GamerNode: You Win!'s Columns

The "That Makes Sense" Award - Nintendo

It's the return of GamerNode's "You Win!" Awards, which can only mean one thing: pure, unmitigated joy, rainbows, and butterflies... and stupidity. Our latest award goes out to the ever-logical Nintendo -- The Big N, as we like to call the Japanese gaming giant. The "That Makes Sense" Award is bestowed on Ninty today for its savvy and sensical business practices regarding console, controller, and accessory coloration.

On August 1st, Japanese consumers were given a new option when shopping for a new Wii; a black console, Wiimote, and Nunchuk were made available at that time. Unfortunately, the WiiMotion Plus, which had been available for over a month and a half, remained exclusively white.

Today, Nintendo tells us that North America will be next in line for black controllers, coming this holi...

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The "Social Responsibility" Award - U.S. retailers...

Today's [unsarcastic] You Win award goes out to the United States retailers who have been selling the controversial Grand Theft Auto IV since its release back in April. These establishments have been very successful at following the proper procedures for keeping the game's adult content out of the hands of underage gamers.

A recent study by Nielson Media Research indicates that as many as 17% of GTAIV's audience is under the age of 17 -- the cut-off for the ESRB's "M" rating. That's what most headlines read, but the fine print indicates that it was only 61% of the 17% who were actually able to purchase the game on their own, without the help of parents, siblings, or other relatives.

Not including the underage gamers who received the game from those people who are supposed to protect them the...

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The "Economy" Award - California legislators

Today's award goes out to the politicians of the great state of California for attempting (like Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois before them) to pass unconstitutional videogame-related laws...and FAILING.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) received a check of exactly $282,794 from the state government yesterday to repay legal fees incurred in order to combat a faulty piece of legislation that "attempted to defend an unconstitutional law restricting the constitutional rights of video game publishers, developers and consumers." That's about $30,000 more than the average reimbursement paid by the three aforementioned states for similar laws, and it comes at a time when California simply cannot afford to be throwing away money.

* California is currently facing a $15-billion budget gap...

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The "Murder Muse" Award - Right wing pundits

The award of the day is a very prestigious honor, and goes out to conservative pundits Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. These men are all very outspoken opponents of the videogame industry, often claiming that interactive entertainment is destroying the nation's youth and even leading certain individuals to commit serious violent crimes.

Observing this egoistic trio in action makes one wonder if they only decry videogames with such hatred because they wish that their own influence were as great, or that they were as well-liked as even the worst of gaming software.

Now they are (at least the influential part, anyway).

On Sunday the 27th, Jim Adkisson stepped, shotgun in hand, into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children's musical. He proceeded to o...

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The "Don't Tell!" Award - Nintendo

Today's award goes out to a company that is infamous for it's closed-mouth/tight-lipped/keep-it-secret philosophy regarding upcoming games and company announcements. Nintendo's history is full of secrets, big and small, but sometimes (like now) they simply go overboard with their "hush, hush" attitude.

GamerNode spent a lot of time wandering through the halls and around the show floor at this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, in between playing games and eating numerous boxed lunches in the press cafeteria. During our adventures, we had the chance to ask a number of third party Wii developers what they thought about the newly announced WiiMotion Plus from Nintendo, and how they might incorporate its functionality into their current and upcoming projects. Their answers most often had an ai...

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The "Creativity" Award - Square Enix

Today's award goes out to a publisher/developer who has mananged to win the hearts of vast throngs of gamers over the years. The combined force of Square Enix has created many popular games and franchises, from Final Fantasy to Dragon Quest to what has been called the greatest RPG of all time, Chrono Trigger.

Now Chrono Trigger is back, and will be hitting the Nintendo DS this winter. That's great news, except for the fact that Square Enix won't be giving it the same treatment as games like Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy 6, which both received major graphical overhauls for their respective ports.

One would expect that the return of the first ever collaborative effort between members of SquareSoft and Enix Corporation (befor they were a single entity, mind you) would be worthy of some extr...

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The "I Hear You" Award - Blizzard Entertainment

Welcome to You Win! This GN column has been put together to honor not only the best and the brightest in the videogame industry, but also the most useless, incompetent, and just plain foolish.

GN will be looking at industry news, announcements, game releases, retail, politics, marketing, corporate shake-ups, critics, and anything else that could possibly inspire us to create and bestow a brand new (and extra shiny) custom award as often as possible. The frequency of new "winners" is entirely up to how consistently awesome or despicable everyone chooses to be.

The inaugural You Win! award goes to our old friends at Blizzard Entertainment for finally announcing the long-awaited and intensely pined-for Diablo III. The announcement was made this past Saturday at the 2008 Blizzard Worldwide Invit...

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