"I'm gonna be king of the game developers"- Swen Vincke, age 15 (Probably)
The award season of the Games Industry tends to be a little more exciting for the industry it celebrates than other award ceremonies; that is likely because of the very different sort of public reputation we hold compared to, say, film awards. In film the idea of award ceremonies feels like an antiquated and bourgeoisie-coded felicitous orgy of back-patting and fart sniffing, created for the sole purpose of narcissism and worth affirming. Ask the average movie watcher what they're most excited to see during Oscar night, and they'll probably tell you: their bed pillows, because even those that watch the show as an institution are forgetting what they bothered showing up for, as evidenced by the delightfully depreciating viewer numbers that the shows have been afflicted with for time immemorial. When it comes to gaming however, well- we do things a little bit differently!
The game awards are something of a lot more grass-routes and earnest celebration enjoyed by all in celebration of- as much as Geoff can manage to cram into his little show. And that might come from the very open host of it all who everyone knows by name and deed. Geoff Keighley has been a central part of the game's media for over a decade easily, and though I'm sure he makes a buck and a half off of the fame around the awards, we know the passion behind why he started this in the first place. We all know that Geoff just loves his industry so much that he wants to be the one to bring everyone together one night a year. We know that Geoff Keighley is the sort of man we can trust to keep our industry every bit as strong and healthy as we need it to be, by breaking down the 'us versus them' mentality wherever he can. He's a champion of the little folk when he wants to be, and a friend to the upper class when he needs to be. And the award ceremony is a beloved joining together for gamers everywhere because of it!
Personally I think the reason why the Game Awards sees so many viewers (last year's showcase saw 103 million viewers compared to the Oscars 16.6 Million) is because we as the consumer come to see the big new reveals that Geoff has managed to cue up. In the passing of E3 and the coming of independent publisher showcases, there really aren't those big industry events that we can set our calendars to anymore, with the exception of The Game Awards. Geoff managed to score an Elden Ring release date trailer in the past, a Death Stranding 2 announcement- and if I'm right and he's managed to secure the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI- the man will go down as a legend for all eternity. And we all want to see the future of the industry so we show up in the hundreds of millions! Also, it helps that The Game Awards are so liberal and accepting on co-steaming, allowing the modern Internet in all of it's niches to come together and enjoy the show together, unlike the painfully antiquated Oscars who still think this is the eighties.
Of course we're a bit off from the Game Awards just now. It's time for some of the other ceremonies to get their awards out of the way and hand off to the 'best of the year' before the big show that everyone cares about rolls around. But seeing as how a lot of these events are as much fan driven as they are critic driven, it's typically a good indication of the direction that the industry is leaning by looking at who is sweeping these other shows. Afterall, we know that Game of the Year is going to Gollum, but if we can get confirmation that the Golden Joysticks also granted Gollum that inevitable gratis then we can be comfortable in our belief that the single most deserving game in history got it's dues. Because man does Gollum deserve some sort of break for all the crap he's been through...
But lo and behold it seems there was something of a sweep at the Golden Joysticks, with one game picking up so many awards there is now a meme worthy image of it's Director walking out the event clutching an entire arm full of gold. And that man is obviously the infamous Marine captain Axehand Morgan, going by his cover identity of 'Sven Vincke'. (I'm onto you, Marine scum!) Somehow Baldur's Gate 3 ended up scoring Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, Best Game Community, Best Supporting actor, (Neil Newborn's Astarion) Best PC game and ultimate game of the year. They should have handed Sven a broom so he could sweep the floors as well, cut the catering some slack. What a way to reward a team that risked it all.
There's certainly a desire for legitimacy that everyone in the industry is forever chasing, proof that this frivolous past time of wasting others time is actually worth something in the end. Becoming a professional in the medium is the first step on that ladder, earning a profit for the first time is the second step and winning a reward validating all your hard work is perhaps the crowning moment. Maybe that is the appeal of award ceremonies for the watchers and the attendees, that moment of ultimate fulfilment disseminated by osmosis out for everyone to collective bask in. That's how we get over the inherent stupidity of what an award even is and what it represents. And that's good enough justification to warrant my vicarious living through these events!
Personally, I love a little bit of award season. I love the pomp and the glamour. I love being one in a group of million all indulging in the nerdiest of passions simultaneously. I love seeing the faces of the madmen who slave away to steal away chunks of our lives in the most elegant and seamless ways. I just love the world of gaming and what swathes of creative passion it unfurls upon the world of art and the work of artists. Gaming pushed so much forward with it, tradtional drawing artists, storytellers, cinematographers, actors, music- everything that the movie industry used to lionise before that all started growing so stale and restrictive. The AAA might be a closed boys club, but the industry is way bigger than them these days. And the Awards season allows everyone to bask in their love of this hobby.
So champagne bottles up and corks popped for the start of another award season- one for what might go down as the best year for gaming in the past decade- which really goes to show how we're somehow still managing to blow the socks off of the gaming world. There's no more gratifying a sensation than being stumped over who wins an award because every candidate is just so darn good, and it's decisions like that which separate the men from the lions. Or it would if any publications took their nominations any sort of seriously. >sigh< At least the public say has it's value in the conversation too, so the real critics can let their preferences shine through. Which is my subtle way of reminding all of you to vote. How politically conscious of me.
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