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Developers blast the celeb-laden Game Awards as 'an embarrassing indictment of a segment of the industry desperate for validation… with little respect

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Their views have been plummeting yearly. I think they would get a major increase in viewership if they follow TGAs and add trailers and announcements to their award shows. Look at all of the new movie and TV show trailers that were randomly released these past couple of weeks. All of that would have been much better spread out within an award show.
Legacy news is also plummeting, but they still hold the status. Hollywood is the same. Gaming is in search of status, which is where that pathetic seeking of approval comes from.

But yeah, Oscars are declining in viewership for sure. But the prestige of winning the award is still mostly intact. People still respect it.
 
This take is outdated. Once any nerd or geek culture hobby becomes a multi billion dollar industry this whole 'pretending to be normal' thing quickly goes away, so this reasoning doesn't work anymore. People with status and suits will chase the money.

It's currently happening with anime right now.

He is trying to normalize gaming further to make money. He has a long term plan with TGA. The more mainstream gaming becomes, the more attention will be placed on TGA, the more attention on TGA, the more companies will pay him to show off their games during TGA.

Developers are still super cringy human beings who aren't very good public speakers, especially the ones who aren't native english speakers, but are trying to speak english.

Gaming might be becoming more mainstream, but these people aren't.

Movies are as mainstream as it gets, but no one wants to listen to the crew people for 4 minutes during the Oscars either.

These gaming companies would do well to invest in some public speakers in their PR departments to present games, because it just isn't in the skillset of developers, directors, or publishers. No one wants to listen to their cringy awkward acceptance speeches that are poorly written and poorly delivered.
 
Their views have been plummeting yearly. I think they would get a major increase in viewership if they follow TGAs and add trailers and announcements to their award shows. Look at all of the new movie and TV show trailers that were randomly released these past couple of weeks. All of that would have been much better spread out within an award show.

Their views have been plummeting because people have cut the cord and they haven't properly adapted to streaming. No one wants to watch movie trailers ad nauseam either.

The Oscars need to evolve to new delivery methods, but the product itself is largely fine.

They are looking to reduce the length of the production and are moving it up earlier in the day too, which is a nice compromise for the east coast.
 
I think he nailed it honestly. The take may be outdated, but Geoff is from that era. And lots of gaming publishers are from that era. And society at large still puts Hollywood celebrities on a higher pedestal, despite their industry shrinking and making less money than gaming. It's exactly as he said. Games aren't valid as games. They're valid when Hollywood acknowledges that its cool enough for them to attend.
I think he nailed about 25%. There's a chicken and egg situation when it comes to modern day celebrities. We are now in 2023, and people like Anthony Mackie, Timothy Chalamet, Simu Liu, etc. are all mentioning how they grew up playing gaming franchises that still exist today. Some of them even mention deep cuts or reference stuff that you'd only know if you grew up around this stuff. Michael B. Jordan is on social media constantly talking about his favorite anime. Famous Musicians are bringing up random stuff about Pokemon, Street Fighter, and D&D.

Times have changed.

Internet has changed. Gaming has changed. You and others are seeing it all as 'Geoff needing Hollywood', but I'm seeing it as two way street here. Hollywood wants in on this and they have an entirely younger generation of actors who have grown up on this. Those actors want in on it too. When we've reach the point where actors are contacting Geoff to be on the show, no more of this 'validation' reasoning is needed. We are already there.
 

Portugeezer

Member
I dunno, I enjoyed the show. I hear developers comments about not getting enough time but I don’t care? How many times do we need to hear different variations of “I want to thank the team, the fans, my family….”. Im watching the show for new game announcements not to hear developers talk except it’s about an upcoming game. If there were no game trailers/announcements, I’d just wait till the next day to read about who won.
The show is still called game awards, even though I don't watch for the awards awards should still be respected by the show but they aren't.
 

Pejo

Member
I'd have to assume the celeb shit was prompted by the sponsors of the show, so I'd imagine the Pope's hands were tied about some of it.

