Ah, the post-award show buzz, can you feel it? The winners are feeling pretty chuffed for themselves, everybody is enjoying the publicity that came from the show and all the guests are happ- what is this?! Mark Hamill, known to one generation as Luke Skywalker, to another as a VO superstar ("Use the forks…"), isn't particularly chuffed about how he was treated at the VGAs and Arkham City co-star Tara Strong is backing him up.
It seems like the stars – Hamill plays the Joker and Strong plays Harley Quinn in Arkham City – started out the evening disappointed. They were placed "in the bleachers," miles away from the main stage. The picture above was tweeted by Strong and gives some indication as to their location in the audience. The night didn't get any better, the winner of the best male voice over and best female voice over, the awards for which they were nominated, were never announced live. It wasn't until the end that they realized they had lost (to Stephen Merchant and Ellen McLain for their roles in Portal 2).
So they did what any angry person in the developed world does, they took to Twitter. Hamill seemed nonplussed by the event. "Don't mind losing," he wrote, "but I'd like to know when it happens. Did I miss something?Award given off-camera? Tara & I in lousy seats. BOO!"
Strong continued:
"VGA awards r just a big commercial! They did not even announce vo live, me & (Hamill)sat in the bleachers. I'm sorry, but to have (Hamill) sit way up in the bleachers; & not even MENTION his nomination? Shame on VGA…"
She continued some more:
"Hey, (SpikeTV), if you weren't going 2 announce the nominees, y have us come 2 the show? VO may not matter 2 u, but it sure does to us"
And finally:
"I mean, I got my make-up done; I at least wanted a close up of my face when I lost but pretended to be happy for someone else!!!"
In all fairness, they have a right to be annoyed. There were huge chunks of the show that had very little to do with gaming. I know they don't have time for everything, but cutting out the best voice actors is like cutting out the best actors from the Oscars, especially now that the voice actor is becoming more recognised within the industry. A strange decision for Spike to make and, I can say this with a level of certainty, one way or another Mark Hamill and Tara Strong probably won't be visiting the awards next year.
