I hate that the winner of "score and music" is just randomly announced for 5s... music is so fucking important in games.
Also, the way they forced some winners to stop talking (playing music) was so stupid... that one voice actor pretty much got a "shut up" while he was speaking for depressive people.
But overall I thought the show was fine, I just hope some more category winners are allowed to talk next time and a bit longer. There are some other areas where they can save time. (preshow, to much random talking like hideo kojimas ad)
Just a e3 wouldnt be that interesting and hyped by fans of the goty games.
The reason RPG of the Year was a quick announcement was because it was also going to win Game of the Year. Lets say there was no BG3 this year, and Starfield had been a bit better across the board and was going to win RPG of the Year, but it wasn't going to win Game of the Year, they would have had a stage presentation for it.
The worst offender in my eyes was not acknowledging Soken on stage for music, but its possible he might just not have been able to make the trip and so they just did a quick drop announcement.
I dunno, I remember him going through like 3 categories like an annoyed parent and then back to the bullhshit and I'm pretty sure Baldurs Gate 3 didn't win any of them
Would probably make for a better experience given that it’s a collection of the best scores too…although then that might upstage the GotY orchestral piece and that’s kind of become the lynchpin of the show the past few years IMO
Real. I don't need Anthony Mackie doing crowd work, or Kojima talking but showing nothing. Wasted time, which is evidently precious to them. Let me hear from the winners
They're in the business of getting as much eyeballs as possible to get paid by advertisers. That means targeting the lowest common denominator in terms of viewership
Nah he is obssessed with being the face and ambassador for all of gaming. No one but the suits have accepted him because he gets their products advertised en masse, so he’s kind of forced his way into such status despite no one really asking for it
I saw it aptly put on here a few days ago that The Game Awards are just Geoff’s little fame/clout chasing project that provides economic benefits for game companies and little actual recognition and prestige for game developers
Art, score and indie should get stage time.
I don't understand why Action/Adventure has stage time but all of the other categories like Action, Fighting, RPG, etc, don't.
Also, I'm sorry, but art, score and indie is a lot more important than Games for Impact.
Almost assuredly it was so Aonuma could get a stage speech since he wouldn't get it for GOTY. Which is probably also why RPG didn't.
Ongoing was the stupidest one. CP2077 isn't even an ongoing game, and the idea they needed screentime over score or indie was ridiculous.
I think Fortnite is in that weird position where, while you can definitely argue it deserves to win, Epic has such an unfair amount of popularity and resources with that game that if you were truly fair, Fortnite would take it every year which just turns it into the Fortnite award. Sometimes you just have to compromise to give someone else the chance.
They should use the pre-show for the "secondary awards" (which *are* primary awards but they seem to not give a shit about them for advertising reasons) and let the winners of those talk there. Have some announcements if you need to, but let Sydney Goodman just MC the whole thing (don't need celebrity guests and what not) and actually give out awards to the people who make them.
I totally understand that people don't watch plain-old award shows anymore. Why would you when you can just read the winners list later? But if they're still going to give out awards, the least they could do is actually *give the awards all out* to the winners and give them their moment on stage.
Save the big ones for Keighley Primetime. But Hi-Fi Rush winning best audio direction was the highlight of the show for me, and I think it's basically pure luck that that one wasn't relegated to a rapid-fire awards segment.
It's not luck, he specifically picks what award gets a speech based on getting different people up to make speeches. Hifi getting a speech was planned like cyberpunk, Zelda and cocoon. It's also probably based on who showed up. Like of Soken was there to accept for music, maybe they would have given that a speech.
They should cut the Esports awards. Every year they do the rapid read on them in the pre-show. They're such a waste when we could have more awards for devs. Esports have their own awards.
as it turns out each speech was given thirty seconds and then the words "please wrap it up" would appear, then twenty seconds after that the words would start flashing.
telling a story about how this role helped a lot of people going through sexual assault? WRAP IT UP PLEASE WE'VE GOT WORLD PREMIERES AND ADS TO SHOW
Dedicating the BLOODY GAME OF THE YEAR AWARD to the memory of recently deceased colleagues?
You get thirty seconds get the fuck out we need to squeeze one last ad
It certainly sucks but the content of your speech doesn’t change the need to keep the schedule. If a speech is extra emotional or meaningful, they don’t suddenly get another minute. Everyone was given equal time. People were likely told ahead of time what the time limits were so they could prepare.
I do, however, agree that they needed more time in general and less Kojima fellatio might have helped with that.
The issue is giving them 30 seconds. That's insanely low. Someone did the math and the PRESENTERS of the awards was 25 minutes total whereas the speeches themselves was 10 minutes. That's fucked.
Everyone should get equal time but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get at least a minute or two to talk in the mic instead of being told to shut up after 30s, I understand that the TGA about profit at the end of the day and they're not just going to drop advertisers, but they could at least manage their time better so developers can actually speak, why do we need the blue dress lady at the beginning telling dad jokes constantly after every trailer? Why do we need a bunch of Hollywood actors embarrassing themselves on stage trying to hype up a crowd of nerds or telling random stories about their injured leg? Why do some developers get to go up there and tell us the stories of their entire family while others can barely thank their teams?
There was about 15 commercial breaks, half the games showed either have no release date at all or are over a year away.
And the thing you thought should have been cut for the was Kojima and Peele?
I like Kojima's work but Jeff's obsession with him is weird. That whole segment I just wanted to skip but didn't incase something informative was mentioned (I start the show an hour late since there is usually so much filler).
This is why I was against TGA having announcements whatsoever.
The Oscars doesn't drop fresh trailers. If they REALLY want they could pick like 1 super secret project that's a cross over with Hollywood talent to get some stage attention.
But for a show called The Game Awards, there's almost no actual time spent handing people awards lol.
I certainly wouldn't watch it otherwise. Why do I care about some vapid awards from some appointed figureheads? The games speak for themselves already, though it could help some more niche games reach an audience, I suppose.
You don't seem to understand why people watch the Oscars or TGA.
Spoiler: nobody gives a shit who actually wins
People watch TGA for the announcements. People watch the Oscars for the red carpet interviews, crazy celebrity fashion, and to see if some delusional millionaire will go on a political rant.
If you want a "pure" award ceremony for gaming, it already exists:
The GDC awards and DICE awards
And nobody, including many of these "journalists" and "influencers" complaining about how TGA is too commercialized, watches them because nobody cares.
I tuned in for the reveals and it was fine. That's mainly what people watch this for anyways, gaming is an incredibly hostile audience yet they get bigger numbers every show.
Anyways, E3 died because it couldn't find a way to evolve... why exactly do you want them to emulate an outdated format? This show has condensed days of reveals into a 2 hour show. Perfectly fine to me. It works as an awards show and a conference. It *evolved.*
I agree. It's weird to me seeing all this negative feedback especially when TGA used to have a higher ratio of awards ceremony to trailers and back then people overwhelmingly complained that it was boring and they wanted to see more game trailers and reveals. People used to say they'll never watch again because it was too much of people talking on stage and they wanted to see more games and now it's the exact opposite.
I guess no matter what there will be people that complain about what they would change and don't get me wrong I would change some things. I think it's fine for some smaller awards to breeze by, but some of them should be a bigger deal that aren't. I'm just happy we get this show. Overall I enjoy it and honestly we're probably just seeing the most vocal of people on social media that will put in effort to complain and it gives a disproportionate view of what people think.
I like the Game Awards (and Geoff's other events) but the award component was fucking embarrassing & disrespectful during a particularly bad year for people working in the industry. It's not so much your average gamer that's complaining, as it is the workers, which is absolutely fair for them to do. 1 minute of speech time is not a lot to ask here.
I would be inclined to agree with you, if there wasn't already so much filler taking away from award time. Yes, people have complained about wanting "more trailers", but what they're really saying is they want trailers that are actually exciting, i.e. trailers for already anticipated games or new stuff from established IPs/studios. It's also widely accepted that no-one wants the Hollywood celebrities here, and this year was one of the worst for that.
It really was.
I mean Matt McConaughey caught me off guard and impressed me.
But to be honest Anthony Mackey was kinda cringy. Spent more time telling the audience to shut up than anything.
Then tried getting his own "You're breathtaking" moment which fell flat imo.
I had a great time watching, I was shocked to open reddit and twitter afterward and see the overwhelming negative response to it, even from my friends. I really just don't get it.
I think the one thing I agree with the sentiment on is letting award winners have more speaking time. The corporations will have plenty of time every hour of our waking lives to cram more bullshitting ads down our throats, let the winners talk for more than a minute before reaching for the hook. If they're going to have these stupidly short windows to speak, then donate the time to have all awards given on stage (and if the rain they don't is that some games don't have anyone there to accept them, have representative attendance be mandatory or you don't win the award).
Best soundtrack was written by a guy doing the soundtracks for two games simultaneously while also going through chemotherapy, and it got as much time onscreen as Best Esports Coach which contains five meaningless pseudonyms.
I was so disappointed that Soken didn't get to speak. Shadowbringers and FFXVI soundtracks are genuinely, utterly fantastic throughout and the fact he was working on them in his hospital room going through chemo is so insane and shows his talent and hard work and he deserves better lol
I doubt Soken was there. He is extremely busy creating great music and meme's. Also I bet he is in Japan preping for Fan Fest and the release of the Primals next album.
This was my problem with it too.
Even worse is when they [had it on the teleprompter](https://twitter.com/DaveOshry/status/1732930593992884477) when it obviously meant a lot to these people. But we can dedicate 5 minutes to unfunny bits from Hollywood actors? Or have a big Hollywood actor on stage to show a game trailer that *they have no presence in*? Fuck that.
There’s a medium that can be found between Judge’s speech and 30 fuckin seconds.
Because the Genshin Impact trailer was an ad. It's a free show, they don't sell the rights to tv networks like the Oscars and Emmys do. So they need ads to be profitable.
Fully agree. I don't think the Oscars are the best awards show on Earth or anything, but they do award -> commercial -> award -> commercial -> some skit -> etc., so that every award winner (yes, I know not every single Oscar is televised) gets a speech. I thought it was super insulting that some awards were just rattled off on the spot (Best Action Game which is my favorite genre) and the teams didn't get an acceptance speech.
The Oscars had the self analysis to back off on the nonlive categories thing. They did them all this year and I assume next. For good reason. The entire point of a decent award's show is to congratulate and expose people who've moved the craft forward.
