2. Clueless Hosts
Spike has the habit of signing on some of the most unfit figures to host a ceremony celebrating video games, with the exception of Samuel L. Jackson one year. He was awesome and expressed interest in hosting the show. This year is not another exception to the rule unfortunately. Joel McHale is a comedian/ actor tasked with co-hosting alongside key industry figure Geoff Keighley. Its easy to understand where Spike was going with this decision; they wanted some jokes to liven up the mood somewhat. Even the most prestigious of award shows inject some laughter into the timeslot. Theres only one problem though; those hosts usually have a broader knowledge range of the industry theyre hosting an awards show for, and thus have a much larger catalog of material to derive jokes from. Joel McHale doesnt have that vast industry knowledge, resulting in many of his jokes coming across as your cliché and generic game deprecating humor. When his jokes were being inspired elsewhere, he was genuinely funny at times. The easiest way to describe Joel is as that obnoxious casual gamer friend most of us have, that wants to prove his knowledge. He doesnt mean any harm, but is just a puzzle piece that doesnt quite fit into the picture. Its also highly probable that executive producers running the show behind the scenes actually told him to calm himself at one point, as there were definitely some jokes made that came across rude to developers. He is a comedian though, so realistically I cannot blame Joel too much. The real issue is that whoever is hiring these people seem to be completely out of touch with how video game humor should be presented. Instead of going after comedic hosts that claim to be gamers, why not go after people that we know are passionate about gaming along with being funny? Imagine if Trey Parker and Matt Stone were hired to host the whole affair? Now that would be interesting and please the majority.