Last night saw the 10th annual show of The Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley. It’s a yearly award show that prides itself on delivering awards to the best that gaming has had to offer in it’s own respective year, showcasing appearances from celebrities well known in entertainment, along with giving you sneak peaks and announcements of upcoming games in development. With how MASSIVE of a year for gaming that 2023 has been, you would expect there would be a lot of winning for certain games and plenty of upset for others and you would be right.
Yesterday’s show saw Larian Studio’s Baldur’s Gate 3 with nine nominations and winning awards in six of those along with taking home the ultimate prize of game of the year. It also saw heartbreak in the likes of well-acclaimed games such as Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, with neither winning any awards despite numerous nominations. Even Pikmin 4, a great Nintendo Switch exclusive that got lost in the sea of other great Switch exclusives this year in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder (both which got one award), was able to take home more trophies than Resident Evil 4 and Spider-Man 2 combined. While I have yet to play Baldur’s Gate 3, the universal acclaim is has gotten does make it more than worthy of all that is has won.
However, something strange happened during the speech giving by the folks behind Baldur’s Gate 3. The developers of Larian Studios who came up to give their acceptance speech were told to wrap it up quickly and were only given a total of 30 seconds to make their speech. There was even looks from behind the scene of the amount of seconds that the folks were giving to make a speech before they were forced to wrap it up.
This sudden urge to wrap up the show quickly is odd considering the massive amount of time that was giving to other well-known celebrities and game developers, most notably Hideo Kojima, who given at least five to ten minutes top to speak their mind. You let those people have all the time in the world to talk about random stuff aside from the awards themselves but you rush those that actually win the awards themselves? It’s almost as if The Game Awards is looking to serve a different purpose outside of being an awards show. And if last night’s show is anything to go by, I’m willing to bet there are plenty of those that agree with me.
Despite being called The Game Awards, last night’s show felt like it was trying to be anything but a games award show. A good portion of the runtime was filled with constant ads, commercials, trailers, and appearances of celebrities & gaming developers and not on the actual awards themselves. The awards themselves played a secondary role, with most award reveals being handwaved while other reveals felt rushed just so they can get to the next trailer or gaming reveal. As a matter of fact, there was a total of 30 (!) reveals of games in development with another 32 (!) announcements involving upcoming games. That is a combined total of 62 reveals and announcements of games!
With so much crammed into one award show, that made the pacing of the whole show feeling rather bizarre and inconsistent. There were plenty of times where it would move at a super fast clip to announce a new game or award while other times it slows down just so Geoff Keighley can spend some time on camera with his buddies in the gaming industry. Imagine if the Oscars spend more time on upcoming announcements and trailers for future movies and the awards themselves felt like a footnote and that is basically what you get with The Game Awards.
To be sure, some of the announcements shown off for upcoming games were quite cool. From a new Jurassic Park game to SEGA focusing on their other IPs instead of just Sonic the Hedgehog to confirmation that a new Blade game is in the works, those are all things to get excited for. Not to mention, Hideo Kojima and Jordan Peele working on a game together feels like a match made in horror heaven. The problem though is that those felt like things that should have been announced either at an E3 or at a Summer Games Fest, not at an awards show.
All of that leads to my next point, what in the world is The Game Awards trying to be? Does it want to be an awards ceremony that celebrates the achievements in the gaming industry year in or year out or does it just want to show off as much news of upcoming games as possible with as much famous people as possible? If it’s the first answer, then just stick to making it about those who worked hard on their big games and let them get the spotlight they deserve on center stage. If it’s the second answer, then just make a Winter E3 and you can reveal as much as you want while even possibly allowing for special demos for games that show up to the event. Try to do them both at the same time and last night’s show is the results that you get.
If it was up to me and I had the power to do it, I would actually try to do them both but make them two SEPERATE events. Have the game awards show come first and highlight the best that gaming had to offer in their own respective year. After that, make a Winter E3 event to give gamers a sneak preview of what’s to come for gaming the following next year. That would allow for both sides of the spectrum to shine and not have one overshadow the other. You can have your show that awards the achievements for gaming for their own respective year and then shortly after, you can have your show that will let gamers know what to expect for the next year. I’m sure plenty of things would need to be changed and reworked due to budget, restraints, layoffs, etc.. but I believe that would be the perfect way for Geoff and crew to have their cake and eat it too. And I think gamers and developers all around the world would be much appreciative of that, especially since E3 in the summer is basically as good as dead now.
While last night’s award show was far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen, I don’t think there has been one that showcases the absolute identity crisis that The Game Awards currently have. It needs to decide whether it wants to be an awards ceremony or just be a new event to show off upcoming games. You can one or the other or even both at different times but they can NOT be at the exact same time. A sneak preview or two is fine but that’s not what the majority of an awards show should consist of. It just makes things awkward, confusing, and quite frankly insulting to those that put so much work and effort over the years with games only to get less than a minute to give a speech they have been waiting such a long time to give. And that’s not even going into other factors not addressed such as the massive amount of layouts and the poor treatment that developer have b, plenty of which will no doubt play a factor once the inevitable strike in the gaming industry does appear.
Regardless, it’s time for The Game Awards to look itself in the mirror and figure out what in the world does it want to be. Make up your mind or else things will only continue to get worse and worse with each new show every year!
It’s in your hands, Geoff Keighley! May the gaming gods have mercy on your soul (Not really!)
And here’s an article that dives deeper into the rough year that developers have had in gaming and what The Game Awards failed to address:
Adam's Blog 