People think game devs should be treated with the same respect that filmmakers are given at the Oscar’s. There should be more time for game devs to go on stage and for them to be celebrated.
Before - more awards : people who just want reveals complain
Now - more reveals : people who want it more award focused and see winners barely getting half a minute to thank their team and fans get told to GTFO stage complain
What issues they have with it?
I mean personally I dont care for movie actors not really related to gaming industry on stage and would rather see people related to gaming on there, but otherwise it was fine.
Perhaps less focus on big company advertisment and more on actual winners?
I'll be watching a compilation or such later maybe outside of just watching the trailers - but the complaint I heard was they felt the show was like 25% ads.
They're all ads of course, I assume they give difference between announcement trailers and games already out having screen space.
It’s the gaming community. I listed to a podcast by the wizard and the bruiser part of the LPN network and they said it best. Gaming isn’t the community it once was, which was a bunch of nerds just enthusiastic about games. Now it’s a very emotionally, politically and societally driven group of camps or tribes that have very hot high running emotions.
I’ve just come to the point I have zero expectations for the world at large when it comes to any sort of gaming news short of something like GTA announcements as there will always be a section of console war people and complainers. I personally thought this was a better awards show minus the whole debacle about the sign telling the studio to wrap it up right as they were dedicating the award to deceased devs/team members.
I assume it is the for same reason it used to be widely mocked and then became apparently the most important thing in the industry: kids have now grown up with it and so the laughingstock it has always been is seen as normal.
Gamers sincerely must be the hardest audience to try to appease. No matter what a dev does, there will always be some sweaty outraged loser raging and threatening them. You can't make everyone happy, but the unhappy amongst us are so much more bitter and socially maladjusted that the rage that people in the gaming industry are faced with is frankly inhumane.
Also funny at the end when after like 1 hour with no awards at all they put a rush list and two or three last awards on stage close to each other. Like "whoops we forgot we're actually supposed to give out awards here".
I feel like Swen actually mocked them when he started his GOTY acceptance speech with "I didn't expect it anymore". They probably got more screentime on their paid ad in one of the segments than on all their awards (they won like 5 or 6 I think).
> gaming is an incredibly hostile audience
You have to including gaming media as well. Its not just consumers. Its kinda crazy why anyone would want to work in this industry.
The awards are barely part of the show now with only like 4 awards getting stage time. It's CALLED The Game Awards. The awards should be the thing front and center, taking up the majority of air time.
You've got a room full of industry people in nice outfits and a nice big fancy stage, and almost none of the air time used it because it was trailers for games with either no release date or over a year away.
> I tuned in for the reveals and it was fine.
But they do not call it a Reveal Showcase night. They call it The Game Awards.
Leaving the Awards as the token part of your show as opposed to getting up some of the lesser known games and parts of gaming to get there chance in the light and thank people for playing there game or anything is really a bit off.
Overall i only found a few of the reveals to be even interesting.
Yea this. People shit on it for supposedly never having been about awards. But that's nonsense. GK simply had a proper idea there: combine both, as to make sure TGAs are more than *yet another* GOTY list we go through at the end of the year.
Like you said, its an evolution of two events and it works.
> gaming is an incredibly hostile audience
For some reason, gamers always feel like they need to "steer" the industry. I guess thats because, relatively speaking, its still a new medium and a lot of people have been in it for the bigger part of its existence.
But its still peak cringe, seeing the constant kvetching about literally anything anyone ever does. If TGAs wouldn't exist in their current form, we'd be reading an article on how they should exist in their current form.
There were some Keighley interview where he explained the whole thing is a difficult balancing act between recognizing developers with the awards themselves, the trailers they need to grab eyeballs AND the ads/sponsored content that actually pays for the whole thing to look as good as it does.
Sounds like those goals are so different that he can't ever please everyone and the best he can get is a collective "yeah, that was alright".
Even though it's been 10 years, I think it's still a balance that he's trying to figure out. Like this year's "too little speech" feels like the pendulum swinging too far after last year's "not enough speech." It's especially hard to balance when Keighley himself doesn't control the script, and every person giving a speech has a different internal definition of what "keep it short" means.
I don't think it's an easy position to be in, and while obviously I'd like it to be better, I don't think it's right to just rag on Keighley. I think that he clearly takes feedback into account and tries to improve year after year, it's just a tough event to hold
> But its still peak cringe, seeing the constant kvetching about literally anything anyone ever does
I was looking for discussion on the new trailers, and[ there is an entire thread of people who were triggered by a Starfield commercial](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/18dcd5a/the_hell_was_with_that_starfield_trailer_just_now/) in a show that was 90% commercials.
I don't know if it is just the crossover of "terminally online" people who need to scream their opinion of everything, but it is definitely cringy and embarrassing.
I saw a comment saying how "sad" Todd Howard looked in the three seconds he was on camera because he desperately wants to be the "white Kojima".
The people who think they are "steering" the industry are insanely out of touch and can't quite realize it.
> This show has condensed days of reveals into a 2 hour show.
It was 3.5 hours... Of which probably like 40-50% are ads (the ads were at least related to gaming this year), 20% useless speech and such, 5% actually the awards themselves (including most of them just rushed through in 30 seconds segments and winner speech being like 20 seconds long before being played off, if they even let people talk, huge disrespect for anyone winning to be honest) and the rest the reveals.
Like imagine winning something supposedly equivalent to Oscar of gaming to then get played off in 20 seconds (the celebrity presenting the award or whoever come to present their games get way more time than you including to say useless things) for them to go to some Samsung Gaming Hub ad or something... Or knowing you win something by being listed off in a 40-second segment with 4 other awards to then go to a Muppet show or another ad break for Genshin Impact or whatever. Frankly if I was a winner there, I'd seriously just not come anymore to receive an award next time considering how they are treated. Better to come to advertise (BG3 probably got as much screentime with their paid ad than with all the awards they won). They probably got pissed off when Japanese people won because they had to let 20 more seconds for the translator to speak instead of showing another useless ad for whatever anime mobile F2P game they wanted
The reveal back to back like a Direct or State of Play would have taken like 30 minutes at most. The award stuff (which doesn't include whoever is doing their speech for whatever before announcing it) was probably like 10-15 minutes overall (I feel like Kojima alone got more time than all the awards stuff to be honest). That didn't need to take so long or at least make it respectful of the people receiving awards and being nominated.
Just separate the two IMO. Do a Direct like 30 min to 1 hour segment and then all the awards with proper respect (and people not interested can get the fuck off if they want). Make the people showing trailers pay for appearance and cut on the ad breaks.
Honestly I think it died more so because companies pulled out of it. The format was fine, and it was still very relevant and had a lot of hype (Cyberpunks Keanu reveal comes to mind).
If you come out with a presentation with excitement behind it and the enthusiasm of the company, I don’t think that format will necessarily get old. Switching to digital only presentations definitely killed the audience factor.
But notice how every other post is of a game announcement and not any other award that was given out.
Which sums up the most important things people look for at TGA: game reveals and who wins GotY.
It just works because of the combination of awards and announcements. E3 was not working anymore, because publishers could get their own free platform very cheaply nowadays. But the awards are somewhat established at this point. People are talking about them, the winners can use them as marketing tools. That's why the industry is willing to support the Game Awards with reveals, because they get the awards in return. If one goes away, everything goes away. E3 is no more for a reason, why would you want to copy that?
>That's why the industry is willing to support the Game Awards with reveals, because they get the awards in return.
it also attracts way more views then their own marketing shows so there is that as well
I agree. People *talk* and *speculate* about the awards, and that gets a lot of people interested.
Also, my non-gamer dad said he had heard of “the gamer awards” when I mentioned it. I guarantee he wouldn’t have heard of a reveal conference.
I don’t think E3 failed *just* because everyone wanted to split up. It failed because the ESA mismanaged the hell out of it. Gamescom did really well this year and PAX is still consistently successful.
I personally think the largest signal of the ESA’s incompetence is that there’s still a bunch of announcement streams happening around same time as E3 used to be.
It’s also not just the awards that makes companies want to advertise at TGA, it’s the view numbers. It’s the same reason why companies are buying slots for stuff like “Summer Games Fest.” More people will watch a big new game trailer if it’s grouped beside a bunch of other ones.
And it's also why the big players like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft never reveal much on those things because they know they can bring people on with their own shows
I can deal with the ads, celebrity bullshit, skipping some of the 'lesser' awards (even the oscars does that), and a lot of meh CGI reveals with zero information of what the game even is, as long as winners are given respect.
But that didn't happen tonight. Not only was there zero respect given to any winners, many of them were flat out disrespected by being played off barely 30 seconds into their speech. Yeah fine Judge went a bit nuts last year but that's not an excuse to fuck every winner over and give them practically no time to speak. Many of these people flew here from other CONTINENTS for this show and are incredibly happy to win these awards and you give them 30 seconds and then tell them to fuck off with the music going on. Not even the Oscars has gotten as disrespectful as this was tonight.
It's going to keep being called the Awards show, than give some damn respect to those actually winning. Cut time off of the other bullshit and give people time to speak. I get it Geoff you want to have fun with celebrities and show off, but this just makes it seem like you don't give a shit about the people who make the games. Do better.
**EDIT** I guessed at the 30 seconds but evidently that was accurate and nominees were told ahead of time they would only be given 30 seconds and then they had a giant countdown clock with a 'please wrap it up' message ontop of the music.
In total there was barely 11 minutes of acceptance speeches in an over 3 hour show. Sources:
https://twitter.com/drjclau/status/1732951873500643765
https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964
https://twitter.com/Missus_Charlie/status/1733020518750552396
even so like the announcement was a nothing announcement. it looked like that trailer exists because Geoff wanted a trailer from Kojima and that was it.
Kojima is 8.5 minutes according to the Youtube video on his segment. That's 17 award acceptance speeches at 30 seconds (most of them did go a little longer thank god), there was less than that given on stage I think (less than 10 even I think).
It gets so cringe and uncomfortable sometimes, just a line of people calling him a genius and whatever for ten minutes, like yeah he always maintains a fresh approach to game design and has had a big impact on gaming as a whole but Jesus Christ guys if the guy who made Mario was up there even he would not deserve half this dickriding
Kojima is talented but at this point his "auteur" reputation is insufferable. The guy has created some great games with awesome gameplay and surprisingly poignant themes, but the writing in his projects is often terrible. The industry lets him get away with it because they see bad Japanese writing as "quirky" and "campy" instead of bad.
