The Game Awards: A Better Watch than the Oscars

By Luke Condon

Despite Will Smith’s noble attempt to liven things up this year, the Academy Awards are slowly but surely becoming irrelevant to the public at large. The show’s viewership numbers have been on the decline for almost a decade (with the exception of 2022, which saw a slight increase over the previous year due to the end of the pandemic and the film drought that came with it), and its diminished presence in the media confirms what most already knew: these days, nobody really cares about the Oscars. The oversaturation of the film industry with so-called ‘Oscar Bait’ movies means that the average viewer is unlikely to be familiar with even half of a given category’s nominees, and the programme’s rigid structure and presentation leaves little room for entertainment outside of the awards themselves. In fact, the Oscars’ most memorable moments now tend to be the results of production blunders; incidents like the aforementioned Will Smith attack and the 2017 Best Picture mix-up have had a far greater cultural impact than any of the little gold trophies given out over the past few years. 

It’s clear that the Academy needs to change up their format if its awards are to maintain any semblance of importance in the future. Whether they’ll actually do so or not remains to be seen; innovation in the Academy is apparently unheard of, with each individual Oscars show being all but indistinguishable from the next. As other award shows like the Grammys experience a similar fall from grace, one might be inclined to believe that the concept itself is stagnant. However, the Game Awards, the gaming industry’s closest thing to an official awards ceremony, seem to have broken the downward trend. Since the first event in 2014, the Game Awards have enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity that shows no signs of stopping. Instead of faltering in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the show somehow doubled its audience numbers in 2020 to a whopping 83 million online viewers. Let’s take a look at what the Game Awards are doing right; other award shows have a lot to learn. 

First, a brief history of the Game Awards is in order. Traditionally, the title of ‘Game of the Year’ was awarded by various gaming publications and websites individually. Any game could declare itself ‘Game of the Year’, as there was no definitive awarder for said honour, and many unscrupulous publishers exploited this by slapping that title on the cover of an otherwise identical edition of a game and re-releasing it at full price. Of course, corporations will always jump at the chance to make additional profits whilst expending minimal effort, so it wouldn’t be entirely fair to blame this practice on the then-lack of a real awards show in the industry (it still happens today, they just call them ‘ultimate’ or ‘complete’ editions). Still, attention was drawn to the fact that the gaming industry needed a grand ceremony of its own, one that would commemorate extraordinary games and recognise the hard-working individuals who poured their souls into making them.

This gap in the market was obvious to Geoff Keighley, a journalist from Canada with an undying love for video games. Having previously worked on an ill-fated TV presentation known as the Spike Video Game Awards, Keighley took what he learned and created what we now know as simply ‘The Game Awards’. With Keighley as the ceremony’s presenter, the Game Awards have been streamed online annually since 2014, alongside live audiences present at the physical venue. Accolades for games are distributed based on votes from a jury made up of representatives from major gaming publications and reviewers, as well as a fan vote. Using this format, the Game Awards have broken new viewership records yearly since their inception. It’s true that the gaming industry as a whole has also seen significant growth during this time, but the show’s popularity is mainly a result of its own innovations that have allowed it to break free of traditional award show conventions and appeal to a wider audience.   

In some ways, it’s disingenuous to call the Game Awards an awards show, despite the name; the ceremony has evolved to become a hybrid event that could be considered a games exhibition, a concert, and a trophy presentation all at once. If there’s one sure-fire approach to luring in gamers as prospective viewers, it’s the promise of new game reveals and trailers, and the organisers of the Game Awards have used this to their advantage. The Game Awards have become a platform for developers to show off their upcoming work to the gaming world at large, giving viewers who care little for the awards a reason to tune in, and these sneak peeks break up the show nicely between trophy presentations. Aside from these interludes, the odd celebrity appearance every now and then helps provide a link from the gaming industry to the outside world: surprise guests like fan favourites Keanu Reeves and Giancarlo Esposito have appeared on more than one occasion, usually to thunderous applause.

Musical numbers also play a large role in boosting the entertainment value of the Game Awards. These acts come in two forms, the first of which involves musical artists with connections to the gaming industry. At the 2021 awards, the Police’s former frontman Sting performed an excellent rendition of his song ‘What Could Have Been’, which was originally created for the Netflix show Arcane, a television adaptation of the online battler game League of Legends.  Subsequently, American rock band Imagine Dragons appeared on stage alongside musicians from Supergiant Games in a collaboration that featured tracks from video games and other media. Both performances were positively received, but they were followed by a tough production to beat: the Game Awards’ in-house orchestra. This ensemble, led by conductor Lorne Balfe (who previously composed soundtracks for video game franchises including Call of Duty and Skylanders), is a staple feature of the Game Awards, and has become a highlight of the show for its instrumental covers of title themes and other tracks taken from Game of the Year nominees. 

These intermissions don’t distract from the awards themselves, but only enhance them. When combined, all aspects of the Game Awards work in tandem to create an electrical atmosphere of excitement that other award shows are sorely lacking. The Oscars, the Grammys, the Emmys: they’ve all grown complacent. For the most part, these shows have refused to adapt to modern times, and clung on to their outdated formats; what little improvements have been made come off as unenthusiastic and sterile in a corporate sense. The Game Awards is not a show without flaws, but the sheer passion put into the production outshines any imperfections. 

The long-term future of the Game Awards is looking bright, but what about this year’s ceremony? Well, a fierce competition is shaping up in the Game of the Year category, with titans Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok set to battle it out for the title: Elden Ring is a slight favourite, but God of War’s current media dominance means that it could go either way. Other awards, including best soundtrack, best narrative, and best independent game are also likely to be hotly contested (my money’s on Stray to win that last prize; most gamers are unable to resist the allure of an adorable cat protagonist). 

The ceremony is now only a few weeks away: it’ll be streamed live on December 8th, and you’ll be able to access it via YouTube, Twitch, and pretty much every other online streaming platform. However, as the show’s venue is situated in the United States, viewers in Ireland will have to stay up late to catch the whole show. The pre-show is scheduled to begin at around 12:30 AM GMT, and could run for up to four hours total. Grab some popcorn, maybe a few energy drinks, and enjoy: it’s sure to be a hell of a show!