Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards, love it or leave it, is a big deal, allegedly the preeminent global entertainment event of our time. That's according to an imposing but useful graph shared by former Nintendo executive Reggie Fils-Aimé. The graph suggests that Keighley's reveals demanded more eyeballs than the Video Music Awards (VMAs), the Grammys, the Academy Awards, the MLB World Series, and the NFL's Super Bowl combined.
Commanding the attention of 154 million viewers, The Game Awards has come a long way in its ten years in this form. The various ways these numbers are put together are arcane and complex, but as the comments below Reggie's post point out, FIFA says the 2023 World Cup championship match "achieved a global reach of close to 1.5 billion viewers." While not entertainment, the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II was observed by a reported 4 billion, making it the most-viewed media event in modern history.
Are you ready to show Geoff Keighly the respect he deserves? Can you believe how far the industry has come? Let us know in the comments section below.
Comments 41
Love to see it. I think Geoff did a great job at responding to criticism and improving the show. Yes it’s still too long (though personally I was gripped throughout) and yes there are still too many important awards that are rushed through (though do we want another hour of awards? A tough nut to crack) but in all it was the best TGA yet imho. Credit where it’s due.
EDIT: Though Reggie is ignoring things like Football & Cricket World Cups or Olympics which get far more than TGAs. Often billions.
@themightyant
Perfectly said. I have nothing to add.
This might draw advertisers to future events. And TGA will be filled with product placements instead of awards and reveals, if Geoff is not smart about it
Combined!? 😳 Gaming has really elevated itself into the big leagues. I do agree it was the best TGA yet. I dont mind the length, as long as it’s filled with great announcements!
I did my part and watched.
Which event has the superior commercials though... 🤔
You can preach and push it all you want, I still don’t care about it. And it’s over, why are we still talking about it? I couldn’t care less about these awards. I just want to play games without being told what is “the best of the year” or any of that crap. My personal game of the year was Pokémon Yellow, and that came out 25 years ago and I wasn’t influenced by any award show or reviews to play it.
Personally found it a waste of time aside from Astro Bot winning Game of the Year and Okami 2 announcement
No Resident Evil 9. 0/10
They could shorten the name to The Game Ads
I have serious doubts that those numbers are accurate.
It was a highlight in gaming for me this year. It's nice that games get recognized and given awards but that doesn't phase me as much. Some of the reveal trailers were genuinely surprising, exciting and one even had me tear up a bit 🥹 Geoff did good this year and knows what the people want. The show can do without The Muppets though..
@Balie3000 I’m usually with you on the muppets, but I think they did them really smartly this year, using them to kinda roast Geoff and TGAs in general. It was both funny and a way to say we hear all your complaints. With you on tearing up a few times too. Amir Satvat, Okami 2 and Astros win really got me
@LavenderShroud it’s fine you don’t care about it. But many do, 150+ million viewers is nothing to sniff at.
Also love playing older games. Just finished Jumping Flash and recently replayed Metroid Prime & Mario Galaxy. Metroid definitely on my best game played this year list.. again.
@breakneck You got 2/3 bro 😄 Ueda 🥹 Okami 2 😲 Mafia 😬 Word up son
@themightyant I think the awards being rushed should be moved to a longr preshow and during the mainshow they could do a reel of which games won what earlier tonight.
Its diffucult to believe the graph without understanding where this 150m comes from. Was it watched live by 150m? Is it the total views across all channels on youtube etc? Does this include partial views? Is this 150m separate people, how many are repeat views?
That said it still impressive. The main game awards stream is standing at 13m views currently. And its good that my hobby is growing.
If these were live views then that is extremely impressive.
If this is some nebulous amount based on after the fact YouTube videos or something like that then less so.
More information is needed.
The biggest entertainment event of our time = advertising frenzy. I think we may have mistaken what entertainment was. Geoff isn't about gaming entertainment - he's about Geoff. We all need to be clear about that. This year's GTA wasn't bad - in fact i'd go as far to say it was decent... but I also think, this is largely because he's pretending to fill an E3 sized void, and over the years, we've just forgotten what that means. We have acclimatised to his level - and the industry's level - of effort.
I guess... kudos to him?
@themightyant this time the muppets were used strategically... they voiced criticisms (past and present) so that people felt they didn't need to. I mean, whose voice trumps them?
The way I see it - Geoff is like machine learning - every epoch he gets a little better at fooling the validation that it's actually a good system. In this case, there's no real counter... because we're the system he's learning to fool.