Anyways, if people are up in arms about the format, maybe they should create an expo in the summer for electronic entertainment. They could set up little booths and drop their coming year's trailers and info about their upcoming games. Maybe even let people try out early builds. Hell maybe it could even be a major industry event.

Nah, that'd never work.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Their views have been plummeting because people have cut the cord and they haven't properly adapted to streaming. No one wants to watch movie trailers ad nauseam either.

The Oscars need to evolve to new delivery methods, but the product itself is largely fine.

They are looking to reduce the length of the production and are moving it up earlier in the day too, which is a nice compromise for the east coast.

Kids today don't care about movies + TV like we did growing up. YouTubers + games are eating the old guards lunch.

The death of the movie star is a real cultural phenomenon.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
And also how cringey was the bg3 voice actor in his ancient Japanese garb talking about people saying how the game saved their lives or some stupid shit?

I say just turn it into the E3 replacement it is and just show new game trailers.
 
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Kids today don't care about movies + TV like we did growing up. YouTubers + games are eating the old guards lunch.

The death of the movie star is a real cultural phenomenon.

That's laughable when we're seeing movies like Barbie do a billion at the box office and TV is in a golden age with Game of Thrones probably being the biggest tv show in history.
 
And also how cringey was the bg3 voice actor in his ancient Japanese garb talking about people saying how the game saved their lives or some stupid shit?

I say just turn it into the E3 replacement it is and just show new game trailers.

I was thinking exactly that. They could do the Game Awards over the course of like 3 days and just make this the new E3.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
That's laughable when we're seeing movies like Barbie do a billion at the box office and TV is in a golden age with Game of Thrones probably being the biggest tv show in history.

The market is shrinking. Big fish taking up a smaller and smaller pool. Time is being spent elsewhere.

Btw, go take a look at the top box office movies adjusted for inflation. Movies released in the last 20 years are nowhere to be found.
 
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Punished Miku

Gold Member
And also how cringey was the bg3 voice actor in his ancient Japanese garb talking about people saying how the game saved their lives or some stupid shit?

I say just turn it into the E3 replacement it is and just show new game trailers.
If you cut all the filler he doesnt have anywhere near enough to be E3.
 
Kids today don't care about movies + TV like we did growing up. YouTubers + games are eating the old guards lunch.

The death of the movie star is a real cultural phenomenon.
Ok lol, I'm not going to make this bold of a take and say that games are overtaking movies to the point where movies will die out. I do think that we have passed the legitimacy line, but I am still not sure about what you're saying.

The only thing I see dying within the next 10 years are regular movie theaters. I think AMC will be the big one to go followed by the other small ones, and theaters will be treated more like amusement parks with very minimal locations(which means they'll be more packed) and you'll only have the option of IMAX and 4DX(the one with moving seats and effects).
 

MacReady13

Member
I would imagine the majority of people are watching to see the games and listen to the developers.

Is anyone watching to see celebrities?
I'll be honest, I didn't watch it live so when I went back to watch it I skipped ALL the awards and people on stage and just watched the trailers (most of which were terrible).
 
The market is shrinking. Big fish taking up a smaller and smaller pool. Time is being spent elsewhere.

Btw, go take a look at the top box office movies adjusted for inflation. Movies released in the last 20 years are nowhere to be found.

LOL, that is because you don't know how inflation works, the impacts of technology on movie going, and the number of movies released per year.

But also Star Wars Episode 7 is ranked 11 all time. Avatar is 15th. Avengers Endgame 16th.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Ok lol, I'm not going to make this bold of a take and say that games are overtaking movies to the point where movies will die out. I do think that we have passed the legitimacy line, but I am still not sure about what you're saying.

The only thing I see dying within the next 10 years are regular movie theaters. I think AMC will be the big one to go followed by the other small ones, and theaters will be treated more like amusement parks with very minimal locations(which means they'll be more packed) and you'll only have the option of IMAX and 4DX(the one with moving seats and effects).

When I say "Kids today don't care about movies", I do not mean that literally 0 kids on planet earth care about them. I'm using words in the way most humans use words.

What I'm suggesting is that movies are absolutely losing relevance in the culture. That much can't really be debated.

