unless he or she can demonstrate a threshold level of experience and professional credits in the industry. Interactive Academy voting is secret, conducted on-line, and supervised and certified by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, the same firm that certifies Oscar voting. The integrity of the system, coupled with a broad-based voting population of Academy members, make the Interactive Achievement Awards the most credible, respected and recognized awards for interactive entertainment software.”

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on the spin of this PR, but regardless some of the nominations are definitely not representative of most critical opinion (or indeed commercial success). There certainly does appear to be a suggestion here of a bias towards members games. We’ll let you know the results of the ceremony when we get them. Fingers-crossed that next year the Awards won’t suffer from the same bureaucracy, and we’re promised that non-members games will be allowed to at least suggest their game for the ‘Game of the Year’ category. A little more transparency in the judgements process is definitely required.

By Luke Guttridge