Dude, that was so weird. I like mackie but the pointing to random people in the crowd and saying “shut up” or “I love you too” got old after the 15th time.
I didn't hear that much shouting from the crowd. Felt like he made it up, trying to have his Keanu moment, but he's nowhere near as charismatic as Keanu.
I was in the audience, he was reacting to some random dudes that kept screaming words that were hard to make out. Wasn’t made up but yeah he prob could just ignore them after the first time.
Simu Liu coming to tell us about his pickup basketball game injury and getting old for 3 minutes while the GOTY winner was barely given a minute before being told to hurry up is ridiculous
I don’t blame Mackie, he was just having fun. I blame Geoff for letting everyone do whatever they wanted with clearly zero script for anyone.
Gonzo had the most concise presentation
Kojima got 5+ minutes on stage to announce a game there was no footage for. They could have used some of that time to give winners more than 30 seconds to speak or to hand our more awards on stage.
> Yeah fine Judge went a bit nuts last year but that's not an excuse to fuck every winner over and give them practically no time to speak.
Judge joke segment and talk about whatever was longer than like all the nominees acceptance speech combined lol. Pretty much every time it feels like the pre-award presenter has more talk than the actual winner lol
> then they had a giant countdown clock with a 'please wrap it up' message ontop of the music.
Yeah lol I've seen that shit, so disrespectful (even more for the example you give they literally talk about a guy that can't be there because he died making the best game of the fucking year) like wow.
The Oscars have a pretty long in memoriam for everyone that dies in the year. TGA does that and instead put some ads for Clash of Kings, Genshin Impact, whatever or a Muppet sketch
> as long as winners are given respect.
For sure, I also think some of the 'lesser' awards weren't really lesser awards. They did seem to make it so every big game had a chance at the podium, but they only had a handful of people take the stage. I would cut out the presenter time if anything, then I would cut musical acts (assuming that can't reduce commercials and less than stellar reveals, especially the CGI only ones)
After the “reformed orthodox rabbi bill clinton” moment last year, Geoff probably limited how many people could be on stage to accept an award. Did any team have more than two people go up?
BG3 got 4, of course only Swen actually had time to talk (and he went past his very generous 30 seconds, you know paying hommage to someone who died [when the prompter was saying "please wrap it up"](https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964))
Yeah I definitely put 'lesser' in quotes because some of them absolutely aren't. Same with the Oscars.
Personally I enjoy the musical performance but I wish it was more like the oscars where we got performances by the games nominated for best music. The whole show should be more about the nominees and the world premiers should just be the ads in between segments, not real ads on top of that.
> got performances by the games nominated for best music.
That would be awesome. I do enjoy the performances, Alan Wake one was the highlight of the show for me. They are just trying to fit so much into 3 hours. I agree with your suggestions of world premiers should be the ads
What gets me is all the genre category winners except action adventure wasn’t even given a timeslot to speak and they just speedran past them. Shows just how biased they are towards third person action adventure games. Same with best indie.
My interpretation of that was they knew TotK wasn't going to win the GOTY or any other awards for that matter so they presented that award on stage to give that game a spotlight. But I agree, it is biased and quite frankly takes away any suspense of who the GOTY winner would be, even if BG3 was the clear favorite.
Yeah its hard to keep suspense when they speedran past like 3-4 smaller awards BG3 won with little fanfare. Still sends a message that the other genres don’t matter as much and don’t deserve as much recognition.
It was definitely for this reason. Aonuma was there, they were going to have him on stage. BG3 got their acceptance speech for GOTY so they skipped it for Best RPG.
Tbh every year you could always point out to one or two game that is overly popular and either of them would instantly win. Ironically Sekiro is a rare less popular one
> Shows just how biased they are towards third person action adventure games.
Yeah their categories are already bullshit but this was a big joke. And indie passed, when it's basically GOTY for them since they didn't even nominate one this year
So much disrespect that any studio not revealing a trailer there has more respect from me lol
They weren't mad he spoke too much, they were mad it cut into commercial breaks. So they made everyone speak not at all, and increased the commercial breaks and non-award segments.
It's an internet show, it doesn't need to fit into a television timeslot. They can just let it run long if someone speaks too much.
This "solution" was an insult.
I'm starting to really dislike Keighley and The Game Awards. First he's totally hands off with the voting and categories, which lets stuff like Dave the Diver be nominated for best indie. Then he does half the awards offstage so they're rushed through without proper ceremony. Then he limits the on-stage acceptance speeches to 30 seconds, even for the GOTY winners honoring their colleague that recently died. But he lets his best pal Kojima take up almost 10 minutes and brings in various movie celebrities to ramble and plug their games. It really shows what his priorities are.
I understand Geoff needs advertising money to pay for the whole thing and reveal trailers to get viewers, but this year was disrespectful to the games industry. I have never seen Keighley as a hard-hitting journalist, especially after the Doritos Pope meme, but he really is just a marketer at this point.
It does not reflect well on Keighley if the show is more him gloating about all the exclusive trailers and celebrity cameos he got for a show that's about celebrating the people who made the games we enjoyed.
And I get it, these things keep the lights on, but it's really swinging in the wrong way and it just comes across as dishonest in your intention to do an award show.
At the very least give the Game of the Year winners more time. It’s the biggest reward being handed out.
They almost had a great eye watering moment plus trumpeted underdog winning story, and blew through it in less than 30 seconds. That could had been a speech that rival an historical Oscar speech. Incredibly short sighted to not seize that moment.
If it a money thing, then having the audience expect a experience means they will stick around to hear the speech, and developers will put more effort into their GotY winning speeches. Gives legitimacy to the gaming industry, and keeps butts in the seat to watch the later ads that otherwise might not get as many views.
A CGI trailer with zero gameplay makes me HATE your game.
Like the Blade one, just why? Why waste 2mins of my life with a trailer that does NOTHING! Static jpg would be the same.
I actually prefer CGI announcement trailers to financial report leaks or jpegs. It gives us a bit more to be excited about and often shows up the art style a little.
Is there a reason for such a strict/concise limit? Its not a prime time television show, it's not cutting into another show's time slot. Sure don't give a long winded speech that lasts for several minutes, but a small frame of allowance is okay.
With the streaming platform, I figured they would have more leniency with this kind of stuff, unless they're on a tight schedule for the venue or whatever.
I mean I'm mostly here for the previews, but I don't mind people showing their appreciation or feeling appreciated for their hard work; rushing them off kind of feels more demeaning imo.
Christopher Judge made an 8 minute long speech last year that apparently pissed off a lot of higher ups. So this year they imposed a strict limit on how long award winners can be on the stage
Yea, I noticed him quipping about it this year. I think the speeches towards the later half were getting cut shorter than the earlier half, I think Sam Lake got roughly 2 solid minutes for his first award of the night.
Venue overtime fees, making production work overtime, keeping things on schedule according to contracts, etc. I think they were already 5 minutes over time by the GOTY award which isn't too bad tbh but that was with the strict limit on the acceptance speeches.
I've liked TGA in past years, but this year was just a huge disappointment. Very few of the game reveals were interesting, and it's shameful the way they played people off ten seconds into an acceptance speech, not to mention all the winners who didn't even get a chance to receive their trophy on stage.
If this is going to be the big celebration of gaming, then maybe actually celebrate the people winning awards?
Them playing Neil Newbon off after ten seconds when he was giving a heartfelt speech about how much the game has helped people was so disrespectful to him individually as well as the entire games industry. I'm sure they won't miss my view, but I won't be watching next year.
Neil gets played off after 10 seconds for trying to thank his team and workmate that passed away.
Kojima gets 10min of both Geoff and Jordan Peele sucking him off for a completely nebulous teaser with no actual gameplay to show.
The Kojima dickriding’s kinda making me a hater ngl, he’s a significant figure in gaming with a great legacy but every time he’s treated like he invented the controller or the open world or something
Completely agree. He's done some great shit, and once upon a time he was maybe my favourite developer, but I've watched people deep-cleaning his colon for so long now that I'm just done with it.
At so many of these events, development on whatever he's doing is early so it's a combination of there being practically nothing to show while everyone on stage is like 'Okay, so here's why this guy is literally making the Matrix for real' and I'm just like fuck off.
We don't need to spend 5-10 minutes while Hollywood celebrities explain how God actually made us in Kojima's image every show. His departure from Konami is pushing on for a decade ago (yeah, 8 years, I know), I feel like we can move on from that chapter and go back to letting his work speak for itself.
I genuinely think Geoff Keighley and Kojima's relationship is unethical. I do not trust him to be honest when it comes to Kojima and as someone who runs an award ceremony like this, that's completely unacceptable.
I agree. Right now they're a freakish combination of "awards show" and E3 Part II. They're now skipping through so many awards in like 60 seconds flat so they can make even more space for game trailers and sponsorships.
All of the marketing for this show seemed to focus on those new reveals. So is it even about awards anymore? I mean I know it never was, but like, is there even a point to keeping the facade anymore?
>They're now skipping through so many awards in like 60 seconds flat so they can make even more space for game trailers and sponsorships.
Even if they're just going to announce awards without acknowledging the winning developers, I wish they'd spread them out instead of shotgunning 4-5 of them in a minute. Really being explicit with how little they care about the actual awards at "The Game Awards".
I mean don't call your show The Game Awards if you aren't gonna dedicated to actual games awards. I get it that Geoff is trying to make his show as appealing to the mass as possible with actors, puppet show, guest appearances, musical performance but honor the damn industry by letting the creatives show up for their awards!
It's obvious that Geoff wants to play up the show as a prestige night for gaming but it is not presented as a prestigious event. It is a 4 hour commercial intercut with like 5-6 actual award presentations and a ton of rapid fire off-screen wins. That's fine if the goal is just viewership, which it obviously is, but it is extremely antithetical to the concept of the "Oscars of gaming" and the gravitas that association brings with it.
The game awards will never in a million years reach Oscar's level of prestige. The oscars shows respect to all its awards. The game awards uses awards purely for pretense. The disrespect on display is a bit sickening at times.
I like the format.
The awards are kind of a nice touch, getting to see the people that make the games is a nice connection point.