I also think gaming isn't even close to plateauing. It's still growing at a brisk clip while movies are headed in the opposite direction.
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
That whole 7-minute jerkoff-fest with Jordan Peele was awkward and weirdly insincere. Meanwhile, they’re cutting off actual developers after 30 seconds.

Geoff needs to keep his shit with Kojima in the bedroom where it belongs, not on stage.
 

YukiOnna

Member
Looks like it'll be addressed. I think they just over-adjusted due to the Chris Judge thing from last year on top of sponsors:
 
Ok lol, I'm not going to make this bold of a take and say that games are overtaking movies to the point where movies will die out. I do think that we have passed the legitimacy line, but I am still not sure about what you're saying.

The only thing I see dying within the next 10 years are regular movie theaters. I think AMC will be the big one to go followed by the other small ones, and theaters will be treated more like amusement parks with very minimal locations(which means they'll be more packed) and you'll only have the option of IMAX and 4DX(the one with moving seats and effects).

We haven't passed that line.

Do you know how you can tell? Idris Elba was nominated for performer of the year and he didn't go.

Timothy Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey are both bigger than Idris Elba. Why were they there but he wasn't? Because they were being paid to be there. For Idris Elba to take TGA seriously, he either needs to be paid to promote the game by CDPR at TGA or the award needs to be an actual big deal for his career, and it isn't.

There aren't enough people going to these awards for Idris to think that networking would help him either.

No celebrities want a ticket to TGA, they don't want to hobnob with game developers and until that changes, you won't have actual legitimacy.

There is a way to go about it though that I think makes sense. And that is to invite celebrities who are themselves gamers like Snoop Dogg, Henry Cavill.

There is a reason why the NFL does a big music number at half time every year and the super bowl commercials are a big deal. It's because they can draw in people who aren't football fans to join the general spectacle.

To have Idris Elba be in Cyberpunk but to not have him host, present, or promote? Missed opportunity. Where was Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey? The fact that HBO wouldn't pay for them to be there, tells you everything you need to know about how seriously anyone takes TGA.
 
Yeah valid criticism. Jeff G brought it up first early on during best narrative and it was very noticeable throughout the show. Mr Falcon had 3x more on stage time than award recepients. Why.
 
Looks like it'll be addressed. I think they just over-adjusted due to the Chris Judge thing from last year on top of sponsors:


For him to put this on his team is complete bullshit. These are entirely rehearsed and pre-planned. He would have known exactly when the music was going to go on and all the nominees would have been advised of that time as well.

What he probably didn't know was that people were going to bring up dead developers and that the music coming on was going to be a bad look.
 
When I say "Kids today don't care about movies", I do not mean that literally 0 kids on planet earth care about them. I'm using words in the way most humans use words.

What I'm suggesting is that movies are absolutely losing relevance in the culture. That much can't really be debated.

I also think gaming isn't even close to plateauing. It's still growing at a brisk clip while movies are headed in the opposite direction.
I understand your words but to be fair saying 'the death of the movie star' makes a huge implication on the state of movies themselves.

The main thing I see shifting with movie stars is in regards to them not being socially distant anymore. There will be no more mystique to them. I think we will see more and more celebrities show up who are simply engaging with the modern world the same way everyone else does.

This might include them having their own tiktoks, podcasts, or youtube channels, as some already do now. That doesn't take away from their skill in the craft. If anything it makes them smart enough to make sure that they have other avenues of potential income.

I agree with your take on gaming but regarding your take on movies I think you're pointed in the wrong direction. I think you are witnessing the death of regular movie theaters, not movies themselves, and are attributing that death to movies in general. AMC was going to die mid-lockdown/pandemic but they were bailed out. They were still suffering a slow bleeding effect when things opened back up, same as GameStop. Their course of direction has not changed and I think we can all see the end of the road.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
I would imagine the majority of people are watching to see the games and listen to the developers.

Is anyone watching to see celebrities?
It's unbearable. The same handful of people are in the bulk of movies, commercials, etc. The commercial aspect kills me, like you don't have enough money already? Why are you shilling for credit card, insurance companies, fucking gambling phone apps... You'd think there would be a sense of shame and embarrassment, nope. Egomaniacs through and through.
 
