The Biggest Winners Helped This Year's VGAs Tell a Different Tale

If the Video Game Awards are actually an awards show, and not just a keynote for promoting upcoming games, then the big news from last night was The Walking Dead: The Game. Eminently quotable analyst Michael Pachter said before the show that if this title, a downloadable self-published game, took home Game of the Year, he’d eat his hat. To his credit, Pachter later tweeted out a request for one, presumably to consume. But the surprises don’t just stop there. The Walking Dead won Game of the Year coming out of the Best Adapted Game category. Except for 2003, the first year of the VGAs, when things were very different from today, only two adapted games have even been nominated for GOTY: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, and neither won. This is a different time in games development, with publishers looking for games whose characters and stories they fully own.cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"e3616d04-4972-4839-a63a-c6975e2e9731","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.kotaku.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"5966817","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"uncategorized","SECTION":"","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"uncategorized","TAGS":"halo","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); Some might look to a licensed or adapted work and consider that the game derives its significance, or at least the attention given to it, because it draws on some other franchise in popular entertainment. So it’s strange that a licensed, adapted work reminds us that story, and characters, and choices, and the memorable experiences they create, matters most. Here’s another surprise nugget: The Walking Dead: The Game earned its makers five Video Game Awards. The next big winner? Journey, with three (including a nomination for Game of the Year.) Borderlands 2 also took home three awards, the best haul for a traditional boxed console game. So if you’re thinking this might have been a different Video Game Awards, in its 10th year, you’re probably right. Had the show given more attention to that purpose—only a handful of these awards were actually presented in the broadcast—we might be pondering it as a landmark year. The VGAs are often accused of being an industry popularity contest, but maybe this year they acquired recognizable critical heft. We’ll have to see what happens next year, and the year after. So here are the 25 winners of the 2012 Video Game Awards, plus the u31.com เข้าสู่ระบบ Game of the Decade. Two fan-voted awards gave Character of the Year to Claptrap from Borderlands 2, and Most Anticipated Game to Grand Theft Auto V Game of the Year The Walking Dead: The Game Telltale Games Also nominated: Assassin’s Creed III, Dishonored, Journey, Mass Effect 3 Studio of the Year Telltale Games Also nominated: 343 Industries, Arkane Studios, Gearbox Software Best Xbox 360 Game Halo 4 Microsoft Studios/343 Industries Also nominated: Assassin’s Creed III, Borderlands 2, Dishonored Best PS3 Game Journey Sony Computer Entertainment/thatgamecompany Also nominated: Assassin’s Creed III, Borderlands 2, Dishonored Best Wii/Wii U Game New Super Mario Bros. U Nintendo Also nominated: The Last Story, Xenoblade Chronicles, ZombiU Best PC Game XCOM: Enemy Unknown 2K Games/Firaxis Games Also nominated: Diablo III, Guild Wars 2, Torchlight II Best Shooter Borderlands 2 2K Games/Gearbox Software Also nominated: Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Halo 4, Max Payne 3 Best Action-Adventure Game Dishonored Bethesda Softworks/Arkane Studios Also nominated: Assassin’s Creed III, Darksiders II, Sleeping Dogs Best Role-Playing Game Mass Effect 3 Electronic Arts/BioWare Also nominated: Diablo III, Torchlight II, Xenoblade Chronicles Best Multiplayer Game u31 ทางเข้า Borderlands 2 2K Games/Gearbox Software Also nominated: Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Guild Wars 2, Halo 4 Best Individual Sports Game SSX Electronic Arts/EA Canada Also nominated: Hot Shots Golf World Invitational, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, WWE ’13 Best Team Sports Game NBA 2K13 2K Sports/Visual Concepts Also nominated: FIFA 13, Madden NFL 13, NHL 13 Best Driving Game Need For Speed: Most Wanted Electronic Arts/Criterion Games Also nominated: Dirt: Showdown, F1 2012, Forza Horizon Best Song in a Game “Cities” (Beck) for Sound Shapes Also nominated: “Castle of Glass” (Linkin Park for Medal of Honor: Warfighter); “I Was Born for This” (Austin Wintory for Journey); “Tears” (Health for Max Payne 3) Best Original Score Journey Sony Computer Entertainment/thatgamecompany Also nominated: Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Halo 4, Max Payne 3 Best Graphics Halo 4 Microsoft Studios/343 Industries Also nominated: Assassin’s Creed III, Dishonored, Journey Best Independent Game Journey thatgamecompany Also nominated: Dust: An Elysian Tail, Fez, Mark of the Ninja Best Fighting Game Persona 4 Arena Atlus/Arc System Works/Atlus Also nominated: Dead or Alive 5, Street Fighter X Tekken, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Best Handheld/Mobile Game Sound Shapes Sony Computer Entertainment/Queasy Games Also nominated: Gravity Rush, LittleBigPlanet (PS Vita), New Super Mario Bros 2 Best Performance by a Human Female Melissa Hutchison for The Walking Dead: The Game Also nominated: Emma Stone for Sleeping Dogs; Jen Taylor for Halo 4; Jennifer Hale for Mass Effect 3 Best Performance by a Human Male Dameon Clark for Borderlands 2 Also nominated: Dave Fennoy for The Walking Dead: The Game; James McCaffrey for Max Payne 3; Nolan North for Spec Ops: The Line Best Adapted Video Game The Walking Dead: The Game Telltale Games Also nominated: Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Best Downloadable Content Dawnguard for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Bethesda Softworks/Bethesda Game Studios Also nominated: Leviathan for Mass Effect 3; Mechromancer Pack for Borderlands 2; Perpetual Testing Initiative for Portal 2 Best u31 เข้าสู่ระบบ Downloadable Game The Walking Dead: The Game Telltale Games Also nominated: Fez, Journey, Sound Shapes Best Social Game You Don’t Know Jack Jellyvision Games Also nominated: Draw Something, Marvel: Avengers Alliance, SimCity Social Game of the Decade Half Life 2 Valve Corporation Also nominated: Batman: Arkham City, BioShock, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Mass Effect 2, Portal, Red Dead Redemption, Shadow of the Colossus, Wii Sports, World of Warcraft