Grainger Games, Midgets in Bikinis, Coke, and Awards

Conway · Oct 28, 2011

This is my kind of awards do!

From Gizmodo:

How an Unknown Games Retailer Committed Suicide at a Gaming Awards Event

Bulent Yusuf -
Last night was the occasion of the Games Media Awards 2011. This is a special night for games journalists, travelling from across the land (well, mainly Bath) to gather in one venue and clap each other on the back. This is a rare occasion where we get to celebrate our hard work championing the most progressive entertainment medium in the world. Except, things didn’t go precisely as planned.
The first warning sign was at the entrance to the venue: Vinopolis, near London Bridge. Parked outside was a giant, orange-coloured Humvee, the words “Grainger Games” splattered all over it. Who’s Grainger Games? Why, they appeared to be the main sponsors of the evening’s festivities.
What does Grainger Games do, exactly? They’re a national games retail chain. Given that we’ve never heard of them before, sponsoring an industry event is a pretty savvy move, right? Everyone will have heard of them after this little affair.

Booth Babes and Dwarves
Walking around the Humvee we saw that the boot was open, where a flat-screen TV and home entertainment system had been installed. How very Pimp My Ride. Also tumbling out of the boot were two booth babes and two dwarves, dressed in orange hot-pants and orange shorts, respectively.
It’s October. It’s bloody freezing. Scantily dressed booth babes with chattering teeth is heart-rending enough. But scantily-dressed dwarves as well? That’s downright cruel.
But it gets better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint). Inside the venue, everyone checked in their coats, found out where they were sitting, and grabbed a beer for a bit of hobnobbing before the main event. Some nominees were visibly excited, some downplayed their chances. I was hopeful that someone would reenact Jack Palance’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar acceptance from 1992 and do press-ups on the stage, but alas.
A gong was sounded, curtains were drawn, and we were directed to our seats. There, the second warning klaxon went off. Condoms had been scattered all over the table, emblazoned with the same hateful orange hue from the Humvee and the hot-pants. It’s Grainger Games again, making their presence felt in the best way they know how.
Even the journalist from Zoo magazine was puzzled as to why condoms should be distributed prior to a fancy sit-down meal.

Bus Wankers
Dinner was quickly served and wolfed down (along with copious amounts of booze), and before we knew it, we were on to the main event. Our compere for the evening was Greg Davies, who played the scary teacher from The Inbetweeners. He’s pretty funny, in a working men’s club kind of fashion. Jokes about oral sex were the order of the day, natch.
What really got everyone’s attention though was the table down at the front. Everyone on this table was pissed out of their heads, repeatedly interrupting Greg’s routine for their own amusement. Someone shouts out “BUSTOP WANKER!”, in reference to a gag from The Inbetweeners. Who are these tossers? Why, it’s none other than the folks from Grainger Games.
Greg got on with his act though, and slipped in a few digs at Grainger Games while he was at it. This only seemed to encourage them, unfortunately. When Greg was about to start dishing out the awards they started chanting “TOON ARMY, TOON ARMY” for no discernible reason.
The awards were given out. The awards were given out by the dwarves. Speeches were uncharacteristically short, for games journalists. This was their moment in the spotlight, but no one spoke for longer than 30 seconds. Perhaps it was something to do with the jokers from Grainger Games, who at one point had invaded the stage to do a silly ‘dance’ just as someone was receiving an award. Did they think they were Jarvis Cocker, taking on the gaming equivalent of Michael Jackson?

Slow-clapping the Ceremony
The pinnacle, or nadir, of the evening, came as Patrick Garrett stepped up to present a Games Media Legend Award for Colin Campbell. His speech, designed to honour and celebrate his colleague’s achievements, was slow-clapped and booed by the drunken morons from Grainger Games.
End of the ceremony reached, everyone broke off for photo-ops with their trophies, or to commiserate at the bar. And, oh yes, to openly discuss how ridiculous the behaviour of Grainger Games had been. The general consensus was not good. Not good at all.
After they sensed that they were no longer welcome, the offending party hurriedly left in two cabs, their boorish antics continuing in some other venue elsewhere in London. I watched in disbelief as they made gang-signs to each other from their respective cars.
What they had left behind was an absolute shambles. They’d sabotaged months of planning by the event organisers, they’d pissed off the entire games media community, and they’d wasted their own sponsorship money in painting themselves as a gang of selfish arseholes. Well done, Grainger Games. We didn’t know who you were before, but we do now.
Any publicity is good publicity, right?
Image Credit: Jonsigns
UPDATE: Here’s a statement from Intent Media, the event organisers, deploring the behaviour of Grainger Games from last night.
UPDATE 2: Here’s a brief apology from Grainger Games.
UPDATE 3: If you’re as entranced with this tale as we are, JamSponge’s accounts of the night are worth a read too.
Click to expand...

