Jay Mohr Won’t Host The DICE Gaming Awards This Year

Comedian Jay Mohr won’t be hosting the annual video game awards show at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas this year. He’s hosted the awards every year since 2006, merrily insulting part of his audience full of gaming industry professionals and snarking about video games for over half a decade.

The new host will be Nerdist’s and Talking Dead’s Chris Hardwick.

The DICE awards were usually not televised or aired online, allowing Mohr to work a little more blue than the hosts of Spike’s Video Game Awards. He gleefully mocked the lack of diversity in his game industry audience and skewered games with glee.

In 2009, on Richard Garriott: “That guy used 30 million to launch himself into space. Maybe he should have used that to launch ‘Tabula Rasa.’”

On the DIY LittleBigPlanet that same year: “”It’s like buying CD, plugging it in, and then having to go buy all the instruments.”

In 2011: “This has been an amazing year for technological advancements. The Xbox 360 had Kinect. The PS3 had the Move and the geniuses at Nintendo introduced a red one. Come on, Nintendo. Try!”

Mohr has also hosted events at Blizzcon in recent years. No word on whether that gig will continue.

The Hardwick-hosted awards, called the D.I.C.E. Awards this year instead of the A.I.A.S. Awards will be held on Thursday, Feb. 7 at 10:30pm ET, from the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino an will be livestreamed by Variety.

Here are the main nominees for the awards:

Game of the Year
Borderlands 2
Far Cry 3
Journey
The Walking Dead
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
Journey
Dishonored
Far Cry 3
The Unfinished Swan
The Walking Dead

Outstanding Innovation in Gaming
Journey
Nintendo Land
Sound Shapes
The Unfinished Swan
The Walking Dead

Action Game of the Year
Borderlands 2
Far Cry 3
Halo 4
Hitman: Absolution
Sleeping Dogs

Adventure Game of the Year
Assassin’s Creed III
Darksiders II
Dishonored
New Super Mario Bros. Wii U
The Walking Dead

Mobile Game of the Year
Fairway Solitaire
Hero Academy
Horn
Rayman Jungle Run

We’ll be covering the DICE Summit next month. It’s a small show mostly for captains of the gaming industry, and tends to be more of a forum for brainy talks than for game announcements. Plus: Gabe Newell will be going into the summit’s Hall of Fame. Not bad!

Picture: Ethan Miller/Getty