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.
Host with the most and producer of The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley, agrees and Tweeted as much after the show. Keighley maintains that "while no one was actually cut off", it would be something to "address going forward".
A teleprompter was used to urge award winners to "Please Wrap It Up" as the music unsuccessfully used to get Kratos' actor Christopher Judge offstage last year began to swell, underlining the point. In Larian's case, Vincke was dedicating the award to colleagues who had passed away during development, which was undercut by the outro tune.
Geoff says that the rule was relaxed as the show went on, but we thought it felt like the opposite, that the awards in the tail half were rushed to make up for the time Hollywood actors spent doing crowd work upfront. What do you think, and how much time is appropriate for a winner to get on stage? In the comments section below, continue the show, no matter the cost.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 25
To be fair they needed that extra time so Anthony Mackie could prat around forever and Shang Chi could talk about his leg.
When the actual award winners get to speak for 5% of the time at a game awards it's a bit of a farce. The movie, not game stars got 10x longer. Every single award winner should get their moment on stage, the majority of winners were just rattled off on a list.
The Oscars, the Globes, the Baftas... all have been slowly dying in the ratings. The only time that anyone cared about any of them in the last ten years was when Will Smith punched Chris Rock.
And in my opinion the reason why is exactly what we saw with the likes of Anthony Mackie: boring, self-indulgent celebrities who have no idea how the real world works being given centre-stage over the people you are actually there to see.
@LifeGirl Once again, this couldn't be further from the truth. For one thing, most of those celebrities weren't born rich. They lived in the "real world" for decades (doing all sorts of odd jobs) before they made it big. Some of them that have leading roles and have even won Oscars have mentioned that they couldn't even afford to pay for their medication (you can look up Hilary Swank's story about going to the pharmacy after she won an Oscar).
As for ratings, if you take even a quick look at what's happening across the board on broadcast TV, you'll realize that hardly anyone watches live TV anymore (only sports perform well). TV shows that used to pull a 2.0 in the demo (18-49) were getting cancelled a few years ago. Now a show that gets a 0.5 is considered a hit.
Most people watch Neftlix, Tiktok or YouTube. They won't sit through an entire show, because they want instant gratification. They'll watch "the slap" or a few inspiring speeches, but that's it. The landscape of TV has simply changed. Also, when a singer/huge film star would have a cameo on a TV show, the show's ratings would skyrocket. Now, everyone interested in it just watches on YouTube the scene they're in.
"We relaxed the rule as the show went on!"
So how come where people who watched it timed the likes of various game trailers or the Kojima OD segment as far outstripping any award speeches?🤔
Thirty seconds is ridiculous, an overwhelmed dev can barely even collect their thoughts within that time, even if they prepared a speech beforehand. Let alone enjoy the moment.
Imposing rigid time limits for this kind of thing is a bad idea to begin with, but if you're gonna do it, make it at least a minute and half. You're supposed to be celebrating these people and their games, so at least act like it.
That's what you get when you overhype this dumb fool.
It was definitely a blemish on what was a good show overall, although I still see Anthony Mackie pointing at me in my sleep…
Props to Keighley for building this event over the past decade and hopefully this lesson learned will mean an even better show next year.
Call it what it is.
Here's some advertisements we make you watch before you get to watch the advertisements you might enjoy.. maybe. While telling the best game creators to be quiet. Fun.
They barely tried to hide the fact that the awards were just a pretence to get some highly paid advertising.
@Rhaoulos Why should they need to hide it? They KNOW most people turn up for the trailers/ads. How many watch DICE or GDC or GJA compared to TGAs?
The balance is wrong, no doubt. They should give less time to the celebs handing out awards and more time to the winners for sure. But if people have a problem with all the trailers/ads there are plenty of other awards shows that are dedicated towards that function. Guess what? Almost no one watches them.
You're done, shift out.
Admits it yet time was manually controller and he would give the word on when to cut them off.
Geoff always makes time to remind us Hideo Kojima is his BFF.
Yeah the winners didn't get enough time.the show was long they should get enough time as possible.word up son
"We didn't actually cut anyo.." Loud Music Blares Out Over Your Words
@themightyant My point being, it's called "The Game Awards", but it barely has time for the people who receive those awards.
i want less time! take your award and get off the stage please so i can see more trailers!
@Toot1st you can watch the trailers after the show.
Just trying to save face. He’s scum.
This article is too long, Geoff should have got the team to wrap it up.
Wrap it up guys this comment section has gone on too long!
You have 30 seconds to read out all the comments..
The show was good, you guys complain to much. There are problems, but without E3 we have no event like this.
VGA it is nice, not great, but nice.
@naruball "most celebrities" yeah I'd like to see some figures on that to justify the "nothing could be further from the truth".
@Disan give me a second to find the peer-reviewed paper on it.
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