We haven't passed that line.

Do you know how you can tell? Idris Elba was nominated for performer of the year and he didn't go.

Timothy Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey are both bigger than Idris Elba. Why were they there but he wasn't? Because they were being paid to be there. For Idris Elba to take TGA seriously, he either needs to be paid to promote the game by CDPR at TGA or the award needs to be an actual big deal for his career, and it isn't.
To be fair to The Game Awards, this also happens at film award shows, especially when an actor is busy filming on set or is across the country. I have seen plenty of 'accepting this award on the behalf of _____' at both film award shows. We can't fault TGAs for this.
No celebrities want a ticket to TGA, they don't want to hobnob with game developers and until that changes, you won't have actual legitimacy.
This is incorrect. We have seen people tweet and call Geoff wanting to be on his show. There is proof on the internet.
There is a way to go about it though that I think makes sense. And that is to invite celebrities who are themselves gamers like Snoop Dogg, Henry Cavill.
This would help and Snoop has been invited to a ton of gaming events before, including previous TGAs.
To have Idris Elba be in Cyberpunk but to not have him host, present, or promote? Missed opportunity. Where was Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey? The fact that HBO wouldn't pay for them to be there, tells you everything you need to know about how seriously anyone takes TGA.
We don't know what all 3 are currently doing. As stated above, this has happened before in other shows. Hell, the man who has won multiple 'artist of the year' awards at music award shows, Drake, has not shown up multiple times to those shows. Does that mean they are illegitimate? Not in the slightest. He even has shown to put their trophies in a specialized trophy room in his mansion so it shows that he cares, but he simply was not able to be present.
 

Nvzman

Member
Cocoons winning over Pizza Tower was fucking offensively bad. In general a lot of the actual awards (sans most of what BG3 won) were complete horseshit, it felt more like they were interested in giving awards to the fart-huffing critics success games rather than the ones people actually liked.
 

Gambit2483

Member
Looks like it'll be addressed. I think they just over-adjusted due to the Chris Judge thing from last year on top of sponsors:

It was absolutely a case of overreaction/over course correction.

That said they were at least able to stick to a very tight schedule..but yeah, just give every winner like 45 to 60 seconds and CLEARLY display a timer so that they know when the music will start to play.

This isn't rocket science.
 
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To be fair to The Game Awards, this also happens at film award shows, especially when an actor is busy filming on set or is across the country. I have seen plenty of 'accepting this award on the behalf of _____' at both film award shows. We can't fault TGAs for this.

This is incorrect. We have seen people tweet and call Geoff wanting to be on his show. There is proof on the internet.

This would help and Snoop has been invited to a ton of gaming events before, including previous TGAs.

We don't know what all 3 are currently doing. As stated above, this has happened before in other shows. Hell, the man who has won multiple 'artist of the year' awards at music award shows, Drake, has not shown up multiple times to those shows. Does that mean they are illegitimate? Not in the slightest. He even has shown to put their trophies in a specialized trophy room in his mansion so it shows that he cares, but he simply was not able to be present.

Almost no one skips the oscars unless they are physically ill or old. They'll skip smaller shows, especially when they aren't paid to go or know they aren't going to win. That's exactly my point.

Name names. What legitimate celebrities have begged him for tickets? Because I didn't see anyone showcased at this latest show.

Snoop should probably be a permanent host or at least a rotational host.

https://www.gq.com/story/drake-withdraws-2022-grammy-nominations-certified-lover-boy
 
For him to put this on his team is complete bullshit. These are entirely rehearsed and pre-planned. He would have known exactly when the music was going to go on and all the nominees would have been advised of that time as well.

What he probably didn't know was that people were going to bring up dead developers and that the music coming on was going to be a bad look.
The big award speeches are not pre-planned, only the intros to trailers/presentations, the skits, and the smaller awards that Sydney gave out during pre-show. He has to adjust on the fly based on every speech that goes over. Also Geoff was either on center stage or leading stage the entire time so his only line to stage crew would be whoever's standing next to the cameraman or his earpiece if he had one. If it's the former, it means they are playing telephone which makes the situation worse when things are moving fast.