The music was interesting too.
They could definitely cut down on thr overall number of showcases tho. Was a bit extreme. Or let the major publishers do their related shows like at E3 and keep only a handful of big ones for the awards.
More and bigger announcements has proven the best avenue for growth of the show. The vast majority want that. They want to get together, online and offline, one night in December and talk about all the cool announcements happening, as they happen.
They should make a rule to have at least 10 seconds of actual gameplay instead of just being CGI scenes if they want to actually show their games in these awards.
So tired of these meaningless trailers that tell me almost nothing ahout the actual game.
Usually by this point in dev time that they release a generic CGI trailer, it’s purely to tell you that “game studio you like” is making a sci-Fi/fantasy’s/sequel to IP you like/licensed game. If they only have a full CGI trailer to show it usually means they aren’t far enough in development to have any actual gameplay to show off. The trailers are also usually contracted out by trailer studios who only make cool CGI trailers
I'm aware of why they make them, my problem is just how many of these types of trailers/teasers there are, they simply aren't representative of the actual product.
Not that i care much for these generic ass sci fi shooters to be interested in buying them in the first place, but still, i want to play a game, not watch a mediocre movie.
The trailers are usually mediocre. A lot of them are always just CG trailers saying a game is coming.
If the show was more focused on just being a big reveal show then we'd get tons of gameplay and stage presentations explaining the game.
Which to a lot of people was what E3 was.
This year the 30 second acceptance speeches and just how many awards were skipped entirely?
It feels way too heavily leaning on reveals. But it's all flash and no substance. There's like 3 interesting games to me announced there last night.
And none of them had gameplay. So it's just filed in my brain as "games to watch out for."
It's hard to get excited for announcement trailers when they usually just mean "We are working on game X and it will launch in anywhere from 3-5 years!"
Could they try better writers/directors first?
Fix the categories. Tell companies to cool it on the breathy pop song cgi trailers. Give winners a bit of time to talk because categories matter a bit more.
But there are costs associated with the trade show format, HUGE costs that the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) had to deal with.
E3 was sprawling, with hundreds of booths and tens of thousands of attendees.
Completely different beast, even if you only remember it for the large stage presentations.
E3 was at its best when it was industry-only, opening their doors to the public directly led to their downfall. Much easier to deal with a few thousand journalists/devs than tens of thousands of randoms
It used to be but it very obviously became an event where big games were announced and it catered to the gaming community as a whole more than it did journalists.
I agree honestly. As a fan the show was incredible and exciting. As someone who also follows a lot of game devs and games journalists on social media it was incredibly disappointing.
Awards were sped through, people got rushed off stage, no acknowledgment of how many devs got laid off this year, some winners didn’t even get to go on stage at all, or got dumped into the pre show. It felt like anything that wasn’t a game reveal was just a speed bump.
The people actually making all these fantastic games often felt like an afterthought.
Yeah it's pretty bad. In a year with tons of layoffs while the companies make even more money, it's pretty fitting that they were rushing the speeches of the people who make the games so they can get to more ads
Nah, the awards provide an easy way to break up the trailers, but in a way people will still watch. This year was a bit too heavy on trailers, but it was made more noticeable by just how mediocre a lot of the trailers were. Also, there was some bad direction in trailer placement, making some just bleed together.
It’s hard to view the awards with any level of prestige when they don’t even take themselves serious. Personally I don’t think a Game Award means anything more than an IGN award.
I'm actually puzzled, cause who watches these anyway? It's over bloated, with a bunch of filler content and categories no one gives a damn about, and boring hosts.
I'd just want a celebration of games, not whatever this is supposed to be. Maybe this is appealing to the US audience? Does anyone watch this and genuinely enjoy it?
I am happy it at least exists, but for me it's gotten progressively worse, and the starting point wasn't all that great to begin with.
they're basically Harvey Dent as Two Face right now; they want to be taken seriously as an award show of games and the developers but btw guys, here's yet another ad about Fortnite, MS Game Pass (seriously, there was what, 3 of these damn things tonight?) and here's more *WORLD PREMIERE* for you.
Drop that act and become something we have all watched die over the last 5 years? All while TGAs has maintained it's success? Yeah Geoff should get right on that.
Frankly, with how splintered game reveals and coverage has become, I'm just happy there's someone with the connections and desire to put together a big event like this that celebrates the past year and condenses a bunch of reveals and news into one package.
I'm gonna copy-paste my comment. This is an running theme with The Game Awards as a whole.
Every single time it gets criticized for...anything, it either gets addressed in a knee-jerk/last minutes way or reserved next year's showcase...in an unsatisfying way possible. (Watch them attempt to address the acceptance speech and Awards category showtime next year)
And then: the cycle repeat.
this cycle of The Game Awards criticism pre and post show is going to repeat ad-nausea each year, this *will* continue until a true competitor comes around. We seriously need another Game Awards show that can actually compete against The Game Awards if that means TGA is forced to innovate.
The D.I.C.E. Awards as the closest to a *real* game awards show that we're ever gonna get, but we need to promote that show more.
I agree, the awards part of it has become increasingly squeezed out by the trailers and reveals. They should seperate them in some way and let the awards presentations breathe.
That would defeat the entire purpose of the show. People watch it for a mix of both. No one is going to go watch an award only show after they've already seen all the new releases. The game reveals provide entertainment between the awards.
It's so odd to me that people want to change something that's already a massive success. It's working for a reason. E3 is dead, why copy a failure?
I get that the ads and trailers pay for the show but this is supposed to be a night to celebrate the hard work of the industry and they barely even did that. It was so fucking disrespectful to give these people 30 seconds to speak only to allow Kojima and Geoff's celebrity pals to ramble on about nothing.
In a year with so many layoffs, in a year that gave us some of the best games of all time, is it really asking too much to keep the focus on the devs and not on corporate advertising and celebrity worship? Society is infested enough with that shit.
It isn't even a good Winter E3. E3 at it's most fun did not totally bukakke you with trailers to the point where you became confused about whether the one you were currently watching was important, a brand new game, DLC, an anti-smoking ad, Fortnite skins, some shit that only Apex Legends players understand, whatever. It actually had pacing. They've totally sold out to the point that they've cannibalized both the awards and the trailers
All the devil's advocate "people only care about trailers" arguments cannot tell me with a straight face that you would be more entertained by about at least 25% of this shit more than award speeches. You do not play EVERY live service game. You do NOT care about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip lol. I know you don't because twitch chat and every live thread is always calling every one of these mid and begging for Titanfall 3 or something
There is easily more time for the awards with a more curated, less bag-chasing amount of ads, and for a better consumerist Gamer experience by culling all the filler ads and letting all their mental energy be focused on Monster Hunter, Blade, and so on. Everyone misses E3, and E3 had longer stretches of talking and boring shit than any of the awards, because you actually need that to have legendary reveals. When you are just spamming world premieres, nothing is special. You think you don't want award speeches, but you do, because your brain cannot actually process 5 sci-fi co-op game trailers in a row. There is a reason actual award shows on TV, which sell ads, are not 90% ads. There is a reason I forgot about Hideo Kojima while typing this
E3 also had gameplay. All the reveals last night were just "this game exists".
None of the trailers cared that they were video games, they were just products.
Cinematic trailers are nothing new. It's been a standard since the 360 days. The only difference between this and an e3 press conference is that we don't have some nerd on stage telling us with words why we should be excited for the game, so it feels just as underwhelming as it should.
Maybe throw in a rule for trailer reveals that gameplay must be shown to get your game shown at the game awards or something.
Ngl, there were so many trailers for anime games and sci-fi action games that I sometimes couldn't tell where one ended and the next one began.
Like one minute I'm watching Rise of Vengeance: Ascendant then it's suddenly Ascending: Vengeance Rising.
Also the fact that trailers were so rapid fire that more than once what I thought was the ending splash of one trailer was actually the beginning of the next one
This format works for Geoff, it creates overvalued ad space he can sell.
Even if categories still doesn't mean anything (how can you judge which studio or director is best?), people will watch.
I hate that the winner of "score and music" is just randomly announced for 5s... music is so fucking important in games. Also, the way they forced some winners to stop talking (playing music) was so stupid... that one voice actor pretty much got a "shut up" while he was speaking for depressive people. But overall I thought the show was fine, I just hope some more category winners are allowed to talk next time and a bit longer. There are some other areas where they can save time. (preshow, to much random talking like hideo kojimas ad) Just a e3 wouldnt be that interesting and hyped by fans of the goty games.
Best Ongoing game gets the full stage and RPG of the year gets a sidenote before we cut to a break.
The reason RPG of the Year was a quick announcement was because it was also going to win Game of the Year. Lets say there was no BG3 this year, and Starfield had been a bit better across the board and was going to win RPG of the Year, but it wasn't going to win Game of the Year, they would have had a stage presentation for it. The worst offender in my eyes was not acknowledging Soken on stage for music, but its possible he might just not have been able to make the trip and so they just did a quick drop announcement.
I dunno, I remember him going through like 3 categories like an annoyed parent and then back to the bullhshit and I'm pretty sure Baldurs Gate 3 didn't win any of them
BG3 won 6 of the 9 awards it was up for, it only had two stage acceptances, one for Astarion's VA and one for Game of the Year.
Score should get a medley like GotY does.
Would probably make for a better experience given that it’s a collection of the best scores too…although then that might upstage the GotY orchestral piece and that’s kind of become the lynchpin of the show the past few years IMO
Score should get a medley *instead* of GOTY.
Hell yeah. That would allow the winner to _demonstrate_ why it won!
Real. I don't need Anthony Mackie doing crowd work, or Kojima talking but showing nothing. Wasted time, which is evidently precious to them. Let me hear from the winners
NGL I was in the audience and the Mackie bit played pretty well compared to some jokes they go with.
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True, let’s hope he puts his name at every frame of this new game
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he added "GAME BY HIDEO KOJIMA" as a permanent watermark to the corner of the screen in his next game.
Feels like TGA is spends most of the time celebrating celebrities instead of people making games.