@themightyant Even if it had 200 million plus viewers, I still wouldn’t be impressed. I’m just not one who enjoys awards. But if it’s what you’re into.
The game awards, like the Oscars, Emmy’s, Grammy’s and every other awards show in existence, is just a way for the industry to pat itself on the back. Why would the average gamer care about them. If you enjoyed the game that’s all that matters. Who cares if it won an award. If it wasn’t for the ads I don’t think anyone would care about it.
@Jireland92 Thank you! I was beginning to think I was alone in that ideology. I play or watch what I want because it looks interesting to me, not because of what awards something wins.
It’s a bit tacky. So many important awards where devs don’t even get a chance to go up and get their flowers. It doesn’t feel like a proper awards show with that in mind, it’s a weird mix. Definitely entertaining I suppose, but it doesn’t know what it wants to be.
It was better than the last 5 years imo
Doritos must be loving it 😂
Geoff seems like a good guy and genuinely invested in the medium.
Not to be the "actually" guy, but both the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup had much higher numbers than the 150mil by the Game Awards.
Geoff's ego is even bigger🤭
@Pat_trick @themightyant Those are multi-day, so hardly comparable.
@Herculean What do you mean? The Super Bowl is the last match of a whole tournament.
Just the FIFA World Cup final had 1.5 billion viewers. I think you're a bit misinformed in this occasion.
@Herculean It was claimed that 1.4 billion watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2020 and 1.5 billion people watched the 2022 World Cup final.
Though the largest global “entertainment” event of our time was… drumroll… the The State Funeral of Elizabeth II with a reported 4 Billion viewers.
I have no way to verify any of those numbers - they are all based on smaller sample sizes and algorithms - but they are so many magnitudes ahead of TGA’s that even with many margins of error there’s no chance it’s bigger.
That’s not to put down TGA’s and what Geoff has done, it is brilliant and he deserves praise (as I said in OP) but Reggie’s post is demonstrably false, and for someone as global and smart as he is, it’s woefully researched. Words matter.
But TGAs growth rate is astounding give it another 10 years and he might be right.
Probably the increase came from China, hoping wukong won goty.
@themightyant I didn't think about the opening yet. Couldn't find any hard numbers for this year at all, but I assume it's more than whatever TGA got. I wouldn't count the funeral of whoever as entertainment, though.
I am interested if TGA is the biggest annual event, because that is what this graph was seemingly going for. Personally I don't care too much for words like 'ever', because it's way to hard to verify them. What is interesting is that more people watched The Game Awards than the Super Bowl! 🌞
@Americansamurai1 I doubt you can watch TGA in China.
Geoff, hitting the major leagues, choom.
Anyone know why the theatre had so many empty seats? Seems like it was 3/4 full.
To be fair here, all the awards ceremonies mentioned are mainly an American affair and do not necessarily command a world audience. You can make an argument for the music awards but the sports are definitely American pastimes. I'd be curious to see how it stacks up to the World Cup.
Gaming awards shows have a level of interactivity built into them because it appeals to kids and adults that get to look forward to new games they get to play, not just watch a professional play or perform. I believe that goes a long way. I personally don't watch them live anymore, mainly because I'm busy, but you can be damn sure the next day I am looking up all the new trailers and results.
This is why people shouldn't be too worried about the gaming market, it's bigger than ever and still growing.
I'm doubtful of this. Both in terms of being individual, actual live viewers and also in terms of that translating to the "bigness" or cultural relevance of the show.
If you went into a pub and asked random people if they know what the Oscars are, everyone would. Now imagine asking random people if they know what the Game Awards are. Ask random people which game won GOTY in any year at the Game Awards. You might as well ask an 80 year old couple who their favourite Honkai Star Rail girl is.
On a different note, it's funny that Reggie is most surprised by it supposedly being watched more than the Super Bowl, a game in a sport infamous for only being cared about in a single country.
Outside of America nobody cares about the super bowl gaming is loved worldwide
@LavenderShroud it's an awards show. Games receiving awards are the same as movies, music, and TV show awards. We consume entertainment in different ways. Awards cause a boost to attention to the specific form of media, developers can get more money for future games, and create hype for the next game. We will still be talking about gaming awards from TGA or the next gaming event at least 2 or 3 weeks later. This is nothing new. For gaming and any other entertainment award event.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...