Spike Video Game Awards
Spike Video Game Awards
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Spike Video Game Awards

The Spike Video Game Awards (in short VGAs, known as the VGX for the final show) was an annual award show hosted by American television network Spike from 2003 that recognized the best computer and video games of the year. Produced by GameTrailers TV's Geoff Keighley, the show featured preview trailers for upcoming games, live music performances and appearances by popular performers in music, movies, and television.

The VGAs was held at various locations in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California as well as Las Vegas, Nevada. Spike's only Video Game Hall of Fame award, given to The Legend of Zelda, was awarded at the 2011 awards show.

On November 15, 2013, Spike announced a new format under the name VGX, calling it "The next generation of the VGAs". The last award show, carrying this name, aired on December 7. Changes from the previous format included "in-depth extended demos of the next generation of games and interactive one-on-one interviews and panels in an intimate studio setting."

In November 10, 2014, Keighley announced a new awards show, the Game Awards, dropping the support from Spike.

The 2013 awards, the final awards show, was rebranded as VGX and held on December 7, 2013, and was hosted by Joel McHale. The show featured a different format from previous years. It featured extended demos of next-generation games, one-on-one interviews, and "a more intimate studio setting." Rather than airing live on Spike TV, the show was livestreamed online on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Twitch, Steam, iOS, and Android devices, as well as on GameTrailers.com and the websites of Spike, Comedy Central, MTV, MTV2, and BET. As with previous years, the show featured exclusive world premieres of game demos and trailers. The 2013 VGX premieres included Telltale Games' and Gearbox Software's collaboration Tales from the Borderlands, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (an Xbox One and PlayStation 4 port with graphical updates and all DLC included), Remedy Entertainment's Agents of Storm for iOS, Telltale Games' Game of Thrones, and independent developer Hello Games' No Man's Sky. The 2013 show also featured reveals of Titanfall, Thief, Quantum Break, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Broken Age, Dying Light, Tom Clancy's The Division, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé demoed an upcoming Wii U game, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and Rockstar Games worked with the production team to produce a musical performance of the music of Grand Theft Auto V.

The 2012 VGAs (promoted as VGA 10 for the tenth anniversary) was held on December 7, 2012, at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. Samuel L. Jackson returned to host for a fourth time. This was the last year under the name "Spike Video Game Awards". For the first time, the awards were broadcast on Xbox Live. Live users could "play" the show as it aired live. Responses to poll questions were tabulated in real time on screen for the Xbox Live audience and users with Xbox SmartGlass devices got a unique second-screen experience that updated in real time alongside the show content. Additionally, Spike TV and Entertainment Weekly partnered to create the first-ever "Entertainment Weekly and Spike VGA Best Game of the Decade" award. Exclusive world premieres that debuted at VGA 10 include Naughty Dog's The Last of Us, Epic Games' Gears of War: Judgment, Obsidian Entertainment's South Park: The Stick of Truth, Konami's Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Irrational Games' BioShock Infinite, Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington, and 343 Industries' Halo 4: Spartan Ops. Two new games were announced, including Dark Souls II by FromSoftware, and a new game called The Phantom Pain (later revealed to be Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain). The event also had appearances from all past hosts of the VGAs except David Spade. The event featured musical performances by Linkin Park, Tenacious D, Gustavo Santaolalla and Wolfgang Gartner.

The 2011 VGAs was held Saturday, December 10, 2011, at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, hosted by Zachary Levi. The awards previewed world premieres of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Patriots, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, BioShock Infinite, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD, The Amazing Spider-Man, the exclusive PlayStation 3 game The Last of Us developed by Naughty Dog, Command & Conquer: Generals 2 from BioWare Victory, and Fortnite from Epic Games. New trailers for both Hitman: Absolution and Mass Effect 3 were aired during the show, as well as a pre-show announcement for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Mark Burnett was the Executive Producer for the event, and for the first time, the VGAs aired live on MTV 2 (US), Spike.com (US) and Ginx TV (UK), in addition to Spike TV. The winners, as well as world premiere trailers, were announced during a pre-show red carpet live event hosted by GTTV's Amanda MacKay and Daniel Kayser. The 2011 VGAs also honored The Legend of Zelda franchise with its first ever "Video Game Hall of Fame Award". Another unique award at the 2011 VGAs was the NFL Blitz Cover Athlete award. This award, determined by live online voting during the event (just like Character of the Year), determined which NFL athlete would be on the cover of the EA Sports game, NFL Blitz. Appearances were by Charlie Sheen, Brooklyn Decker, Seth Green, Felicia Day, LL Cool J, Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Tony Hawk, will.i.am, Hulk Hogan, Stacy Keibler, Bellator MMA stars Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler, Blake Anderson, Adam Devine, Anders Holm, and game designers Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games and Hideo Kojima of Konami. Musical performances were by The Black Keys and Deadmau5.

The 2010 VGAs was held Saturday, December 11, 2010, in Los Angeles, California at the L.A. Convention Center and returned to using a host which was Neil Patrick Harris. Unlike previous years, all the awards were not awarded during the show. Several new games were announced which include BioWare's announcement of Mass Effect 3, Prototype 2, Insane from acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Mortal Kombat featuring Kratos, Resistance 3, Portal 2, SSX: Deadly Descents, and Forza Motorsport 4. Batman: Arkham City had another CGI trailer debut and the first trailer of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception aired during the awards. Appearances included AnnaLynne McCord, Thor: God of Thunder video game star Chris Hemsworth, Dane Cook, Olivia Munn, Dominic Monaghan, Michael Chiklis, Academy Award nominated film director Guillermo del Toro, Halo: Reach star and VGA nominee Nathan Fillion, Nick Swardson, Tony Hawk, and the cast from the hit series It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Danny DeVito, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Rob McElhenney. Musical performances included award-winning violinist Diana Yukawa, My Chemical Romance, and José González. The show featured use of augmented reality technology, conceived by Done and Dusted; with Lee Lodge, in partnership with Weider Design, Full Mental Jacket, and Orad.

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