Sunday Thoughts: Nominated

It’s odd, being nominated for an award. The fantastic news that we were listed in the Best Website category for the GMAs has stirred up some peculiar thoughts. Of course, we’re all very pleased by it. It’s amazing for us. But there are other thoughts that are perhaps less expected.

I’ve kind of always told myself that we deserved more recognition and yes, perhaps even to win an accolade here and there. It’s easy to think that of a project you’re so close to. I genuinely think that this site is a wonderful place and it has always frustrated me that others either couldn’t see it or were choosing to ignore it. That said, I’ve resisted the urge to nominate the site myself, as many do, because I’d feel a bit conceited doing that.

Every year, when nominations were announced I had kind of looked at them, noted all the deserving nominees and breathed a resigned sigh because we weren’t on the list. We’ve seen smaller sites recognised at times. We’ve seen sites that are only updated semi-regularly. I’ve always thought we’re underrated in many respects. But then, it’s hard to see any potential flaws in something that you love so much. Anyway, I could play the rock star card – who cares about awards anyway? And the field is always incredibly strong, I couldn’t claim we deserve it any more than anyone else that gets nominated.

I couldn’t, for example, find fault with the winner of our category last year – Eurogamer. They’re a great site with some great talent and they put out some very good content. Likewise, this year’s Best Website category has an exceptionally strong field. We’re up against Eurogamer, CVG, IGN, Gamespot, etc. We’re not arrogant enough (or naive enough, given the make up of the panel that chooses winners) to believe we have more than a minuscule chance of winning in that field. For us, it’s a great achievement just to be noted alongside those sites and to know that we’ve managed that with nothing but passion, hard work and good fortune.

This year, we’ve had review quotes used on the Steam news page, Sony print adverts, several manufacturer and product websites and some of our reviews have been used in MCV magazine round ups. I’m very proud of that because it shows, not only that our standards of writing are generally better than they’ve ever been but that people are starting to hear of us more and more. I’ve been contacted by people I’ve never spoken to before, people who are quite high up in game publishing and development companies, to tell me they like things they’ve seen on the site.

Getting our name recognised is a big step for us. We’ve got a truly brilliant core team and some very good contributors. We’ve worked hard every day for four years. We’ve built a welcoming and intelligent community. Now we want to make a lot more people notice what we’ve achieved. This GMA nomination is a good sign that we’re doing that.

I regularly say, and still believe, that awards are not as important as a large, loyal readership. The messages of congratulations we received from people meant as much as the nomination itself because those are genuine messages of support and endearment from the people that we work hard for – you, as well as our competitors, whom we often respect and admire. But of course the nomination means a lot to us. Especially at this stage of proceedings, when those included are based on public suggestions.

It does feel weird though. I’d love to win the category, even though I know that is highly unlikely and I know that it’s not as important as the people here and the work we do. Perhaps that’s greedy of me? I don’t know, I just know that I’m immensely proud of everything we’ve achieved here, together – the owners, coders, designers, editors, writers, contributors, community staff, community members and readers. This nomination is for the site. It’s for everyone involved with the site. And you can call me arrogant if you want, but I still feel like we all deserve it.