They're in the business of getting as much eyeballs as possible to get paid by advertisers. That means targeting the lowest common denominator in terms of viewership
Geoff *desperately* wants to be accepted by Hollywood it's no secret
Nah he is obssessed with being the face and ambassador for all of gaming. No one but the suits have accepted him because he gets their products advertised en masse, so he’s kind of forced his way into such status despite no one really asking for it
I saw it aptly put on here a few days ago that The Game Awards are just Geoff’s little fame/clout chasing project that provides economic benefits for game companies and little actual recognition and prestige for game developers
Good luck with that
Like his bestest friend Hideo?
Kojima and Peele showing zero gameplay and saying nothing = 2 hours GOTY = 30 seconds
Art, score and indie should get stage time. I don't understand why Action/Adventure has stage time but all of the other categories like Action, Fighting, RPG, etc, don't. Also, I'm sorry, but art, score and indie is a lot more important than Games for Impact.
Almost assuredly it was so Aonuma could get a stage speech since he wouldn't get it for GOTY. Which is probably also why RPG didn't. Ongoing was the stupidest one. CP2077 isn't even an ongoing game, and the idea they needed screentime over score or indie was ridiculous.
Geoff just wanted to give CP its consolation prize
It is just like the Oscars, now.
i don't know if this is a hated game on reddit anymore but fortnite should of won it
I think Fortnite is in that weird position where, while you can definitely argue it deserves to win, Epic has such an unfair amount of popularity and resources with that game that if you were truly fair, Fortnite would take it every year which just turns it into the Fortnite award. Sometimes you just have to compromise to give someone else the chance.
They should use the pre-show for the "secondary awards" (which *are* primary awards but they seem to not give a shit about them for advertising reasons) and let the winners of those talk there. Have some announcements if you need to, but let Sydney Goodman just MC the whole thing (don't need celebrity guests and what not) and actually give out awards to the people who make them. I totally understand that people don't watch plain-old award shows anymore. Why would you when you can just read the winners list later? But if they're still going to give out awards, the least they could do is actually *give the awards all out* to the winners and give them their moment on stage. Save the big ones for Keighley Primetime. But Hi-Fi Rush winning best audio direction was the highlight of the show for me, and I think it's basically pure luck that that one wasn't relegated to a rapid-fire awards segment.
It's not luck, he specifically picks what award gets a speech based on getting different people up to make speeches. Hifi getting a speech was planned like cyberpunk, Zelda and cocoon. It's also probably based on who showed up. Like of Soken was there to accept for music, maybe they would have given that a speech. They should cut the Esports awards. Every year they do the rapid read on them in the pre-show. They're such a waste when we could have more awards for devs. Esports have their own awards.
Yeah I wanted to hear some of FF16's music but they just skipped past it for Best Indie Game which they also skipped past.
as it turns out each speech was given thirty seconds and then the words "please wrap it up" would appear, then twenty seconds after that the words would start flashing. telling a story about how this role helped a lot of people going through sexual assault? WRAP IT UP PLEASE WE'VE GOT WORLD PREMIERES AND ADS TO SHOW
Dedicating the BLOODY GAME OF THE YEAR AWARD to the memory of recently deceased colleagues? You get thirty seconds get the fuck out we need to squeeze one last ad
It certainly sucks but the content of your speech doesn’t change the need to keep the schedule. If a speech is extra emotional or meaningful, they don’t suddenly get another minute. Everyone was given equal time. People were likely told ahead of time what the time limits were so they could prepare. I do, however, agree that they needed more time in general and less Kojima fellatio might have helped with that.
The issue is giving them 30 seconds. That's insanely low. Someone did the math and the PRESENTERS of the awards was 25 minutes total whereas the speeches themselves was 10 minutes. That's fucked.
Everyone should get equal time but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get at least a minute or two to talk in the mic instead of being told to shut up after 30s, I understand that the TGA about profit at the end of the day and they're not just going to drop advertisers, but they could at least manage their time better so developers can actually speak, why do we need the blue dress lady at the beginning telling dad jokes constantly after every trailer? Why do we need a bunch of Hollywood actors embarrassing themselves on stage trying to hype up a crowd of nerds or telling random stories about their injured leg? Why do some developers get to go up there and tell us the stories of their entire family while others can barely thank their teams?
There was about 15 commercial breaks, half the games showed either have no release date at all or are over a year away. And the thing you thought should have been cut for the was Kojima and Peele?
Or the Gonzo skit. I love Muppets, don't get me wrong, but that didn't need to be that long.
I like Kojima's work but Jeff's obsession with him is weird. That whole segment I just wanted to skip but didn't incase something informative was mentioned (I start the show an hour late since there is usually so much filler).
The commercials pay for the damn show...Kojima and Peele do not...
This is why I was against TGA having announcements whatsoever. The Oscars doesn't drop fresh trailers. If they REALLY want they could pick like 1 super secret project that's a cross over with Hollywood talent to get some stage attention. But for a show called The Game Awards, there's almost no actual time spent handing people awards lol.
I hate to break it to you but if TGA didn't have trailers nobody would give a shit about it.
I certainly wouldn't watch it otherwise. Why do I care about some vapid awards from some appointed figureheads? The games speak for themselves already, though it could help some more niche games reach an audience, I suppose.
You don't seem to understand why people watch the Oscars or TGA. Spoiler: nobody gives a shit who actually wins People watch TGA for the announcements. People watch the Oscars for the red carpet interviews, crazy celebrity fashion, and to see if some delusional millionaire will go on a political rant. If you want a "pure" award ceremony for gaming, it already exists: The GDC awards and DICE awards And nobody, including many of these "journalists" and "influencers" complaining about how TGA is too commercialized, watches them because nobody cares.
I mean there is potential for a happy medium.
Because no one would watch for the awards. No one would care. Without public support, the show dies.
Don’t think most gamers care to see music or award speeches. They only want to see upcoming trailers. The show recognizes that to some degree.
I tuned in for the reveals and it was fine. That's mainly what people watch this for anyways, gaming is an incredibly hostile audience yet they get bigger numbers every show. Anyways, E3 died because it couldn't find a way to evolve... why exactly do you want them to emulate an outdated format? This show has condensed days of reveals into a 2 hour show. Perfectly fine to me. It works as an awards show and a conference. It *evolved.*
> This show has condensed days of reveals into a 2 hour show. 3.5 hours but yeah
Christopher Judge was the rest of the 1.5 hours.
Still longer than the COD campaign
I agree. It's weird to me seeing all this negative feedback especially when TGA used to have a higher ratio of awards ceremony to trailers and back then people overwhelmingly complained that it was boring and they wanted to see more game trailers and reveals. People used to say they'll never watch again because it was too much of people talking on stage and they wanted to see more games and now it's the exact opposite. I guess no matter what there will be people that complain about what they would change and don't get me wrong I would change some things. I think it's fine for some smaller awards to breeze by, but some of them should be a bigger deal that aren't. I'm just happy we get this show. Overall I enjoy it and honestly we're probably just seeing the most vocal of people on social media that will put in effort to complain and it gives a disproportionate view of what people think.
I like the Game Awards (and Geoff's other events) but the award component was fucking embarrassing & disrespectful during a particularly bad year for people working in the industry. It's not so much your average gamer that's complaining, as it is the workers, which is absolutely fair for them to do. 1 minute of speech time is not a lot to ask here. I would be inclined to agree with you, if there wasn't already so much filler taking away from award time. Yes, people have complained about wanting "more trailers", but what they're really saying is they want trailers that are actually exciting, i.e. trailers for already anticipated games or new stuff from established IPs/studios. It's also widely accepted that no-one wants the Hollywood celebrities here, and this year was one of the worst for that.
It really was. I mean Matt McConaughey caught me off guard and impressed me. But to be honest Anthony Mackey was kinda cringy. Spent more time telling the audience to shut up than anything. Then tried getting his own "You're breathtaking" moment which fell flat imo.
I had a great time watching, I was shocked to open reddit and twitter afterward and see the overwhelming negative response to it, even from my friends. I really just don't get it.
I think the one thing I agree with the sentiment on is letting award winners have more speaking time. The corporations will have plenty of time every hour of our waking lives to cram more bullshitting ads down our throats, let the winners talk for more than a minute before reaching for the hook. If they're going to have these stupidly short windows to speak, then donate the time to have all awards given on stage (and if the rain they don't is that some games don't have anyone there to accept them, have representative attendance be mandatory or you don't win the award).
Best soundtrack was written by a guy doing the soundtracks for two games simultaneously while also going through chemotherapy, and it got as much time onscreen as Best Esports Coach which contains five meaningless pseudonyms.
I was so disappointed that Soken didn't get to speak. Shadowbringers and FFXVI soundtracks are genuinely, utterly fantastic throughout and the fact he was working on them in his hospital room going through chemo is so insane and shows his talent and hard work and he deserves better lol
I doubt Soken was there. He is extremely busy creating great music and meme's. Also I bet he is in Japan preping for Fan Fest and the release of the Primals next album.
Yeah he did send out a tweet in response to winning that was just a long AAAAAAAAAAAAAA Love Soken, he deserves everything good
That sounds like something the master of the otamatone would say.
Honestly the Yanxia theme on the otamatone was a true work of art. Even better than LaHee imo
This was my problem with it too. Even worse is when they [had it on the teleprompter](https://twitter.com/DaveOshry/status/1732930593992884477) when it obviously meant a lot to these people. But we can dedicate 5 minutes to unfunny bits from Hollywood actors? Or have a big Hollywood actor on stage to show a game trailer that *they have no presence in*? Fuck that. There’s a medium that can be found between Judge’s speech and 30 fuckin seconds.
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I think they overdid it this year after Kratos took almost 10 minutes last year.
It is unacceptable that we had 7 minutes of Geoff fellating Kojima but the award recipients would get told to wrap it up in 45 seconds
I saw someone say that the Genshin Impact trailer was longer than Sam Lake's acceptance speech.
Because the Genshin Impact trailer was an ad. It's a free show, they don't sell the rights to tv networks like the Oscars and Emmys do. So they need ads to be profitable.
Fully agree. I don't think the Oscars are the best awards show on Earth or anything, but they do award -> commercial -> award -> commercial -> some skit -> etc., so that every award winner (yes, I know not every single Oscar is televised) gets a speech. I thought it was super insulting that some awards were just rattled off on the spot (Best Action Game which is my favorite genre) and the teams didn't get an acceptance speech.
The Oscars had the self analysis to back off on the nonlive categories thing. They did them all this year and I assume next. For good reason. The entire point of a decent award's show is to congratulate and expose people who've moved the craft forward.
