Last night was the tenth anniversary of the game awards and everyone was tuned in for what was sure to be a momentous occasion for the gaming industry as a whole. While the show was well done and there was a ton of new information regarding brand new titles and updates on already known titles, the consensus online is that the game awards showed little to no respect to the developers who created all these wonderful games we played throughout the year. Many are claiming that this year’s edition of the game awards were a glorified E3, where it was much less of an award show and more of an advertisement space for far off titles. Many important figure heads in the industry today were given little to no time to accept awards and say their thanks, most less than 30 seconds, meanwhile Geoff Keighly thought it appropriate to have an entire 3 minute segment with a sesame street character. Half of the awards being given out were just a quick mention as Geoff Keighley started frantically naming winners for major categories as if they were not important. 

hollywood actors getting to ramble on an on about abolutely nothing of substance but actual developers this award show claims to celebrate get rushed off the stage by music after their second sentence…so disrespectful #TheGameAwards

— jimby NEW YT VIDEO the hedgehog (@JimmyWhetzel) December 8, 2023

One major complaint from Viewers was that Hideo Kojima, admittedly one of the most influential and boundary pushing figures in the industry today, had an 8 minute segment for a game in which we got little to basically no details on that probably won’t be released till the end of the decade. Meanwhile Neil Newbon, winner for best performance as Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3, was cut off mid speech as he was addressing how fans had felt seen by the game and how “You are not alone, none of us are, thank you”. A very heartfelt and emotional message being conveyed only to be ushered off  as many people attending the event posted on social media that the teleprompter began flashing to award winners to “wrap it up”. One of the more unbelievable moments throughout the show would be how non native english speakers were given the same amount of time as native english speakers despite having a translator by their sides, inadvertently cutting their time short. Most notably Eiji Aonuma, famed director of The Legend Of Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom after winning best action adventure game. 

“Please wrap it up”@thegameawards gives award winning Developers 30 seconds to say their piece and then GTFO pic.twitter.com/4RgSQEDKNo

— Javiera Cordero (@javierabegazo) December 8, 2023

The Gaming Industry for the longest time now has been wanting to be respected by other industries, specifically Hollywood and this has caused immense confusion in the community. Why does there seem to be this weird little brother looking up to their big brother relationship between the gaming industry and hollywood? Why are Matthew Mcconaughey and Anthony Mackie allowed to blabber on about an industry that they obviously don’t know anything about and have any stake in meanwhile pillars of the industry are told that they have some 30 odd seconds to thank everyone involved and say goodby?. The game awards are meant to be a celebration of the industry but in reality it feels like a facade. There was not one mention from Geoff Keighly about the lay offs that have been running rampant throughout every studio in this industry for the past year, and if there ever was an event to mention such a thing it was this one. 2023 will go down as one of the greatest years for gamers, but one of the worst ever for developers. Despite all of its shortcomings, hopefully the awards will see all these criticisms and restructure the show in the future, in the meantime enjoy the best moment from the show below.