Even from explaining all of this, Geoff does need to apologize better and take accountability better. Even if what he's saying is true and that the team in charge of that department failed, it still makes his leadership look bad.
 
I’ve not watched the show for years now, I just catch up on actual game trailers so I don’t have to watch the blatant marketing, filler or celebrity reverence.
 

StueyDuck

Member
I dunno... I think they really need to decide now if this is an awards show or just a games showcase, all I've seen gamers talk about was all the announcements, I didn't watch it (was on like 3 or 4am for me) and it took a looooong time before I saw anyone online actually mention who won goty 🤣.

So they either gotta just be a marketing ad show and devs needa just get over it... or they needa focus on awards and try figure out how to do the ads without it being the main event
 

ranmafan

Member
Glad to see developers as well as so many others finally being louder about all the issues with the show. Been saying it for years, the show as an awards show is a disgrace and disrespectful to the people they are (at least they say they are) trying to celebrate. But this year from all the weird nomination controversies, to everything wrong at the show itself, it’s a bigger mess than ever. Yeah yeah I get it, it’s a big three hour commercial in disguise, but shouldn't we be more critical of a show whose name is “the game awards” but fails at its most important thing, the game awards itself?

I’ve said it for years and I’ll say it again, if Geoff Keighley can’t fix this mess and it seems he can’t, then either he should step aside for someone else to do it or the industry needs to find a new gaming awards that can be showcased to the world as it’s “Oscar’s.” It’s a shame that we have this same conversation every year and all about these awards but nothing ever changes.
 
Almost no one skips the oscars unless they are physically ill or old. They'll skip smaller shows, especially when they aren't paid to go or know they aren't going to win. That's exactly my point.


Benedict was busy filming overseas when this award was received. Also, we've literally seen another actor on a Marvel set accept an award with a pre-recorded video. I don't know how recently you've watched any film award shows but it sounds like it's been a while if you think it's still only physically ill or old.
Name names. What legitimate celebrities have begged him for tickets? Because I didn't see anyone showcased at this latest show.
For this I need more time to gather up proof to prove my case.
 
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Tams

Member
This is the point that you wap out the condom you have on you (you do have one at hand at all times, right?) and proclaim that you will most certainly 'wrap it up'.
 


Benedict was busy filming overseas when this award was received. Also, we've literally seen another actor on a Marvel set accept an award with a pre-recorded video. I don't know how recently you've watched any film award shows but it sounds like it's been a while if you think it's still only physically ill or old.

For this I need more time to gather up proof to prove my case.


Your proof was the Emmys when I said the Oscars...

That furthers my point. Benedict Cumberbatch was trying to become a movie star. There is no way he would skip the Oscars, but certainly might skip the emmys for a tv award.
 

ikbalCO

Member
It is lovely to see that tga is back to its spike tv origins.

Keighly awards have always been exactly this. PickMe attitude towards hollywood, desperately seeking celeb attention. This is what geoff keighly wants. He doesnt want to celebrate gaming. He only wants to hang out with actors directors and such. I suspect this is the main reason he is so buddy buddy with kojima since he is one of the few gaming personalites that kinda cross over to hollywood stardom. Why do you think he hosts the fucking thing every damn year. Do the academy host the oscars, hollywood foreigh press the golden globes or the tv academy the emmy? Why in the hell we still havent seen people like greg miller, kyle bosman etc. host when you think they’d be doing a much better job.

The game awards is just a platform for geoff keighly to meet timothy chalamet, jordan peele, al pachino etc.

He was put in his place perfectly by the man the myth the legend joel mchale back in 2013 and riddiculed out off the award game biz till the rebooting it as the game awards.

If you want an actual game award show watch baftas and golden joystick award.

Peace!
 
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Kikorin

Member
If they cut all the boring and useless shits and just shows games and give all the time devs wants to speak, the show would be a lot more enjoyable and would last for like 1hr and half. How they made this 3.5hrs long and still had no time for winners speaks is unbelievable.
 
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