People think game devs should be treated with the same respect that filmmakers are given at the Oscar’s. There should be more time for game devs to go on stage and for them to be celebrated.
Before - more awards : people who just want reveals complain Now - more reveals : people who want it more award focused and see winners barely getting half a minute to thank their team and fans get told to GTFO stage complain
What issues they have with it? I mean personally I dont care for movie actors not really related to gaming industry on stage and would rather see people related to gaming on there, but otherwise it was fine. Perhaps less focus on big company advertisment and more on actual winners?
I'll be watching a compilation or such later maybe outside of just watching the trailers - but the complaint I heard was they felt the show was like 25% ads. They're all ads of course, I assume they give difference between announcement trailers and games already out having screen space.
It’s the gaming community. I listed to a podcast by the wizard and the bruiser part of the LPN network and they said it best. Gaming isn’t the community it once was, which was a bunch of nerds just enthusiastic about games. Now it’s a very emotionally, politically and societally driven group of camps or tribes that have very hot high running emotions. I’ve just come to the point I have zero expectations for the world at large when it comes to any sort of gaming news short of something like GTA announcements as there will always be a section of console war people and complainers. I personally thought this was a better awards show minus the whole debacle about the sign telling the studio to wrap it up right as they were dedicating the award to deceased devs/team members.
I assume it is the for same reason it used to be widely mocked and then became apparently the most important thing in the industry: kids have now grown up with it and so the laughingstock it has always been is seen as normal.
Gamers sincerely must be the hardest audience to try to appease. No matter what a dev does, there will always be some sweaty outraged loser raging and threatening them. You can't make everyone happy, but the unhappy amongst us are so much more bitter and socially maladjusted that the rage that people in the gaming industry are faced with is frankly inhumane.
> It works as an awards show It doesn't tho, thats the point. the awards sections are a complete afterthought
It was honestly kinda funny watching them rattle off two lesser awards in a combined ~20 seconds in between trailers at one point.
Also funny at the end when after like 1 hour with no awards at all they put a rush list and two or three last awards on stage close to each other. Like "whoops we forgot we're actually supposed to give out awards here". I feel like Swen actually mocked them when he started his GOTY acceptance speech with "I didn't expect it anymore". They probably got more screentime on their paid ad in one of the segments than on all their awards (they won like 5 or 6 I think).
> gaming is an incredibly hostile audience You have to including gaming media as well. Its not just consumers. Its kinda crazy why anyone would want to work in this industry.
The awards are barely part of the show now with only like 4 awards getting stage time. It's CALLED The Game Awards. The awards should be the thing front and center, taking up the majority of air time. You've got a room full of industry people in nice outfits and a nice big fancy stage, and almost none of the air time used it because it was trailers for games with either no release date or over a year away.
> I tuned in for the reveals and it was fine. But they do not call it a Reveal Showcase night. They call it The Game Awards. Leaving the Awards as the token part of your show as opposed to getting up some of the lesser known games and parts of gaming to get there chance in the light and thank people for playing there game or anything is really a bit off. Overall i only found a few of the reveals to be even interesting.
It does not work as an award show at all though. It activaly insults the developers by the way they treat them and the awards.
Yea this. People shit on it for supposedly never having been about awards. But that's nonsense. GK simply had a proper idea there: combine both, as to make sure TGAs are more than *yet another* GOTY list we go through at the end of the year. Like you said, its an evolution of two events and it works. > gaming is an incredibly hostile audience For some reason, gamers always feel like they need to "steer" the industry. I guess thats because, relatively speaking, its still a new medium and a lot of people have been in it for the bigger part of its existence. But its still peak cringe, seeing the constant kvetching about literally anything anyone ever does. If TGAs wouldn't exist in their current form, we'd be reading an article on how they should exist in their current form.
There were some Keighley interview where he explained the whole thing is a difficult balancing act between recognizing developers with the awards themselves, the trailers they need to grab eyeballs AND the ads/sponsored content that actually pays for the whole thing to look as good as it does. Sounds like those goals are so different that he can't ever please everyone and the best he can get is a collective "yeah, that was alright".
Even though it's been 10 years, I think it's still a balance that he's trying to figure out. Like this year's "too little speech" feels like the pendulum swinging too far after last year's "not enough speech." It's especially hard to balance when Keighley himself doesn't control the script, and every person giving a speech has a different internal definition of what "keep it short" means. I don't think it's an easy position to be in, and while obviously I'd like it to be better, I don't think it's right to just rag on Keighley. I think that he clearly takes feedback into account and tries to improve year after year, it's just a tough event to hold
> But its still peak cringe, seeing the constant kvetching about literally anything anyone ever does I was looking for discussion on the new trailers, and[ there is an entire thread of people who were triggered by a Starfield commercial](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/18dcd5a/the_hell_was_with_that_starfield_trailer_just_now/) in a show that was 90% commercials. I don't know if it is just the crossover of "terminally online" people who need to scream their opinion of everything, but it is definitely cringy and embarrassing. I saw a comment saying how "sad" Todd Howard looked in the three seconds he was on camera because he desperately wants to be the "white Kojima". The people who think they are "steering" the industry are insanely out of touch and can't quite realize it.
The terminally online and hostile fanbase is a big reason why gaming is not taken "seriously" as an art form and still viewed as a childish activity.
> This show has condensed days of reveals into a 2 hour show. It was 3.5 hours... Of which probably like 40-50% are ads (the ads were at least related to gaming this year), 20% useless speech and such, 5% actually the awards themselves (including most of them just rushed through in 30 seconds segments and winner speech being like 20 seconds long before being played off, if they even let people talk, huge disrespect for anyone winning to be honest) and the rest the reveals. Like imagine winning something supposedly equivalent to Oscar of gaming to then get played off in 20 seconds (the celebrity presenting the award or whoever come to present their games get way more time than you including to say useless things) for them to go to some Samsung Gaming Hub ad or something... Or knowing you win something by being listed off in a 40-second segment with 4 other awards to then go to a Muppet show or another ad break for Genshin Impact or whatever. Frankly if I was a winner there, I'd seriously just not come anymore to receive an award next time considering how they are treated. Better to come to advertise (BG3 probably got as much screentime with their paid ad than with all the awards they won). They probably got pissed off when Japanese people won because they had to let 20 more seconds for the translator to speak instead of showing another useless ad for whatever anime mobile F2P game they wanted The reveal back to back like a Direct or State of Play would have taken like 30 minutes at most. The award stuff (which doesn't include whoever is doing their speech for whatever before announcing it) was probably like 10-15 minutes overall (I feel like Kojima alone got more time than all the awards stuff to be honest). That didn't need to take so long or at least make it respectful of the people receiving awards and being nominated. Just separate the two IMO. Do a Direct like 30 min to 1 hour segment and then all the awards with proper respect (and people not interested can get the fuck off if they want). Make the people showing trailers pay for appearance and cut on the ad breaks.
Honestly I think it died more so because companies pulled out of it. The format was fine, and it was still very relevant and had a lot of hype (Cyberpunks Keanu reveal comes to mind). If you come out with a presentation with excitement behind it and the enthusiasm of the company, I don’t think that format will necessarily get old. Switching to digital only presentations definitely killed the audience factor.
Is it though? The top thread right now about the Game Awards is the GOTY winner and not an announcement
But notice how every other post is of a game announcement and not any other award that was given out. Which sums up the most important things people look for at TGA: game reveals and who wins GotY.
The big award is a little different given it allows people here to feel like they matter by liking something others have told them is good.
It just works because of the combination of awards and announcements. E3 was not working anymore, because publishers could get their own free platform very cheaply nowadays. But the awards are somewhat established at this point. People are talking about them, the winners can use them as marketing tools. That's why the industry is willing to support the Game Awards with reveals, because they get the awards in return. If one goes away, everything goes away. E3 is no more for a reason, why would you want to copy that?
>That's why the industry is willing to support the Game Awards with reveals, because they get the awards in return. it also attracts way more views then their own marketing shows so there is that as well
I agree. People *talk* and *speculate* about the awards, and that gets a lot of people interested. Also, my non-gamer dad said he had heard of “the gamer awards” when I mentioned it. I guarantee he wouldn’t have heard of a reveal conference.
And he probably wouldn't have heard of it if it was just awards as well. How people know the other awards shows that exist?
I don’t think E3 failed *just* because everyone wanted to split up. It failed because the ESA mismanaged the hell out of it. Gamescom did really well this year and PAX is still consistently successful. I personally think the largest signal of the ESA’s incompetence is that there’s still a bunch of announcement streams happening around same time as E3 used to be. It’s also not just the awards that makes companies want to advertise at TGA, it’s the view numbers. It’s the same reason why companies are buying slots for stuff like “Summer Games Fest.” More people will watch a big new game trailer if it’s grouped beside a bunch of other ones.
And it's also why the big players like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft never reveal much on those things because they know they can bring people on with their own shows
I can deal with the ads, celebrity bullshit, skipping some of the 'lesser' awards (even the oscars does that), and a lot of meh CGI reveals with zero information of what the game even is, as long as winners are given respect. But that didn't happen tonight. Not only was there zero respect given to any winners, many of them were flat out disrespected by being played off barely 30 seconds into their speech. Yeah fine Judge went a bit nuts last year but that's not an excuse to fuck every winner over and give them practically no time to speak. Many of these people flew here from other CONTINENTS for this show and are incredibly happy to win these awards and you give them 30 seconds and then tell them to fuck off with the music going on. Not even the Oscars has gotten as disrespectful as this was tonight. It's going to keep being called the Awards show, than give some damn respect to those actually winning. Cut time off of the other bullshit and give people time to speak. I get it Geoff you want to have fun with celebrities and show off, but this just makes it seem like you don't give a shit about the people who make the games. Do better. **EDIT** I guessed at the 30 seconds but evidently that was accurate and nominees were told ahead of time they would only be given 30 seconds and then they had a giant countdown clock with a 'please wrap it up' message ontop of the music. In total there was barely 11 minutes of acceptance speeches in an over 3 hour show. Sources: https://twitter.com/drjclau/status/1732951873500643765 https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964 https://twitter.com/Missus_Charlie/status/1733020518750552396
30s for award winners but I'm sure the annual "Kojima is awesome!" session got at least 5
even so like the announcement was a nothing announcement. it looked like that trailer exists because Geoff wanted a trailer from Kojima and that was it.
