2008 Ex-EGM Awards: An Introduction + Meet the Judges
By Shoe
Note: Because this entire feature is way too long for one post, and I can’t do multipage articles here on Tumblr, I’ll be breaking this up into separate stories over the next few days (then putting them all together into one massive atom bomb of a post at the end).
Game of the Year awards are 50% laziness (it’s easy content to produce), 50% vanity (readers want to know what we think!), 50% habit (we’ve always done them…), and 50% competitive (everyone else is doing ’em…).
Here at Sore Thumbs Blog, our awards are exactly all that, plus an extra 10% for nostalgia (see below), for an unprecedented 210% of pure awesomeness. That officially makes ours the best GOTY feature ever.
What nostalgia? The ex-EGM fraternity…which has grown rather big over the years. We reached out to our former co-workers to get their votes for our first-annual Ex-EGM Awards, but only if….
1. You were a former EGM editor or editorial intern (art folks weren’t included because they weren’t all necessarily well-rounded gamers…sorry!). Current staffers aren’t included cause they have their own, more legitimate awards going on.
2. I had your email address handy (yeah, admittedly, I didn’t go through a lot of trouble looking up old-school EGMers…you guys did see the “50% laziness” bit above, didn’t you?).
3. You’re not an ex-EGMer who currently has a near-violent vendetta toward me.
Some guys couldn’t participate…either because it’d be a conflict of interest with whatever it is they’re doing now, or they just plain never responded (could be the holidays, could be that my mass mailing got caught up in spam filters). Also for some reason, literally every ex-EGMer named John or Jon missed the deadline, asked for an extension, and then missed that deadline as well. The two John’s eventually got theirs in. Jon Dudlak just disappeared completely. That’s a little fun fact for ya.
The participants:
Dan “Shoe” Hsu
Was: Editor-in-Chief
Is: Freelancer/Consultant/Mighty Mugg, self
Crispin Boyer
Was: Senior Editor
Is: Vice President of Playing Peggle in my PJs, self
Andy Baran
Was: Senior Editor
Is: Lead Copywriter, OfficeMax
John Davison
Was: Editor-in-Chief
Is: Co-founder/President, What They Like
Joe Fielder
Was: Previews Editor
Is: Writer/producer/designer, former Electronic Arts
Joe Funk
Was: Editorial Director
Is: Owner, Mojo Media
Kraig Kujawa
Was: Senior Editor
Is: Director of Design, Capcom CEI
Demian Linn
Was: Reviews Editor
Is: Freelancer
John Ricciardi
Was: Reviews Editor
Is: Kraid to his partner Hiroko’s Ridley, 8-4 (videogame localization)
Kathleen Sanders
Was: Editorial Intern/Intern of Excellence
Is: XNA Community Manager, Microsoft
Greg Sewart
Was: Reviews/Previews Editor
Is: Game Designer, HB Studios
Jeanne Kim Trais
Was: Associate Editor
Is: Acct. Supervisor - Licensing and Digital, Creata/McDonald’s
Jennifer Tsao
Was: Managing Editor
Is: Associate Creative Director, Sega
On to the Awards:
Opening ceremonies + meet the judges
2008: Games of the Year
2008: Most Overshadowed Games of the Year
2008: Biggest Disappointments of the Year
2008: The Other Awards
2008: Hopes and Dreams for the New Year
