Spike TV aired its so-and-so annual Video Game Awards this weekend; the show was hosted by the always-classy Neil Patrick Harris, who sometimes seemed pained by the show that was going on around him. There were lame jokes, there was the brief possibility of a bared vagina, and anyone who takes gaming seriously at all winced more than once.

Gaming writers, pundits, and various hangers-on took to Twitter to complain about how bad the show was and how terrible it made our hobby look. There were editorials written and opinions defended, and there was this odd consensus that we should be threatened by the smoke and mirrors of Spike's yearly orgy of promotion. The truth? Gaming is fine, and it's going to take more than Spike TV to hurt it.

What is the problem here?

The Video Game Awards are an excuse to announce new games, to reveal trailers that rarely show actual gameplay, and to get people hyped about games that have been released. The usual suspects won awards, reminding gamers who tuned in that they need to put Call of Duty: Black Ops on their Christmas list, because it is, of course, an award-winning game.

Developers and publishers love the pull of television, and revealing games and footage on Spike gives them an opportunity to go directly to the gamers without passing through the sometimes critical eye of the critics. This is a version of E3 where there is no press to play the games, or to interview the people behind them... which is why gameplay is so unimportant in the teasers and reveals. This is about hype and buzz. Does it matter that Bioware has long told us that Mass Effect is a trilogy? Of course not; the reveal that Mass Effect 3 is a thing still qualifies as big news. It doesn't need any pesky in-game footage to energize the fans, not at this stage.

Sure, the awards are something of a love letter to a time when women didn't have the right to vote, but what do you expect when you tune into Spike TV? I went to the channel's website, just because I wanted to get a feel for the network's tone. It's the premiere destination for men, after all, and it promises a conversation about Denise Richards' breasts. There is something called the Pink Tingler on something called 1,000 Ways To Die. I'm not sure which of those things is the show and which is the episode, but does it matter? There was no bait and switch here, no promise of high-brow entertainment. This is a network that doesn't spend much of its time in front of the fire reading the English classics.

There is nothing at stake

There was also much hand-wringing about what people who don't game would think about the hobby after watching the show. This is something of an odd question to begin with, as people who don't game or who feel strongly about the equality of the sexes are not spending their Saturday evenings watching a video game awards show on Spike TV. These outsiders we seem to be so worried about don't exist. They are not watching the show, and if you think the presentation is that bad, you shouldn't watch the show either. The reveals and teasers are going to look just as good online the next day, and you don't have to sit through Dane Cook.

Some have argued that gaming can do better awards shows, but the fact of the matter is gaming does do better than the VGAs. Every year the Game Developers Choice Awards are held during GDC, and the presenters there actually come from the world of gaming, not Hollywood. A wide variety of games are recognized, speeches are given, and the awards seem to have a little more weight due to the fact that it's not as heavily commercialized. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has an awards show at DICE, and we'll be attending that show this year as well. Neither show will get as much buzz as the VGAs for a simple reason: the awards aren't timed around marketing and trailers. It's about getting together with other people from the industry to reward excellence.

Gaming already has good awards shows, and if that's not enough, every news outlet online and off will be handing out awards around this time of the year. If a big-name game doesn't have someone awarding it "game of the year" so it can be re-released with that nice "GOTY" stamp... well, it's simply not trying hard enough.

Stephen King likes to tell a story about a fan informing him that a movie ruined one of his books. He went home, took the book from the shelf, and opened it up. "Nope," he said to himself. "It still reads fine to me." We need to learn the same lesson. An award can't make a bad game good, nor can the lack of one make a good game bad. A cheesy, insulting awards show can't hurt the industry in any real way. When you invite friends over to play Rock Band 3, do you worry about Spike TV? When you play Cut the Rope with your wife or girlfriend, is it any less fun because Olivia Munn panders to a mostly male crowd? Of course not.

Movies, television, and music all have their stupid, worthless awards shows on a variety of channels, and no one thinks those art forms are cheapened. Yes, the VGAs are terrible—but it doesn't matter.