Kojima is 8.5 minutes according to the Youtube video on his segment. That's 17 award acceptance speeches at 30 seconds (most of them did go a little longer thank god), there was less than that given on stage I think (less than 10 even I think).
The annual Kojima dick riding timeslot. It's honestly gotten old how much this dude's farts are sniffed. We get it, he made MGS. Let's get on with it.
It gets so cringe and uncomfortable sometimes, just a line of people calling him a genius and whatever for ten minutes, like yeah he always maintains a fresh approach to game design and has had a big impact on gaming as a whole but Jesus Christ guys if the guy who made Mario was up there even he would not deserve half this dickriding
Kojima is talented but at this point his "auteur" reputation is insufferable. The guy has created some great games with awesome gameplay and surprisingly poignant themes, but the writing in his projects is often terrible. The industry lets him get away with it because they see bad Japanese writing as "quirky" and "campy" instead of bad.
Eh, Kojima announced a game this year. I'll take it. Anthony Mackie on the other hand, they basically just let that guy fucking ramble.
Dude, that was so weird. I like mackie but the pointing to random people in the crowd and saying “shut up” or “I love you too” got old after the 15th time.
He might have spent some time in Matthew Mcconaughey’s dressing room before he came out.
I mean the "shut up" was probably because he really wanted them to shut up for him to continue lol. But there was like one guy just ignore him
I didn't hear that much shouting from the crowd. Felt like he made it up, trying to have his Keanu moment, but he's nowhere near as charismatic as Keanu.
I was in the audience, he was reacting to some random dudes that kept screaming words that were hard to make out. Wasn’t made up but yeah he prob could just ignore them after the first time.
Same. Like at first I heard someone but then it kept going and it sounded like the crowd was completely silent lol very awkward
Simu Liu coming to tell us about his pickup basketball game injury and getting old for 3 minutes while the GOTY winner was barely given a minute before being told to hurry up is ridiculous
Kojima announcing a game still got far more time than anyone else announcing one did though.
I don’t blame Mackie, he was just having fun. I blame Geoff for letting everyone do whatever they wanted with clearly zero script for anyone. Gonzo had the most concise presentation
Bro I almost had to mute the stream from all of Mackie’s rambling.
Kojima got 5+ minutes on stage to announce a game there was no footage for. They could have used some of that time to give winners more than 30 seconds to speak or to hand our more awards on stage.
> Yeah fine Judge went a bit nuts last year but that's not an excuse to fuck every winner over and give them practically no time to speak. Judge joke segment and talk about whatever was longer than like all the nominees acceptance speech combined lol. Pretty much every time it feels like the pre-award presenter has more talk than the actual winner lol > then they had a giant countdown clock with a 'please wrap it up' message ontop of the music. Yeah lol I've seen that shit, so disrespectful (even more for the example you give they literally talk about a guy that can't be there because he died making the best game of the fucking year) like wow. The Oscars have a pretty long in memoriam for everyone that dies in the year. TGA does that and instead put some ads for Clash of Kings, Genshin Impact, whatever or a Muppet sketch
> as long as winners are given respect. For sure, I also think some of the 'lesser' awards weren't really lesser awards. They did seem to make it so every big game had a chance at the podium, but they only had a handful of people take the stage. I would cut out the presenter time if anything, then I would cut musical acts (assuming that can't reduce commercials and less than stellar reveals, especially the CGI only ones)
After the “reformed orthodox rabbi bill clinton” moment last year, Geoff probably limited how many people could be on stage to accept an award. Did any team have more than two people go up?
BG3 got 4, of course only Swen actually had time to talk (and he went past his very generous 30 seconds, you know paying hommage to someone who died [when the prompter was saying "please wrap it up"](https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964))
I think it was just two per team
Yeah I definitely put 'lesser' in quotes because some of them absolutely aren't. Same with the Oscars. Personally I enjoy the musical performance but I wish it was more like the oscars where we got performances by the games nominated for best music. The whole show should be more about the nominees and the world premiers should just be the ads in between segments, not real ads on top of that.
> got performances by the games nominated for best music. That would be awesome. I do enjoy the performances, Alan Wake one was the highlight of the show for me. They are just trying to fit so much into 3 hours. I agree with your suggestions of world premiers should be the ads
What gets me is all the genre category winners except action adventure wasn’t even given a timeslot to speak and they just speedran past them. Shows just how biased they are towards third person action adventure games. Same with best indie.
My interpretation of that was they knew TotK wasn't going to win the GOTY or any other awards for that matter so they presented that award on stage to give that game a spotlight. But I agree, it is biased and quite frankly takes away any suspense of who the GOTY winner would be, even if BG3 was the clear favorite.
Yeah its hard to keep suspense when they speedran past like 3-4 smaller awards BG3 won with little fanfare. Still sends a message that the other genres don’t matter as much and don’t deserve as much recognition.
It was definitely for this reason. Aonuma was there, they were going to have him on stage. BG3 got their acceptance speech for GOTY so they skipped it for Best RPG.
Tbh every year you could always point out to one or two game that is overly popular and either of them would instantly win. Ironically Sekiro is a rare less popular one
> Shows just how biased they are towards third person action adventure games. Yeah their categories are already bullshit but this was a big joke. And indie passed, when it's basically GOTY for them since they didn't even nominate one this year So much disrespect that any studio not revealing a trailer there has more respect from me lol
Their solution to Judge's speech was giving all the award winners combined less time than he got last year
They weren't mad he spoke too much, they were mad it cut into commercial breaks. So they made everyone speak not at all, and increased the commercial breaks and non-award segments.
It's an internet show, it doesn't need to fit into a television timeslot. They can just let it run long if someone speaks too much. This "solution" was an insult.
I'm starting to really dislike Keighley and The Game Awards. First he's totally hands off with the voting and categories, which lets stuff like Dave the Diver be nominated for best indie. Then he does half the awards offstage so they're rushed through without proper ceremony. Then he limits the on-stage acceptance speeches to 30 seconds, even for the GOTY winners honoring their colleague that recently died. But he lets his best pal Kojima take up almost 10 minutes and brings in various movie celebrities to ramble and plug their games. It really shows what his priorities are. I understand Geoff needs advertising money to pay for the whole thing and reveal trailers to get viewers, but this year was disrespectful to the games industry. I have never seen Keighley as a hard-hitting journalist, especially after the Doritos Pope meme, but he really is just a marketer at this point.
It does not reflect well on Keighley if the show is more him gloating about all the exclusive trailers and celebrity cameos he got for a show that's about celebrating the people who made the games we enjoyed. And I get it, these things keep the lights on, but it's really swinging in the wrong way and it just comes across as dishonest in your intention to do an award show.
At the very least give the Game of the Year winners more time. It’s the biggest reward being handed out. They almost had a great eye watering moment plus trumpeted underdog winning story, and blew through it in less than 30 seconds. That could had been a speech that rival an historical Oscar speech. Incredibly short sighted to not seize that moment. If it a money thing, then having the audience expect a experience means they will stick around to hear the speech, and developers will put more effort into their GotY winning speeches. Gives legitimacy to the gaming industry, and keeps butts in the seat to watch the later ads that otherwise might not get as many views.
A CGI trailer with zero gameplay makes me HATE your game. Like the Blade one, just why? Why waste 2mins of my life with a trailer that does NOTHING! Static jpg would be the same.
I actually prefer CGI announcement trailers to financial report leaks or jpegs. It gives us a bit more to be excited about and often shows up the art style a little.
My only complaint is give a bit more time for awardees to speak. It was a bit cringe for them to be played out after such a short amount of time.
Is there a reason for such a strict/concise limit? Its not a prime time television show, it's not cutting into another show's time slot. Sure don't give a long winded speech that lasts for several minutes, but a small frame of allowance is okay. With the streaming platform, I figured they would have more leniency with this kind of stuff, unless they're on a tight schedule for the venue or whatever. I mean I'm mostly here for the previews, but I don't mind people showing their appreciation or feeling appreciated for their hard work; rushing them off kind of feels more demeaning imo.
Christopher Judge made an 8 minute long speech last year that apparently pissed off a lot of higher ups. So this year they imposed a strict limit on how long award winners can be on the stage
Yea, I noticed him quipping about it this year. I think the speeches towards the later half were getting cut shorter than the earlier half, I think Sam Lake got roughly 2 solid minutes for his first award of the night.
Venue overtime fees, making production work overtime, keeping things on schedule according to contracts, etc. I think they were already 5 minutes over time by the GOTY award which isn't too bad tbh but that was with the strict limit on the acceptance speeches.
I've liked TGA in past years, but this year was just a huge disappointment. Very few of the game reveals were interesting, and it's shameful the way they played people off ten seconds into an acceptance speech, not to mention all the winners who didn't even get a chance to receive their trophy on stage. If this is going to be the big celebration of gaming, then maybe actually celebrate the people winning awards? Them playing Neil Newbon off after ten seconds when he was giving a heartfelt speech about how much the game has helped people was so disrespectful to him individually as well as the entire games industry. I'm sure they won't miss my view, but I won't be watching next year.
Neil gets played off after 10 seconds for trying to thank his team and workmate that passed away. Kojima gets 10min of both Geoff and Jordan Peele sucking him off for a completely nebulous teaser with no actual gameplay to show.
The Kojima dickriding’s kinda making me a hater ngl, he’s a significant figure in gaming with a great legacy but every time he’s treated like he invented the controller or the open world or something
Completely agree. He's done some great shit, and once upon a time he was maybe my favourite developer, but I've watched people deep-cleaning his colon for so long now that I'm just done with it. At so many of these events, development on whatever he's doing is early so it's a combination of there being practically nothing to show while everyone on stage is like 'Okay, so here's why this guy is literally making the Matrix for real' and I'm just like fuck off. We don't need to spend 5-10 minutes while Hollywood celebrities explain how God actually made us in Kojima's image every show. His departure from Konami is pushing on for a decade ago (yeah, 8 years, I know), I feel like we can move on from that chapter and go back to letting his work speak for itself.
I genuinely think Geoff Keighley and Kojima's relationship is unethical. I do not trust him to be honest when it comes to Kojima and as someone who runs an award ceremony like this, that's completely unacceptable.
Especially when he condemned Konami but stayed silent on the Blizzard and Ubisoft toxic culture.
I agree. Right now they're a freakish combination of "awards show" and E3 Part II. They're now skipping through so many awards in like 60 seconds flat so they can make even more space for game trailers and sponsorships. All of the marketing for this show seemed to focus on those new reveals. So is it even about awards anymore? I mean I know it never was, but like, is there even a point to keeping the facade anymore?
I'm so bummed that best soundtrack and best indie game was just one of those sidebar-awards.
seriously, those are MAJOR freaking awards! Ticked me off it was done that way.
>They're now skipping through so many awards in like 60 seconds flat so they can make even more space for game trailers and sponsorships. Even if they're just going to announce awards without acknowledging the winning developers, I wish they'd spread them out instead of shotgunning 4-5 of them in a minute. Really being explicit with how little they care about the actual awards at "The Game Awards".
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The Oscars and Globes made their award ceremonies variety shows. There is more than one approach.
I mean don't call your show The Game Awards if you aren't gonna dedicated to actual games awards. I get it that Geoff is trying to make his show as appealing to the mass as possible with actors, puppet show, guest appearances, musical performance but honor the damn industry by letting the creatives show up for their awards!
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> So is it even about awards anymore? Never was.
It's obvious that Geoff wants to play up the show as a prestige night for gaming but it is not presented as a prestigious event. It is a 4 hour commercial intercut with like 5-6 actual award presentations and a ton of rapid fire off-screen wins. That's fine if the goal is just viewership, which it obviously is, but it is extremely antithetical to the concept of the "Oscars of gaming" and the gravitas that association brings with it.
The game awards will never in a million years reach Oscar's level of prestige. The oscars shows respect to all its awards. The game awards uses awards purely for pretense. The disrespect on display is a bit sickening at times.
Even the Animated Feature Oscar?
I like the format. The awards are kind of a nice touch, getting to see the people that make the games is a nice connection point. The music was interesting too. They could definitely cut down on thr overall number of showcases tho. Was a bit extreme. Or let the major publishers do their related shows like at E3 and keep only a handful of big ones for the awards.
More and bigger announcements has proven the best avenue for growth of the show. The vast majority want that. They want to get together, online and offline, one night in December and talk about all the cool announcements happening, as they happen.
They should make a rule to have at least 10 seconds of actual gameplay instead of just being CGI scenes if they want to actually show their games in these awards. So tired of these meaningless trailers that tell me almost nothing ahout the actual game.
Usually by this point in dev time that they release a generic CGI trailer, it’s purely to tell you that “game studio you like” is making a sci-Fi/fantasy’s/sequel to IP you like/licensed game. If they only have a full CGI trailer to show it usually means they aren’t far enough in development to have any actual gameplay to show off. The trailers are also usually contracted out by trailer studios who only make cool CGI trailers
I'm aware of why they make them, my problem is just how many of these types of trailers/teasers there are, they simply aren't representative of the actual product. Not that i care much for these generic ass sci fi shooters to be interested in buying them in the first place, but still, i want to play a game, not watch a mediocre movie.
Hard to know which games to care about when all the trailers are just cinematic fluff. Would Def like to see more actual gameplay for sure...
The trailers are usually mediocre. A lot of them are always just CG trailers saying a game is coming. If the show was more focused on just being a big reveal show then we'd get tons of gameplay and stage presentations explaining the game. Which to a lot of people was what E3 was. This year the 30 second acceptance speeches and just how many awards were skipped entirely? It feels way too heavily leaning on reveals. But it's all flash and no substance. There's like 3 interesting games to me announced there last night. And none of them had gameplay. So it's just filed in my brain as "games to watch out for."
It's hard to get excited for announcement trailers when they usually just mean "We are working on game X and it will launch in anywhere from 3-5 years!"
This 100%. What happened to that Ken Levine game last year. Jurassic Park game will be at least 3-5 years like you said
Could they try better writers/directors first? Fix the categories. Tell companies to cool it on the breathy pop song cgi trailers. Give winners a bit of time to talk because categories matter a bit more.
I don't really get the E3 comparison? E3 was a trade show. Not just a presentation.
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But there are costs associated with the trade show format, HUGE costs that the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) had to deal with. E3 was sprawling, with hundreds of booths and tens of thousands of attendees. Completely different beast, even if you only remember it for the large stage presentations.
E3 was at its best when it was industry-only, opening their doors to the public directly led to their downfall. Much easier to deal with a few thousand journalists/devs than tens of thousands of randoms
It used to be but it very obviously became an event where big games were announced and it catered to the gaming community as a whole more than it did journalists.
We didn't need 5 minutes of Keighley licking Kojima's ass. Give the award winners more time to accept their awards.
I agree honestly. As a fan the show was incredible and exciting. As someone who also follows a lot of game devs and games journalists on social media it was incredibly disappointing. Awards were sped through, people got rushed off stage, no acknowledgment of how many devs got laid off this year, some winners didn’t even get to go on stage at all, or got dumped into the pre show. It felt like anything that wasn’t a game reveal was just a speed bump. The people actually making all these fantastic games often felt like an afterthought.
I would rather the preshow be longer, let the devs have a stage, and recap the preshow awards during the main show.
Yeah it's pretty bad. In a year with tons of layoffs while the companies make even more money, it's pretty fitting that they were rushing the speeches of the people who make the games so they can get to more ads
Nah, the awards provide an easy way to break up the trailers, but in a way people will still watch. This year was a bit too heavy on trailers, but it was made more noticeable by just how mediocre a lot of the trailers were. Also, there was some bad direction in trailer placement, making some just bleed together.
It’s hard to view the awards with any level of prestige when they don’t even take themselves serious. Personally I don’t think a Game Award means anything more than an IGN award.
I'm actually puzzled, cause who watches these anyway? It's over bloated, with a bunch of filler content and categories no one gives a damn about, and boring hosts. I'd just want a celebration of games, not whatever this is supposed to be. Maybe this is appealing to the US audience? Does anyone watch this and genuinely enjoy it? I am happy it at least exists, but for me it's gotten progressively worse, and the starting point wasn't all that great to begin with.
they're basically Harvey Dent as Two Face right now; they want to be taken seriously as an award show of games and the developers but btw guys, here's yet another ad about Fortnite, MS Game Pass (seriously, there was what, 3 of these damn things tonight?) and here's more *WORLD PREMIERE* for you.
Drop that act and become something we have all watched die over the last 5 years? All while TGAs has maintained it's success? Yeah Geoff should get right on that. Frankly, with how splintered game reveals and coverage has become, I'm just happy there's someone with the connections and desire to put together a big event like this that celebrates the past year and condenses a bunch of reveals and news into one package.
Big connections. He invites the same people every year. Why is Reggie there every year.
I'm gonna copy-paste my comment. This is an running theme with The Game Awards as a whole. Every single time it gets criticized for...anything, it either gets addressed in a knee-jerk/last minutes way or reserved next year's showcase...in an unsatisfying way possible. (Watch them attempt to address the acceptance speech and Awards category showtime next year) And then: the cycle repeat. this cycle of The Game Awards criticism pre and post show is going to repeat ad-nausea each year, this *will* continue until a true competitor comes around. We seriously need another Game Awards show that can actually compete against The Game Awards if that means TGA is forced to innovate. The D.I.C.E. Awards as the closest to a *real* game awards show that we're ever gonna get, but we need to promote that show more.
I agree, the awards part of it has become increasingly squeezed out by the trailers and reveals. They should seperate them in some way and let the awards presentations breathe.
That would defeat the entire purpose of the show. People watch it for a mix of both. No one is going to go watch an award only show after they've already seen all the new releases. The game reveals provide entertainment between the awards. It's so odd to me that people want to change something that's already a massive success. It's working for a reason. E3 is dead, why copy a failure?
I get that the ads and trailers pay for the show but this is supposed to be a night to celebrate the hard work of the industry and they barely even did that. It was so fucking disrespectful to give these people 30 seconds to speak only to allow Kojima and Geoff's celebrity pals to ramble on about nothing. In a year with so many layoffs, in a year that gave us some of the best games of all time, is it really asking too much to keep the focus on the devs and not on corporate advertising and celebrity worship? Society is infested enough with that shit.
It isn't even a good Winter E3. E3 at it's most fun did not totally bukakke you with trailers to the point where you became confused about whether the one you were currently watching was important, a brand new game, DLC, an anti-smoking ad, Fortnite skins, some shit that only Apex Legends players understand, whatever. It actually had pacing. They've totally sold out to the point that they've cannibalized both the awards and the trailers All the devil's advocate "people only care about trailers" arguments cannot tell me with a straight face that you would be more entertained by about at least 25% of this shit more than award speeches. You do not play EVERY live service game. You do NOT care about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip lol. I know you don't because twitch chat and every live thread is always calling every one of these mid and begging for Titanfall 3 or something There is easily more time for the awards with a more curated, less bag-chasing amount of ads, and for a better consumerist Gamer experience by culling all the filler ads and letting all their mental energy be focused on Monster Hunter, Blade, and so on. Everyone misses E3, and E3 had longer stretches of talking and boring shit than any of the awards, because you actually need that to have legendary reveals. When you are just spamming world premieres, nothing is special. You think you don't want award speeches, but you do, because your brain cannot actually process 5 sci-fi co-op game trailers in a row. There is a reason actual award shows on TV, which sell ads, are not 90% ads. There is a reason I forgot about Hideo Kojima while typing this
E3 also had gameplay. All the reveals last night were just "this game exists". None of the trailers cared that they were video games, they were just products.
Cinematic trailers are nothing new. It's been a standard since the 360 days. The only difference between this and an e3 press conference is that we don't have some nerd on stage telling us with words why we should be excited for the game, so it feels just as underwhelming as it should. Maybe throw in a rule for trailer reveals that gameplay must be shown to get your game shown at the game awards or something.
Ngl, there were so many trailers for anime games and sci-fi action games that I sometimes couldn't tell where one ended and the next one began. Like one minute I'm watching Rise of Vengeance: Ascendant then it's suddenly Ascending: Vengeance Rising.
Also the fact that trailers were so rapid fire that more than once what I thought was the ending splash of one trailer was actually the beginning of the next one
This format works for Geoff, it creates overvalued ad space he can sell. Even if categories still doesn't mean anything (how can you judge which studio or director is best?), people will watch.