Conway · Oct 28, 2011

http://jamsponge.tumblr.com/post/11988359094/help-were-in-grainge-danger-thats-a-pun

After being repeatedly asked what it was that actually transpired at last night’s Gaming Media Awards, I figured it would be easiest to simply whack it up here.
Grainger Games - a retail company mainly based in the North of England – decided they fancied the idea of getting closer to the country’s gaming media, and plumped up the cash to become this year’s main sponsors for the annual awards. Previously little more than a small indie chain, their recent successes have seen the brand pumped full of cash by a variety of investors: An attempt no doubt to fatten the goose for a potential sale to prospective buyers like the US company Gamestop.
Bringing their unique flavour of Toon-army charm to London for the night, the first impressions weren’t exactly perfect. Greeted by a bright orange Hummer filled with dwarves and barely-clothed equally orange promo girls, Grainger’s iconic lack of taste wasn’t initially much of a surprise.
Sitting down at a dinner table scattered with Grainger-branded condoms, eyebrows began to rise to more substantial levels: The gender ratio in the games industry isn’t exactly a well-kept secret, so at first this gesture was merely confusing. Should we all be scrambling across the tables for a chance to stick it in one of the barely-legal promo girls, or bumming each other to bits with the aid of condiments hidden beneath this pointless spatter of contraceptives?
When the awards kicked off, things started to get ugly. Heckling the comedian seemed like fair game, but it quickly became evident it wasn’t stopping there: Shouting loudly over the top of each and every award and speech, the lack of respect escalated from irritating to infuriating. Some kindly described the behaviour as heckling, but I’m pretty sure what you’re saying has be either amusing or decipherable for that distinction to be technically valid.
Expertly alternating between shouting whilst sitting down and shouting whilst standing up, at one of the particularly coked-up chaps even decided to jump up on stage and start thrusting his pelvis towards the audience. I think it might have been the award for Rock Paper Shotgun. I’m a big fan too, but still.
It’s hard to pinpoint any one moment of the evening that really hit the bell at the top of the twat-o-meter, but the sentiments throughout the industry were clearly homogeneous: Who the fuck are these clowns, and what are they doing at our party. It was the equivalent of the bride’s father thinking it’ll be alright to punch the groom in the face because he’d paid for the booze and catering.
Hardly the end of the world – but for a company that clearly needs to pitch itself to the big boys as a respectable future investment, it was nothing short of a PR disaster. Having said that, I felt ill and left the party at about 10. FUCK knows what they got up to after that.
Otherwise though, it was a bloody brilliant night and loads of lovely people won some shiny bits of plastic. Excellent work, GMA peeps.
EDIT: I’ve since been informed that after I left, some of the G-crew were caught doing coke in the toilet by security, whilst others were seen to be physically intimidating some of the gaming media’s most prominent figures. Lordy.
Click to expand...

N.C. · Oct 28, 2011

Fucking cringe lol.

M.C.E · Oct 28, 2011

Scotty · Oct 28, 2011

When Greg was about to start dishing out the awards they started chanting “TOON ARMY, TOON ARMY” for no discernible reason HAHAHAHAHA :'(

Ash1 · Oct 28, 2011

Ha ha - if it had been Glasgow Games it would have been -ere we, ere we, ere we fukin go!

Earl Grey · Oct 28, 2011

well , i must say - a total fuck up and not a rodal in sight

TheSpence · Oct 28, 2011

Get a film crew to Grainger Games xmas do!!!.

Dwarf, birds, booze & coke sounds a awesome night out shame they had to share the room with a load of failed 'proper' journalists....HAWAY MAN WRITING ABOUT ECCO THE DOLPHIN in the Guardian is not exactly the career these lads were looking for.

The lack of respect for award winners & the compare was a bit offside though.

Congay · Oct 28, 2011

FUCKING HELL!!!! BRILLIANT!!! nice find conners.

LEGENDARY

My snips...

Perhaps it was something to do with the jokers from Grainger Games, who at one point had invaded the stage to do a silly ‘dance’

I watched in disbelief as they made gang-signs to each other from their respective cars.

Greeted by a bright orange Hummer filled with dwarves and barely-clothed equally orange promo girls,

Sitting down at a dinner table scattered with Grainger-branded condoms, eyebrows began to rise to more substantial levels

Congay · Oct 28, 2011

Typical fucking Geordie company!!!

Jono_H · Oct 29, 2011

stunning performance !! midgets and hookers, brilliant !! i bet whoever owns that wishes he'd sent someone in authority or gone with them himself.......locally it's probably done them no harm because it's comedy publicity but if they were looking to punt the whole business out for a tidy profit then that plans well and truly fucked

N.C. · Oct 29, 2011

Teknofish said: ↑

Typical fucking Geordie company!!!
Click to expand...

You dont see anyone saying they were makems there, probably all shagging their sisters..........or it could be anyone outside of the north east classes us all as geordies (being the bigger city) and dont know the differences as we do.

Congay · Oct 29, 2011

I bet the owner of GG deligated this PR to a junior manager who then got a mate whos"into PR" to sort this..... it just so happens most PR Comps work is now for club nights and the like, this sounds ibiza esq... i bet the Junior Manager that arrange this is going to get his BALLS BROKE

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