What I wish to see at The Game Awards (besides world premieres) | Kaser Focus

02.12.2023 - 03:29 / venturebeat.com / Geoff Keighley

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The Game Awards are less than a week away, and we’ve already begun to brace ourselves. If the upcoming event is anything like its predecessors, then it’s going to be largely focused on a series of trailers for upcoming games interspersed with a handful of awards given onstage. And that’s great — it’s what I expect, and it’s a pivotal part of the industry’s yearly calendar. However, there’s a small part of me that can’t help but wish the Game Awards did more... you know, awarding. In particular, I wish it would consider giving awards to parts of game development staff that the player doesn’t necessarily see.

Say what you will about the Oscars — I myself have called it a meaningless pageant of empty self-congratulations on many occasions. But at least the Oscars try to honor the parts of film creation besides the directors, producers and actors, such as sound mixing and editing. They’re not the glamorous parts of filmmaking, but if we’re going to pretend the awards are to laud the art form, then it makes sense to acknowledge the people who do the nitty-gritty work.

This is my long-winded way of saying I wish that The Game Awards would honor the people who have put a lot of thankless work into the games industry — many of whom have lost their jobs this year through no fault of their own. And don’t get me wrong, those trailers and World Premieres help developers too, garnering attention for their games and helping to build hype for them pre-release. But it feels like there’s a human element that’s missing here.

Still, for those who are looking for a human element, GamesBeat is holding its latest event just before The Game Awards on Dec 7. “Pixels to Pop Culture” will feature several speakers and panels about how the games industry is working with Hollywood to create new experiences for audiences. I won’t be there in person (I’m still working on this massive EOY ranking list, so I’m not leaving my house for a few weeks at least), but I’ll be watching the event before Geoff Keighley’s show gets underway.

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