Back at it again trying to be funny and cool on the internet.
Howdy, Skybox readers! We’re all new here, but that doesn’t mean the Skybox Staff hasn’t been chasing our own dreams for a long time. For example, I’ve been struggling to maintain a canon of pseudo-shitpost game awards across time, space, shutdowns and layoffs. Back in the day, I wrote for Shonen Jump, and the editor and I had a silly awards gimmick that was way more fun than plastering gaudy “Best of Thing” stickers on people’s E3 booths. SJ stopped blogging and E3 died, so I took over the spirit of this project when Prima Games picked me up. Then, multiple instances of corporate foolishness got in the way, creating new gaps in 2021 and 2023. This year with Skybox I’ve found a new home for my personal Game Awards, and perhaps a home we can return to next year and the year after that. And that’s enough context for now; here, have some jokes.
Presenting the (my) Third Annual (kinda) 2024 Game Awards for Videogame Excess and Excellence
The Unexpected Confrontation With Mortality Award – Wizardry Variants Daphne
Wizardry Variants Daphne, the strange mobile iteration of the classic DRPG, surprised me in a lot of ways. The biggest shocker though, is an intense horror vibe seemingly meant to remind us how scary dungeon-crawling would be in real life. This works especially well as a hook when, after a monster hunts you down and beats you to death, the intro forces you to watch your own body decompose as the opening credits roll. That’s messed up, man. I just wanted to hit goblins with a stick and watch some numbers go up, not contemplate my skin tightening around my skull as my corporeal form dissolves into the Earth. All that in a game with gacha pulls, no less.
The Innovations in [ALLEGEDLY] Lying Award – Microsoft
Microsoft has been a constant in this little gimmick of mine, from the ridiculous Battletoad statue back at E3 2015 to the absurd, multi-year drama of the Activision acquisition story. This year’s award is, naturally, related to Microsoft’s deranged spending spree, and specifically about the tragic fate of Tango Gameworks. Aside from the claims Microsoft made to the FTC about not doing layoffs (then doing layoffs), the Innovations in [ALLEGEDLY] Lying Award comes from this infamous tweet by Microsoft’s VP of Games Marketing, Aaron Greenberg.
Hi-Fi Rush, a game that was shadow dropped on Game Pass out of nowhere, turned out to be a hit with critics and fans alike. Then the inevitable questions about what success for a game like this on Game Pass looks like, leading to that message from Greenberg telling us Everything is Totally Fine and Awesome. Fast-forward to 2024, with Tango Gameworks getting shut down out of nowhere while Hi-Fi Rush 2 was in some form of pre-greenlight pre-production. The studio was miraculously revived and reacquired, but the initial closure remains a historic beacon shining light on why massive corporate acquisitions are bad and stupid.
The Coolest Shit Nobody Cares About Award – Rage of the Dragons NEO
There’s not really a joke here, Rage of the Dragons NEO is just a cool thing for a reason that has no meaningful weight in the greater culture. This is an otherwise Okay At Best SNK fighter that had an immediately dead-on-arrival port this year (let’s release an obscure fighting game without cross-play; genius), but what makes it interesting is its wacky relation to the classic Double Dragon beat ‘em up series. Rage of the Dragons was originally a sequel to a fighting game adaptation of the absurd Double Dragon Hollywood movie from the 1990s, and you can see amusing evidence of IP-scraping all over it. I think that nugget of Wikipedia Rabbit Hole Fuel is awesome, but as you can see here, I am one of fewer than 15 people who care.
The Record Time Between Starting the Game and Hearing the N-Word Award – Death Note: Killer Within
Reviewing Death Note: Killer Within was a killer reminder of why I don’t mess with voice chat in videogames unless I’m with friends or have literally no other choice. Social deduction games aren’t my favorite in the first place, but at least you can have a decent time in something like Among Us without having to turn your mic on. Killer Within, however, is so overly complex and busy that you basically don’t have a functioning game without a lobby full of microphone-havers. And sure enough, the hot second I dropped into a room to try this cursed software (thank god I was paid for it), I was met with a gaggle of goons yelling slurs and destroying my eardrums with unfiltered background noise before the game could even start. This is why anime sickos are still seen as degenerates in 2024, folks.
The Where the Hell Did You Come From Award – Hiro Mashima, creator of Fairy Tail
Fairy Tail has been around forever. There’ve been like, PSP and DS games. Browser games! It’s not as old as One Piece, but it’s getting up there (and not nearly as ubiquitous). Not only has Fairy Tail made some kind of comeback, it’s done so with a whopping four games in the space of a single year. That’s one AAA(ish) console RPG, two indie games (as an aside, leveraging anime IP to make dorks play indies is a smart move), and some mobile gimmick that probably does gacha stuff or whatever. Plus, Hiro Mashima has a game based on one of his other manga series coming soon. Weird, but good for him, I guess!
