The Game Awards 2023 fell short of honoring its own industry
The Game Awards 2023 fell short of honoring its own industry
Last night was The Game Awards 2023, one of the biggest nights in gaming. But for an awards show, it spent very little time on recognition.
Yeah I definitely felt that all the stuff I actually wanted to see were rushed and replaced instead with a ton of ads and generic looking game trailers. There were only a few trailers that were actually notable and for a 2h show that was super disappointing. The speeches getting rushed and a lot of them not even having time to go up was also very disrespectful to the devs. Just overall not great.
*3 hour show + 30 min pre-show which still actually included a bunch of awards.
Gotta hoover up that money
Was only here for monster Hunter
Curiously, what did you want to see?
A lot of us just treat this like the Superbowl and watch it just for the ads.
A lot of us just treat this like the Superbowl and watch it just for the ads.
That is crazy to admit. Here we have people trying to do their best to remove ads from their lives; using PiHoles, AdBlockers and VPNs to get rid of as many ads as possible, but they would sit down and willingly watch ads instead of watching world-class athletes battle for supremacy on their grandest stage.
The closest thing we have in Europe is the Football World Cup. I reckon due to the nature of the sport, they play for 45mins each half and fitting in ads during play would be met with fierce backlash and boycotting. It's insane to me that you'd look forward to ads instead!
The actual awards where they celebrate the games they are supposedly meant to celebrate. Some respect for the devs who poured all their time into making them instead of being rushed off the stage. And finally it would be nice for them to actually acknowledge the industries struggles this year and put a light on the fact that the gaming culture is kinda rotten and this is meant to counteract it, instead it seems to fall into the same hole.
It wasn't just a clown car with 90 clowns, it was a three ring circus. Not once was there mention of the nearly 6,200 positions lost by layoffs this year, at a time when gaming has never been more profitable.
This event needed a kid going up and being cringe at the end. At the end, it felt like the industry jerking itself off.
it felt like the industry jerking itself off
I mean, that's pretty much ALL awards shows
I don't know why people still watch these things. It's the same every year. There has never been a good gaming award show.
The event is a celebration - why would they bring up layoffs?
This isn't a show where CEOs get jerked off. It's not a celebration for the 1% at the top who get to smile and pick up an award after laying off hundreds of developers that earned them that trophy.
Developers make the games that are being awarded and shown off as "World Premiers". They get laid off right after launch as they're no longer needed once the crunch is over.
Acknowledging this would make the malpractice known to many of the viewers who are watching.
The awards are an excuse to show ads. Ads for upcoming games, released big games, etc.
What a wasted opportunity. The Academy Awards don't resort to advertising upcoming movies the whole time, they take a pause to appreciate what they've made. The game of the year awards should do the same.
🤦♂️ It's always been an ad show with some awards. So what made this year so special?
Yeah I don't get the hubbub from all these sites? What are they expecting? Social justice and equality?
The whole thing is a marketing event with the awards there purely to hype people up over the most popular games. It's completely the wrong platform for what I keep reading all these people ask for, considering it's being funded by the games publishers themselves. If that was the case, they wouldn't bother paying to advertise their games.
The article seems to highlight that the money behind such a big event mainly goes to the hype for games yet unreleased, rather than focusing on praise and even advertising for really high-quality games that are already out.
Sometime I'd like it if video game marketing changed this way - it's much easier to market a game that already has tons of great reviews, and they've kind of generated many gamers that are unsure about any marketing they hear. The streamer I watched the awards with ended up finding out about a previously-released game by a developer he'd really enjoyed, thanks to the show.
These shows are mostly ads. I remember when Candy Crush was popular, and how they were mostly sweeping the awards while also promoting their next thing.
Also pretty sure they bought a LOT of ads too.
Only reason I cared about it was the one in a gazillion chance to get a free steam deck.
And the stupid site didn't even work
This happens every single time. Obviously with such a large giveaway you know there are thousands of bots falsely participating. Every other game awards they did a giveaway and gleam (the site they always use) always shut down for maintenance.
It does come back after a while though, you just have to persist. I was able to participate in this one after refreshing for like 20 mins.
They may as well rebrand it The Geoff and Kojima show.
I'm learning that people actually care about the rewards and not just scrolling through the announcements list after the show is over.
I guess it depends on who you are, and if that's why you're watching.
CDPR has a disastrous launch but came through for their fans by committing to delivering a solid game that won them the "Best Ongoing Game" award, again, putting them in their fans' good graces again for the mistakes they made.
Neil Newbon, the voice actor for Astarion in BG3, spoke in the past about how his face wasn't a Hollywood face. Despite countless auditions, he was always turned down because of the way he looked. His voice acting and motion capture performance (i.e. actual acting!) in BG3 won him the "Best Performance" award, vindicating him from all those people who said he's not good enough.
Neil is just one of the many stories of what it takes for individuals and studios to get recognised. This was the peak of his career, to finally be seen for what he can do, and not for what he looks like (I've no idea what anyone is complaining about with regards to his appearance!).
They should have given him more than 15 seconds.
Neil Newbon, the voice actor for Astarion in BG3, spoke in the past about how his face wasn’t a Hollywood face.
This is Hollywood demanding standards so strict and unusual that it borders on bigotry. His face looks fine, and a helluva lot more chiseled than mine.
It's like when nobody considered casting an actor with dwarfism in a normal role, and then Peter Dinklage started appearing everywhere. But, Hollywood kinda forgot what that meant and didn't bother to repeat that with other actors with dwarfism.
This is why people still accuse Hollywood of racism and sexism. (Because it's still true...)
Same. I haven't looked up the nominees, winners or even categories. The next day I saw Monster Hunter Wilds and Metaphor news and that's really all I care about. I don't get award shows in general since they don't change anything for me - the product doesn't get better or worse depending on the outcome.
You’d think the tentpole genres would at least get a little more airtime.
They ran through the awards for Action Adventure, RPG, etc.
You could cut the "2023" from that, and it'd be no less true.
I mean sure, this year's ad-centric nature was particularly obvious, but come the fuck on, journalists/readers/whatever: Did you ever have any doubt, seriously, ANY doubt, that this is 100% ad-space? And if yes, how?! What part of this did you watch in what year that wasn't just ad-space for publishers?
I thought it was great? I really enjoyed it. Flute Guy killed it again!
I'm honestly glad I didn't bother watching this year. Kinda just forgot about it as it started and went and saw Godzilla Minus One. After reading about its reception I think I'd made the better choice.
It a show whose goal is to generate revenue. That's it. That's the whole thing.
If you want awards that are actually worthwhile by themselves, GDC and BAFTA are the better choices.
TGA sucks and always has, nothing new here