By nominating video games, a committee of the top console manufacturers attempted to honor popular and creative games, the annual Game Awards was held on December 7.
The Game Awards have a committee that is made up of the top three console manufacturers (Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo) who make a list of games that become nominees in the Game Awards.
The voting jury is then made up of established news outlets to decide the winners.
2023’s awards ceremony was held at the Peacock Theater with over 118 million live viewers, the highest view count in the ceremony’s history.
With its recent success in validating its position as “the video game awards,” it is no shock that people would start questioning the Game Awards as a place to celebrate games.
The Game Awards is a combination of E3 and a videogame award ceremony. E3, an event that no longer exists, was an event where new, exclusive video games were announced. Some people feel as though the Game Awards has become E3, or rather its replacement.
“I believe it was this year that they officially announced that E3 won’t be happening anymore,” senior Jame Allemen said. “The Game Awards are the last remnants of all the games coming together, showcasing and talking about discussion points for people. I do think [the Game Awards] are now the main events for games for the entire year.”
While Allemen talks about the Game Awards becoming much like E3 in a positive way, some people see it more negatively. They rather see it as making an award ceremony turn more into a commercial.
“E3 was about game announcements and I don’t believe that an award show should be the place to do premieres and trailers and announcements,” computer science teacher Phil Cerami said.
According to Cerami, other video game awards ceremonies like the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences or the D.I.C.E awards are more trustworthy than the Game Awards.
“What I’ve settled on is the equivalent organization for video games, which is the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, which are the developers,” Cerami said. “Similar to how music producers vote on the Grammys. Movie producers and actors in the Actors Guild vote on the Oscars. It’s the same equivalent organization and so that’s why I’ve chosen it as my default.”
While some fans like the D.I.C.E video game awards, Viewfinder creative director Matt Stark, who got nominated for Best Debut Indie Game and Best Independent Game, prefers the UK BAFTA.
“The impression that I get is that [the Game Awards] goal is to get a bunch of viewers so they can then see the games that are being promoted throughout the event,” Stark said. “And I think that maybe it doesn’t serve the games industry and the games medium as much as an event that’s more focused on awards.”
This leads to one of the biggest issues about the Game Awards that people online point towards: a lack of a definitive award ceremony for the game awards.
“Video games more than any other entertainment industry suffer from a lack of cohesion as to what is the definitive authority for what makes the ‘game of the year,’” Cerami said. “I look to the Grammys as the definitive for music, the Oscars as definitive for movies, for the Emmys as definitive for television and the Pulitzer Prize or National Book Awards for Literature. There’s 50 different organizations and 50 different magazines that try to do this for video games.”
Stark agrees with Cerami.
“I think the idea with the Game Awards is that they really want to kind of secure that place as being the Game Awards, in the same way people look at the Oscars or something as being the definitive film awards,” Stark said. “And I think that it does feel like the way that they [have] conducted [the Game Awards] is counterproductive to that goal.”