The Baldest Fraud Award – Mark Kern
Mark Kern, or “Grummz,” is a dreg in the unwashed GamerGate coffee pot who came crawling back to Twitter after similarly bald fraud Elon Musk bought it and turned it into the only place on the internet these kinds of online freaks can mine clout. He rose to something resembling power in the time sense, leading the charge on our latest iteration of chuds shrieking about minorities in videogames. Kern gets this reward in 2025, the year of Skybox’s debut, largely due to his egregious self-own in trying to step in the ring with our own Lead Editor Will Borger and exposing how truly empty his head is in the process. Between that and later becoming the subject of a video titled “Goonernomicon,” it’s hard to find a more prominent example of exposed fraudulence. Amazing work, loser.
The Innovations in Being Dogshit Award – Gamurs Group
If this was simply about layoffs, perhaps former employer of mine (and dozens of other writers in games media) Gamurs Group wouldn’t be winning this reward. But no, this rancid company and its clueless leadership spent 2024 finding new ways to make itself the laughing stock of the industry, including doing more and worse layoffs, constantly lying to its own staff, and closing out 2023 by shooting itself directly in the foot and creating successful independent outlet Second Wind in the process. It’s no coincidence that for the past year every time I’ve found a new freelancing gig, the chat channels spent hours swapping Gamurs horror stories. I’ll leave it at that.
The CM Punk Award – Hideki Kamiya
CM Punk rocked the wrestling world over a decade ago, walking out on the WWE and publicly airing his grievances not long after. Bridge seemingly torched for good, Punk was out of wrestling until finally joining AEW, where… things seemed good until they weren’t. Punk returned to a very different WWE, and it’s pretty apparent he’s a much better fit there, and all that needed to happen was different leadership and a somewhat changed world.
An oddly similar story has played out with Hideki Kamiya, a guy best known for creating Devil May Cry, directing Resident Evil 2, leading the Bayonetta series and blocking nerds on Twitter. The falling out between Kamiya and Capcom was pretty public, at least as much as Japanese video game drama can get. Then his time at Platinum was a roller coaster, resulting in revelations that Platinum was perhaps not the punk rock company full of badasses it seemed at first. Now Kamiya is back at Capcom, with an Okami sequel and studio title (Clovers) that harkens back to the original falling out and what made Kamiya’s name so meaningful in the first place. Will we get a similar happy ending like with Punk? Or will Capcom fumble again? Only time will tell, but it’s a very different industry, and a very different Capcom.
The Why I’m Crying in the Club? Award – Collection Room Theme, Shadow Generations
Much to my bemusement, I’ve spent a lot of time with one Shadow the Hedgehog this year, and the weird, depressed, little guy has grown on me a lot. There’s a tragic vibe to his whole deal, but it’s a very kid-friendly kind of angst. Shadow Generations is a banger of an action game, and its soundtrack is on a whole other level of goth-flavored excess. But when it slows down, there’s a really striking emotional weight to the music that achieves a felt sense of sadness and dread that caught me off guard. Especially because one of those tracks exists in the Collection Room, where you just go to read lore and look at art galleries and stuff.
Why the hell do I feel almost on the verge of tears when I’m just tryna look at my cool motorcycle?
You may have nailed it, uh, Jensonia hyphen tu1ff.
The Wow, Cool Robot Award – Gundam Breaker 4
The story of Gundam is a story of a creator trying to tell a story while dealing with the financial realities of their chosen medium. Yoshiyuki Tomino used anime and the popular giant mech trope to tell one of the most honest and tragic war stories in mass market entertainment over the course of several years, but Gundam could only reach the audience it has today because of toys and especially model kits. In Gundam Breaker 4, we have one of the best videogames featuring Gundam ever made, but it’s entirely about the toys. Meanwhile, we’ve yet to see a game that properly tackles what makes Gundam special and sticks the landing, though there have been a few attempts over the years. We all wear this meme as a badge of shame as the audience just as much part of the problem as the game studios.
And that’s a wrap for My Personal 2024 Game Awards for Videogame Excess and Excellence, which we’re publishing in… the middle of 2025. It was great to revisit this concept after another year off, and narrowly avoiding making it two years off. If you enjoyed this, stick around and keep coming back to Skybox. Let’s make this website special together, and I’ll be able to make more videogame poop jokes without worrying about my bank account. Here’s to another year of nonsense and games and the goofy shit we create around them.
