If The Game Awards Is All About The Devs, Then Let Them Speak
At the opening of last night’s 2023 edition of The Game Awards, host Geoff Keighley hyped the event as an evening “to recognize outstanding creative work in games in 2023.” But as the night went on, the luminaries who were being awarded for their “outstanding creative work” seemed like they weren’t given much time to actually speak about said work.
Read More: Everything We Saw At The Game Awards 2023
Read more
A Man Wired A Luxury Car Dealer $30,000 For A Lamborghini. He Never Got It
Rental Company Sixt Will Begin Dumping Tesla Fleet Due To Repair Costs
Actually, Sweden Won’t Give in to Tesla’s License Plate Demands
This Dealer Is Trying To Sell A 1995 Honda Accord For More Than The Original MSRP
Throughout the night, orchestral music floated in very soon after most award winners began speaking. That might be a good policy for keeping such a stacked event moving, but when you consider just how much time was devoted to celebrities, muppets, and conversations with high-profile developers like Hideo Kojima (who Aftermath estimates gobbled up as much time as 13.5 of the night’s truncated winner speeches would have), it’s not hard to feel like The Game Awards failed to prioritize its time well. And many awards, probably most, went without anyone coming up on stage at all, getting just quick, cursory-feeling readouts of the winners from Keighley or his cohost before it was time to cut to another ad break, announce a new game, or invite a celebrity onstage.
Lmao the prompter pic.twitter.com/v1Jg9WwFUY
— The Dave Awards (@DaveOshry) December 8, 2023
After a year of constant, highly public layoffs across the industry, ushering developers offstage while granting celebrities all the time they could ask for feels uniquely out of step. Running large events relying on commercial support is no easy task, but surely there must be a better way to schedule things out so that, in Keighley’s own words, we can actually “recognize outstanding creative work.”
Read More: Here Are All Of The 2023 Game Award Winners (And Losers)
Attendees report a large, ominous teleprompter message reading “Please Wrap It Up,”” which as Javier Cordero pointed out on Twitter (presently known as “X”), was even on display while people from Larian Studios tried to talk about what developing the game meant to them while they accepted the most prestigious award of the night: Game of the Year.
If I won game of the year and was dedicating the award to a member of my team who had died during development and saw the words “Please wrap it up” I’d be fucking pissed #TheGameAwards pic.twitter.com/be0hLfmfT2
— Javiera Cordero 🇵🇸 (@javierabegazo) December 8, 2023
The speech of Larian’s Swen Vincke brought tears to the eyes of his team members in the audience. He talked about what Baldur’s Gate 3 meant to the team, how it was the team’s pandemic project and how they lost Jim Southworth, lead cinematic artist on Baldur’s Gate 3, to cancer just last month. This was easily one of the most human moments in the nearly four-hour onslaught of non-stop commercialism, but hey, Please Wrap It Up, right?
Lmao the prompter pic.twitter.com/v1Jg9WwFUY
— The Dave Awards (@DaveOshry) December 8, 2023
Another odd moment came when CD Projekt Red took home the award for Best Ongoing Game. After being introduced by actor Anthony Mackie, who spent a chunk of time bantering with the audience (to everyone’s confusion) and plugging season two of Twisted Metal on Peacock. But when Gabriel Amatangelo and Paweł Sasko actually got on stage to collect their award, they were given scant time before the music started up.
This morning, Geoff Keighley himself recognized that, “while no one was cut off,” the music indeed felt like it came in too quickly.
By the way - I do agree that the music was played too fast for award winners this year, and I asked our team to relax that rule as the show went on. While no one was actually cut off, it’s something to address going forward.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 8, 2023
But, as Axios’ Stephen Totilo shared, it’s not like the “wrap it up music” was automated. “I can confirm” he wrote on Twitter, “there was manual control of when to start the 30-second countdown to the ‘please wrap it up’ sign, manual control of when to make it flash. Was tweakable.”
Having sat two rows behind the person managing the clock (via a laptop just to the right of this set-up), I can confirm there was manual control of when to start the 30-second countdown to the "Please wrap it up" sign, manual control of when to make it flash
Was tweakable https://t.co/5D2mw84Ch9 pic.twitter.com/K2dllPMbrx— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) December 8, 2023
Celebrities are entertaining and ads do pay the bills necessary to keep a show running, but hopefully future Game Awards shows will allocate developers as much time as Gonzo the muppet was given to talk about the work they and their teams put in to earn their recognition. Give folks time to enjoy their deserved moment in the spotlight, or else let’s just call The Game Awards what it is: Winter E3.
More from Kotaku
The Insane Reason This Little Black Girl Got Kicked from Her Cheer Team
Squid Game: The Challenge winner hasn't received a cent of $4.56 million prize
How to Watch SpaceX Launch Space Force’s Spaceplane for the First Time
The Shocking Ending of Indiana Jones 5 Wasn't Always What's in the Movie
Sign up for Kotaku's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.