Game Awards – Celebration of talent or a Marketing Extravaganza?

There are several award shows in the game industry that recognize and award particular games, development studios and other individuals on their merits. Some are smaller and more local and some award games globally. Award shows such as D.I.C.E. Rewards and Golden Joystick Awards have reached global popularity but the most watched game award show is the Game Awards. At least according to Guinness World Records when Game Awards set the world record with over 103 million views in 2022. The Game Awards were established in 2014 and they are produced and hosted annually by Canadian game journalist Geoff Keighley. Since 2023, they have been held at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The show awards nominees in various categories for achievements in the video game industry. In addition to awards, the show features announcements and info of upcoming games, shows and tech. In the last few years, the Game Awards has received quite a lot of criticism from different mediums of the balance between the awards and the premieres and its treatment of the award winners. But more on that later. 

Game Awards 2023 was clearly the year of Baldur’s Gate 3, game by Larian Studios. It won six out of the eight direct nominations in categories the game was in, such as Game of the Year. There were also a lot of other good games nominated, but like the Lord of the Rings movies in the Oscars, Baldur’s Gate 3 dominated the awards. Last year’s Game Awards had many memorable highlights: Live orchestra performing original songs from the Game of the Year nominees and a new song from the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 game composed by Nobuo Uematsu. The band Heilung performing their original song from the Hellblade II game. Swen Vicke, the CEO of Larian Studios, accepting the Game of the Year award wearing plate armor. And who could ever forget Sam Lake, the creative director of Remedy, performing a choreographed dance with actors from the Alan Wake II game while the band Old Gods of Asgard was playing.

These highlights, nominees and awards themselves however were overshadowed by the amount of the premieres, announcements and ads. Watching the show felt more like attending a marketing campaign where Hollywood celebrities are brought to promote products than watching an award ceremony. Admittedly, I did enjoy and got excited about some of the premieres but too much is too much. In addition, some of the commercials felt really out of place, like Vape Beast advertising vaping or Google and Samsung advertising Google Play and mobile devices. It seemed that the host was more excited about the celebrities and the premieres than the games nominated. Instead of celebrating the awards and the nominees, the winners’ award acceptance speeches were cut short to make room for more advertisements. Some winners had just enough time to say simple “thank you” until they were played off the stage. Some of the awards were not even given on stage at all. What felt most wrong was the fact that when Larian Studios were giving the acceptance speech for winning the Game of the Year award, they had merely seconds to honor a colleague who passed during game development. What also felt really wrong was when Neil Newbon was played off while he was giving a heartfelt speech of almost quitting acting and how people were facing really bad mental health problems. Journalist in the Escapist, Liam Nolan, had timed how long the winners’ speeches totaled. 10 minutes and 52 seconds in a over three hour long “award” show. The trailers and ads totaled 1 hour and 28 minutes.

They clearly tried to revise some aspects in the 2024 Game Awards based on the 2023 show’s criticism. The winners announced during the opening act were actually able to give short acceptance speeches. During the main act, the winners had more time to accept the awards, talk about the game and give thanks to people. It was also interesting that they used Muppets from the Muppet show to address some of the 2023 show’s criticism and to roast Geoff Keighley. Geoff also addressed the layoffs that the game industry has faced in recent years and in addition to this, announced a new category called the Game Changer. The award was given to Amir Satvat who had created a community and a site where people from the industry could find work and further education. Like in the past few years, again the Game Award orchestra performed songs from the nominated games and the main act had other live performances, like Snoop Dog and 21 Pilots. One noteworthy and quite remarkable moment was when Harrison Ford presented the award for best performance. The 2024 awards had really memorable moments, but the show was, again, still lacking in some aspects. Some of the award categories were stacked in a strange way. Categories like, most anticipated game, best multiplayer game, best community support and best art direction were stacked into a single slot. Later, categories like audio design, best independent game and best mobile game were stacked into one slot. It seemed weird that winners from categories such as audio design or art direction were not given a chance to receive the award on stage. Even though they addressed some of the criticism from last year and gave more time for the winners, the award show still feels more like an infomercial rather than an award show for celebrating talent.

It is interesting how the Game Awards ceremony has reached such popularity even though it is clearly used as a marketing tool rather than as a platform to celebrate games. Compared to D.I.C.E. awards for example, which is an over two hours long ceremony that focuses on celebrating the talents of the industry. I do not resent the Game Awards on marketing upcoming games or gaming tech. I think it is good that there is a platform for that. However, I do agree that an award ceremony should not be used for this purpose and that it is very disrespectful for the nominees and the winners. As I am writing this, I will still wake up at 2 am on Thursday night to watch this year’s Game Awards and probably will in the future.

 

Basic information:

Pictures: Promo pictures from Game Awards website, Screenshots from the show by the author.

References:

Most-watched video game awards show. (2023, January 17). Guinness World Records. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/733192-most-watched-video-game-awards-show

IGN. (2023, December 8). Our Top Moments from The Game Awards 2023 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ooMg22ZHJ4

thegameawards. (2023, December 8). THE GAME AWARDS 2023: Official 4K livestream (Monster Hunter, Marvel’s Blade, Light No Fire) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu2z5M4gmno

Awards, G. (n.d.). Voting Jury | The Game Awards. Voting Jury | the Game Awards. https://thegameawards.com/voting-jury

Mastromarino, J. P. (2023, December 8). The biggest takeaways and full winners from The Game Awards. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/08/1218063057/the-game-awards-recap-full-winners-big-moments

Nolan, L. (2023, December 8). The Biggest Problem at This Year’s Game Awards Was Disrespecting the Winners. The Escapist. https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-biggest-problem-at-this-years-game-awards-was-disrespecting-the-winners/

Hymas, T. (2023, December 10). The Game Awards are a failure. InBetweenDrafts. https://inbetweendrafts.com/the-game-awards-are-a-failure/

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. (2024, February 16). The 27th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALGaEzLBo3I

thegameawards. (2024, December 13). 🔴 The Game Awards 2024: Official 4K livestream – The Witcher 4, Snoop Dogg, Twenty One Pilots [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfnUQ-qKsdQ

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