This year's Game Awards ceremony garnered a lot of justified criticism for the way it rushed winning developers off stage in favour of adverts, rambling conversations with Hideo Kojima, and celebrity cameos from the likes of Timothée Chalamet.
08.12.2023 - 21:57 / thegamer.com / Anthony Mackie / Swen Vincke / Geoff Keighley
The Game Awards was once again a pretty terrific celebration of games last night, though the same can't really be said about the people that make them. More than any other year, organizer and host Geoff Keighley has come under fire for rushing award winners through their acceptance speeches, but he claims that "no one was actually cut off" during the show.
After receiving a lot of criticism for the way The Game Awards conducted itself last night, Keighley posted a tweet via his personal Twitter account acknowledging that the music designed to get award winners to pick up the pace definitely played too fast, and claims that he actually asked his team to "relax that rule" as the show continued. Keighley also promised to address the problem in the future, though he's adamant no one was cut off before they finished their speech.
Quite a lot of people aren't accepting Keighley's tweet as an adequate apology though. For starters, many are pointing to Annapurna Interactive representatives Lisa Aquilino and Evan Icenbice who accepted the award for Best Debut Indie on behalf of Cocoon developer Geometric Interactive. Even though the two were briefly on stage, the show rather rudely attempted to cut off Aquilino and drown out her portion of the speech with loud music.
A woman was cut off. Larian devs were talking about their colleagues who passed away and the screen says to "wrap it up". The level of disrespect is something else here. - Twitter account Hype Your Games.
Then we have the folks at Larian, who may not have been directly cut off, but were definitely hurried despite accepting the Game of the Year award for Baldur's Gate 3. Not only was creative director Swen Vincke told to "wrap it up" by a teleprompter when he was dedicating the award to a colleague who had passed away, but they also didn't have time to announce the Xbox release of Baldur's Gate 3 like they had originally planned.
It's very clear that 30 seconds isn't enough time for developers to talk about their passion projects and get out their thanks to fellow developers, and the problem was made even worse by the extra time dedicated to Hideo Kojima and big-name celebrities like Anthony Mackie. In fact, Kojima's reveal of OD and the skit with Gonzo from The Muppets had the same amount of time on stage than every award winner combined.
It's led to calls for the show to either be extended, or for Keighley to start reining in the time celebrities get to painfully banter with the audience. The Game Awards - by Keighley's own admission - is a show designed to celebrate games and the people who make them, and while it sounds like feedback will be taken into account for next year, we'll have to wait and see whether he can limit himself to just a few
This year's Game Awards ceremony garnered a lot of justified criticism for the way it rushed winning developers off stage in favour of adverts, rambling conversations with Hideo Kojima, and celebrity cameos from the likes of Timothée Chalamet.
The Game Awards have enjoyed consistent growth since the first showcase took place in December 2014, to the point where they have become an integral pillar for the community, especially in terms of new reveals and announcements by developers and publishers all around the world. This year’s showcase, like previous years’, was another one to exhibit continued growth for the event.
The Game Awards 2023 has broken its own viewership record, clocking up around 118 million livestreams.
The Game Awards has come and gone again, with 2023's show proving somewhat contentious, depending on who you ask. Something that became increasingly apparent as the show progressed was the pressure winners appeared to be under to wrap things up. Even Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke, who managed to snag Game of the Year with Baldur's Gate 3, appeared to be whisked off the stage after around 30 seconds, surprisingly spry in a suit of armour.
With The Game Awards 2023 now squarely in the rear view mirror, it's time to reflect on what was shown during Geoff Keighley's big end of year bash. Criticisms of the format and actual award presentations aside, the event did give us some significant game reveals.
The Game Awards are always going to be something that is hotly debated for various reasons. But one thing that you must give them, even if you don’t want to, is that because of their platform and being streamed all over the place, they have done incredible numbers from when they started in 2014. They got 1.9 million viewers that first year, which isn’t too bad considering the period. But when you fast forward to 2023, you see just how big things have gotten, as the latest show had 118 million viewers worldwide. That’s a 15% increase from the previous year and proof that the show is still growing.
The Game Awards 2023 broke the event’s viewership record with an estimated 118 million livestreams.
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After his acceptance speech was cut short, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke has published what he “wanted to say” when Baldur’s Gate 3 took home the top prize at The Game Awards last week.
Larian's CEO and founder Swen Vincke has shared the rough full text of his Game Awards 2023 acceptance speech for Baldur's Gate 3's Game of the Year trophy, after having his thoughts cut short by the event's crowded scheduling, which allotted more time to Kojima chitchat, trailers and celebrity cameos than the actual award-winners.
Game developers have a problem with this year’s Game Awards.
Following scrutiny from developers, The Game Awards founder and host Geoff Keighley has said he agrees the allotted speech time for each winner was too short this year.