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Entertainment Games

For the First Time, a Video Game Trailer Is Eligible To Be Nominated For an Academy Award (eurogamer.net) 71

For the first time in 90-year Oscar history, a video game is eligible for an Academy Award, specifically the recently-released game Everything. From a report: The 11-minute trailer for philosophical pontificating simulator Everything is eligible for an Academy Award -- a first for a video game promotion, boasted game developer David OReilly. The marketing material in question is included under the Academy's category "[best] animated short film," which it became eligible for after winning the Jury Prize for animation at the VIS Vienna Shorts film festival. Everything's lengthy trailer focuses on the correlation between the universe's smallest, biggest, and most remote entities, all while being narrated by the late British philosopher Alan Watts.
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For the First Time, a Video Game Trailer Is Eligible To Be Nominated For an Academy Award

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09, 2017 @11:08AM (#54585543)

    The video has not been nominated for an Oscar.
    However, it *is* eligible to be nominated, which is a first for a video game trailer.

    • Simple English is hard.
    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      The video has not been nominated for an Oscar. However, it *is* eligible to be nominated, which is a first for a video game trailer.

      So it joins a very short and distinguished list such a the classic film Home for Purim and it's lead actor Victor Allen Miller who said "It's such an honor to be almost nominated".

    • It's not the best opening sentence either.

      For the first time in 90-year Oscar history, a video game is eligible for an Academy Award

      How many video games were there 90 years ago? How many video game trailers were there 90 years ago? 25 years ago? It's not like the Oscars have been holding down the video game trailers for almost a century.

  • Oh, whew! For a second I feard it was something with a giant green Orc raging around about honor.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09, 2017 @11:19AM (#54585631)

    Calling Watts a philosopher is questionable at best. He read and wrote spiritualism, mysticism, and how profound an experience it was to get high.

    Nothing he wrote was on any serious philosophy topic nor was what he did write meaningful to religious studies. He was largely popular for being eccentric, pro-psychedelics, and one of the first educated British men to write about eastern mysticism.

    Rather clever though for ensuring his daughters own most of his copyrights. They will likely stand for over 150 years if the law does not extend copyright futher. In the running for the longest held in history.

    • What the heck are you talking about?

      This stuff isnt Alan Watts philosophy, its just Buddhism. Since you clearly do not know, Alan Watts was the guy who brought Buddhism to the West.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        Right. That is the point. He was not a philosopher.

        He did not write philosophy. He did not teach philosophy. He did not lecture on philosophy.

        Yet the summary calls him a philosopher.

  • the narrator reminds me of Oliver Postgate.
  • If ever you need to say whole lot about not much of anything, this is a prime example of how to do it.
  • That was some serious artistic work in a game. The game alone could've made a pretty awesome essentially 'silent' film.

  • by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Friday June 09, 2017 @11:50AM (#54585847)
    How about: Tumble-bears
  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's unfortunate that some people who rarely see video game trailers may now think this is one of the best video game trailers (and perhaps even games) out there.
    Overly wordy, slow, pretentious bullshit.

  • A video game trailer will feature the best parts of the game while the rest of the game will suck. Developers should spend more time focus on improving the game instead of trying to get an Academy award.
  • WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday June 09, 2017 @12:45PM (#54586239)

    So the only requirement for a game trailer to be in the running for an academy award is that he was tripping on acid when he came up with the idea for his game. I'm going to put that trailer firmly in the "WTF did I just watch" pile.

    • by Toad-san ( 64810 )

      Agreed. That might be one of the worst "animated" videos I've ever seen! It might be "eligible", but so then might be something created with help of an online animation ap by a bunch of third graders.

  • Not sure I approve of the clickbait title, but from my limited gaming experiences the overall game seems to be fairly original. Gotta give them some points for trying something new.
    • Not sure I approve of the clickbait title, but from my limited gaming experiences the overall game seems to be fairly original. Gotta give them some points for trying something new.

      It seems more like a simulation than a game. Games have objectives. What objective is there in "Everything" other than to zoom in & out on stuff? Do you get achievements for "100 bear summersaults" or "bump into 100 ladybugs"? Does it ever finish? How do you win?

  • by kuzb ( 724081 ) on Friday June 09, 2017 @02:31PM (#54586975)
    If you want to see a trailer that does deserve nomination, you should look at the trailer for Crawl [youtube.com]. Excellent voice acting and writing, and it describes the game really well.
  • I haven't had a chance to watch this trailer yet but I thought Dead Island had one of the best trailers [youtube.com] I had ever seen at that point in time. I've never had a chance to play the game, but the trailer was very emotionally evocative.
  • "Tumbling" bears (bearly...pardon the pun...one model in 4 positions isn't exactly tumbling) while listening to someone drone on is not only a "game", but something that COULD potentially be nominated for an academy award?? Wow. Manos-The Hands of Fate would be a better contender.
  • so what criteria can make video game trailer become eligible?

Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance.

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