by Harold Goldberg

You can’t fight the Mother Nature. I know this all too well; I’m from Buffalo, New York originally.

Late yesterday just before the 4th Annual New York Game Awards went live, we received word from Bethesda Softworks that their representatives couldn’t make it to up to New York City due to inclement weather in the form of a big snowstorm.

When I saw the email, I was in the AV loft at Villain with Jorge Jimenez, Victor Kalogiannis and John Azzilonna, who were working on getting audio and video and the Twitch stream ready for the evening. Downtown Pidgeons, our band for the night, was doing its sound check. Daniel Radosh from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was getting his ducks in a row nearby. Everything was proceeding apace. But now, this.

I thought, “Ahhhh! These guys are winning Game of the Year for Wolfenstein: The New Order. What the HELL are we going to do now???”

I immediately informed them that they had won and requested an acceptance video of some sort so we could run it during the ceremony for the live audience and on Twitch. After all, the Big Apple Game of the Year Award isn’t simply important as an Award we deliver cavalierly with a tip of the hat. There’s collegial, convivial feeling involved because the entire New York Videogame Critics Circle gathers together onstage to present the Big Apple Award to the lucky winner.

We received this ‘thank you’ video from Pete Hines of Bethesda Softworks, but it didn’t come through to my cell phone until the Awards had begun. So we didn’t show it last night.

I believe it’s safe to say it’s the first game award, or perhaps the first of any Award, accepted in the midst of a snowstorm.

Thanks so much for the kind words, Pete! We’ll be sending the Big Apple Award to you and Bethesda today.