AIAS Nominees for GOTY 2003 have been announced.

[A Black Falcon]

Debating the quality of the IAIS is pointless. Their awards are stupid and "winners" often make NO SENSE AT ALL! Would you like me to post all of their awards in all those categories for the past 7 years and show what a huge number of them are bizarre? No? I'll give some examples of weird choices. Granted... some choices are good. But, while most of their awards admittedly do make sense, there are some VERY odd ones. And when combined with deserving games left off the awards completely... NOTE - I am NOT saying these ar bad games in most cases... just that they regularly nominated games in categories they are clearly wrong for. I will admit one more thing: They do seem to be improving. Still... they have a ways to go.

1st Annual Awards (1997)
http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-1/winners.asp

Console Adventure Game. Final Fantasy 7. (note: also won Console RPG)

PC RPG. Dungeon Keeper.

2nd Annual IAIS Awards (awards for 1998)
http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-2/winners.asp

Console Action Game. Banjo-Kazooie.

Console RPG. Tie between Zelda - OoT and 1080 Snowboarding.

Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Design - Pokemon

http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-3/winners.asp
3rd Awards (1999)

Console Action Game - Crazy Taxi

Console Racing Game - Star Wars Ep. 1 Racer (N64) (good game? OK... but best racer of 1999? Yeah... right...)

BTW, in 1999 the best Adventure/RPG was Final Fantasy 8.

http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-4/winners.asp
4th Awards (2000)

Console Action-Adventure. Zelda - Majora's Mask. Sort of correct... but let's look at the other contestants -- Banjo-Tooie, Spyro, Rayman 2, and Vagrant Story. Huh?

Console Racing (and Sports, and Console GOTY) - SSX

http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-5/winners.asp
5th Awards (for 2001)

Nothing from last year jumps out like previous ones... I disagree with some, obviously, but none are utterly bizarre.

The closest I see are some strange genres -- Sports includes Extreme Sports (Tony Hawk), for instance.

And expansion packs win some awards... Half-Life Opposing Force won Best PC Action game in 1999, and Baldur's Gate II - Throne of Bhaal won PC RPG in 2001. I don't think that expansions should be in the running for major category awards like that...