The Game Awards 2024 | We're Out of Touch & Out of Time
Since the death of the annual expo that was once the biggest event of the year for the video games industry, E3, “big” announcements and trailers for games have more consistently been released throughout each year at various other events. There is one particular event that has been around for a decade, however, which has managed to become the new E3 to many as the thing to watch for the big trailers, despite the fact that it is and has always been an unpleasant viewing experience.
The Video Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley, is a multiple-hour show that spends exponentially more time advertising than giving out awards and it has been doing so since the days it was on the ill-fated TV network, SpikeTV. It has always been a cringe-inducing affair, as most award shows are, but it has been on a steady decline in quality to mirror the state of the industry it represents.
Well, the 2024 event took place recently and it was what many like myself expected to be, and worse in ways that were somewhat surprising. For example, I expected Geoff to show giddy teenage-girl-level excitement for Hideo Kojima. I expected Geoff to rattle off a bunch of awards quickly to make sure we had enough time for the trailers, as he always does. I expected the number of awards physically given out and speeches delivered to be fewer than last year so more time was allotted for the trailers and ad-reads. I expected there to be a bunch of celebrities either well past their prime or new enough for me not to recognize them because I’m old.
I did not expect there to be so many trailers for games that are already out or on sale. I didn’t expect to see several trailers for games that have been lambasted and dragged through the mud this year as complete failures to desperately seek help by advertising that they were on sale, i.e. Star Wars: Outlaws & Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
I also did not expect there to be a tone-deaf section about company layoffs without really addressing why an award was given out to a guy for helping game developers who had been laid off fill out job applications. This award was presented in an auditorium full of executives and upper management from companies that laid people off this year, by the way. I also did not expect to learn that this guy they propped up as an innocent influencer with a few thousand followers and a big heart, Amir Satvat—who got a standing ovation from those people who laid off their employees—is currently employed by Tencent, the Chinese mega-corporation that has its tendrils in countless companies and has been encircling crumbling game companies like Ubisoft. At no point was the information about his employment at Tencent or his other company ties as a consultant disclosed by the Game Awards; he was just presented as this humble public servant helping out those in need. This is what the super sleuths at my favorite hack website Kotaku had to say about it:
“Rather than launch into a screed against the video game industry’s greed or excess amid one of the worst years for layoffs in the show’s (and the industry’s) history, Keighley ceded the floor to Amir Satvat, a development director at Tencent Games, to honor his personal contributions to his industry peers through his tireless work documenting industry layoffs, updating a robust list of new job openings, and simply reminding other developers that when their life is upended, no matter how small the project they were working on or how unheard of the game studio that employed them is, there’s someone there, bearing witness and ready to offer help. It was not a radical call for unionization, but it is the closest Keighley’s show has come to reckoning with the destructive side of the brands it worships.”
Obviously, Kotaku is more focused on the narrative that Amir Satvat is taking time out of his day to help others and does not mention how Satvat is represented by the show. Most people who know about Kotaku also know of Tencent and the amount of influence they have in the gaming industry, so they should be a little more critical of how Satvat was presented at the show. Kotaku does, at least, criticize Keighley and his show’s worshipful behavior toward the brands that appear, but they also highlight unionization as the potential solution to layoffs without considering why people are getting laid off in the first place. I’m speculating/editorializing, but it’s as though Kotaku is suggesting that these layoffs were a result of the companies being malicious and apathetic towards their employees rather than, perhaps, their products not selling well because the people making and publishing the games were not considering what their audience wanted. I’m not saying that sort of thing doesn't happen, as it has many times in the past at places like Electronic Arts and Activision, I’m just saying unionization is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all solution.
Kotaku’s limited reporting aside, the grossness of the AAA gaming industry was on full display during this show. Between the numerous musical performances of songs from games I haven’t played and the fleeting moments in which Keighley quickly gave out awards, trailers were played. These trailers cost at least $250,000 a piece to play at the event, by the way—the longer trailers cost even more. It’s a huge racket that is just flowing with cash while trying to present itself as sympathetic to the various game developers who lost their jobs in the last year, without acknowledging why the video game industry is going through its current struggles. I guess none of them saw this video by Laura Fryer (see below), an industry vet who perfectly lays out just one of the various reasons the industry is struggling. From games that seem like they should have come out years ago with their look and style, to those just filled with messaging gamers want nothing to do with, recent releases have made it difficult not to be cynical while watching a trailer for an upcoming game. During the early 2000s, a trailer for a brand-new intellectual property by Naughty Dog Studios would get anyone excited. Now, I could not care less about their new sci-fi action game having destroyed all their goodwill over the years, and I have a feeling I’m not alone.
At over three hours, the show was simply a lengthy commercial with a few musical performances as master grifter, Geoff Keighley, made bank off companies desperate to get eyes on their next flop. While there were certainly announcements from Eastern developers that warranted excitement, like Onimusha, as well as smaller games, like Slay the Spire II, the show was little more than a bloated advertisement that felt like a long walk through a disgusting swamp enveloped in a miasma of self-indulgent farts that event attendees were eager to sniff. On several different livestreams of the event, I heard the term “circle-jerk” tossed around multiple times, and it’s pretty accurate. Add on the little segment in the middle about layoffs without full disclosure of the “saint” being presented the award during that segment, and you have yourself a really gross show that perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the game industry right now. Of the various games showcased, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half the studios go through layoffs next year when their projects flop.
E3 may be gone but its proverbial replacement is somehow far worse.
Sidescrollers stream timestamps of interest about Amir Satvat:
1:17:18 - Sets up the moment in the show
1:23:00 - “Somebody in chat said he was a Tencent director. I don’t know about that.”
1:24:10 - “Oh, shit…chat wasn’t lying.”
1:25:44 - “Is this guy employed by Tencent right now?”
1:37:05 - More details
1:38:58 - Even more details
Summary of events - Covers what happened, how it was presented, and why his connections to Tencent is a big deal
PatricianTV & PrivateSessions stream that covers Amir as well as the grossness of the show: