Where I live, that being Ireland, the Game Awards tend to start sometime after midnight so I don’t tend to see much of it live when it airs. Not that I’m the kind of person to sit down and watch an awards show for hours when I could just look up the news afterwards but I do tend to look at the beginning of it before heading off for bed. However, while it’s certainly not all bad, I personally think we’ve gotten to the point where I have to say that I think the Game Awards are an embarrassment to the entire video game industry! That might sound a bit harsh but let me tell you why I think this.
Let’s start with a brief history of the Game Awards and the embarrassing moments that have predated this year’s event. The Game Awards were first held in 2014 as a replacement for the Spike Video Game Awards and are hosted by Geoff Keighley. The viewership of the awards has consistently grown year upon year with the 2014 Game Awards being watched by 1.9 million people to a staggering 118 million people watching the 2023 Game Awards. You’d think that this success would have led to a better awards show but issues continue to plague the Game Awards year after year. While the 2022 interruption of the Game of the Year Award may have ultimately been amusing, it highlighted the poor security of the event and the potential for dangerous actions to those attending.
Now, let’s discuss this year’s show and a problem that has increasingly grown over the years. It’s no surprise that one of the biggest lures of the show is the bevy of announcements of new and upcoming games. While I understand why they like to focus on these, the 2023 Game Awards were a perfect example of where these announcements came at the expense of the show itself and particularly the winners. Winners of the awards were given a mere 30 seconds to give their acceptance speech before a prompter saying “Please wrap it up.” appeared and music began playing in an effort to move to the next range of announcements.
As noted by many, the most insulting example of this was when Larian Studios won the Game of the Year Award and Swen Vincke, director of Baldur’s Gate 3 and founder of the studio, made it only halfway through his speech, being in the process of talking about the people who’d passed away during the development of the game, when he was cutoff by the prompter and music. Not only was this incredibly disrespectful but it also prevented him from discussing the issue of layoffs in the industry as well as the reveal of a shadow drop of the Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Alongside this, I’ve discussed the issue of Dave the Diver’s nomination for Best Independent Game but Geoff Keighley’s response to the controversy was pathetic, discussing nonsensical statements of what an indie game is and ultimately defending Dave the Diver’s inclusion in Best Independent Game. Additionally, I find the bizarre focus on celebrities such as this year’s Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Mackie, Simu Liu, Timothée Chalamet, Jordan Peele and the muppet Gonzo where, compared to the winners, they were given a disproportionately long time to make their speeches and banter. This has been an issue in previous years as well but the short time allotted to the developers only highlighted the problem even more.
I’d been feeling mixed on the Game Awards themselves for a few years now but it’s only with this year’s show that I began to believe that they are an embarrassment to the entire video game industry. I would hope that the next year’s awards are better but I’m sceptical of any real change happening. Let me know your thoughts on this year’s Game Awards, whether you’d agree or disagree with my statement that they are an embarrassment to the video game industry, how you believe that the Game Awards could improve in the future and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.