Why Joel McHale Hosting VGX 2013 was a Tragedy

Awkward, embarrassing, unprofessional and just downright rude are some of the choice words you could use to describe last night’s VGX show. For a broadcast supposed to celebrate and revel in the hard work and successes of many deserving developers, this failed on almost every level.

Unfortunately it seems like this could have entirely been avoided with the exclusion of Joel McHale as a host. Trending on Twitter is generally great news for your publicity, but it’s a shame when the tweets aren’t even about the games on show, but the rather the most lacklustre, irritating host ever to grace our screens, because he is literally unbearable to watch.

Joel McHale’s penchant throughout the show of asking inappropriate and irrelevant questions was an insult to all the fans watching who were genuinely interested in what the guests had to say. In a show that is dedicated to gaming and its vast amount of fans all around the world, you would think that steps would be taken to focus on the topic. Asking “How much did you make this year?” and responding with “Yes I’ve seen an iPad before” when the guest is showing you a brand new game he’s been working on it is flippant and in this case only resulted in making everyone involved quite plainly uncomfortable.

It was clear that Geoff Keighley was actually enthusiastic about the gaming industry in almost complete opposition to his co-host, and Geoff tried desperately to keep the show on track and bring credit where credit was due to great people involved in these games. However, even his demeanor was affected by McHale’s incessant immaturity, and his wearied expression was hard to hide, despite his ample attempts to.

While the show itself didn’t include much brand-new news, considering the amount of great games we’ve had this year, you’d have thought more emphasis would have actually been put on the awards themselves. However with McHale’s unfocused and unenthused presentation, it wouldn’t be surprising if you actually missed them.

Whilst changing the format of the VGAs to VGX was inevitably going to take things down a notch, this just ended up being one of the biggest disappointments of the year. The absence of chemistry between Keighly and McHale, or rather McHale and everyone else on the show, was staggering and interviews with geniuses like Tim Schafer were ruined by his lackadaisical attitude.

What should have been an enjoyable, albeit slightly mediocre experience for everyone involved, including the millions of fans watching, was rather, a disaster, and clearly caused by a horrendous oversight on whoever thought it would be a good idea to let McHale on the set. It’s hard to sit back and watch someone disrespect a world you love so much; it’s even harder to watch knowing he’s getting a big fat paycheque at the end of it.

Well done Joel McHale, you wasted the time of and pissed off way more people than you can ever take on.