Baldur's Gate 3 led the show with nine nominations and six wins, including Game of the Year and Best Performance for Neil Newbon. Several new games were announced during the show, including Marvel's Blade, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, and Visions of Mana. The show was viewed by over 118 million streams, the most in its history, with more than 17,000 co-streams from content creators. Journalists criticized the show for prioritizing announcements and celebrities over awards, and its lack of acknowledgement of industry layoffs and the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis.
Background
As with previous iterations of The Game Awards, the 2023 show was hosted and produced by Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley.[2] He returned as an executive producer alongside Kimmie Kim, and Richard Preuss and LeRoy Bennett returned as director and creative director, respectively.[3] Sydnee Goodman returned as host of the 30-minute preshow, titled Opening Act.[4] The presentation took place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California, on December 7, 2023,[2] and was live streamed across more than 30 online platforms globally, including Facebook, Instagram, Steam, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube.[5][6]
Public tickets became available for purchase on November 6,[3] and sold out within a week,[7] quicker than any previous year.[8] The show increased security following stage interruptions at the previous ceremony in December 2022 and Gamescom's Opening Night Live in August 2023.[9] Keighley said the show and preshow aimed for a collective three-hour runtime, like its predecessor.[4] The Game Awards 2023 was the fourth show to feature Future Class, a list of 50 individuals from across the video game industry who best represent its future. The list was announced on December 5, featuring individuals like Marvel's Midnight Suns writer Emma Kidwell, The Sims 4 experience design lead Alister Lee, and accessibility consultant Ross Minor.[10]
Announcements
According to Keighley, the show avoided the term "world premiere" for new announcements, instead treating all content equally.[9] Announcements on both released and upcoming games were made for:[11][12]
Nominees were announced on November 13, 2023.[13] Any game released for public consumption on or before November 17 was eligible for consideration. The nominees were compiled by a jury panel composed of members from over 100 media outlets globally. Specialized juries decided the nominees for categories such as accessibility, adaptation, and esports.[14] Winners were determined between the jury (90 percent) and public voting (10 percent); the latter was held via the official website and Discord server[a] until December 6.[15][16] The exception is the Players' Voice award, fully nominated and voted-on by the public, for which voting opened on November 27.[17] According to Keighley, first-day website voting saw a 73% increase over the previous year.[8]
The Game Awards partnered with Nighttimes and Studio 568 to create an in-game hub world in Fortnite, available from November 14, allowing players to vote for their favorite user-created islands among ten nominees; the winner was announced during the ceremony. Keighley had been seeking to create more in-game events since hosting a live show in Fortnite in 2019,[18][19] and sought to allow in-game live viewership of the show in the future. He felt it was a more effective advertising technique for the show than traditional marketing like billboards.[8] According to Keighley, the hub world surpassed one million plays within three days, with more than 875,000 unique players.[20]
Awards
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).[21]
Rémy "XTQZZZ" Quoniam of Team Vitality requested the removal of his Best Esports Coach nomination as he had not coached any professional games in 2023.[24][25]
Geoff Keighley (top) hosted the main show while Sydnee Goodman (bottom) hosted the preshow.[4]
The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or introduced trailers. All other awards were presented by Keighley or Goodman.[29][30][31]
The following individuals or groups performed musical numbers.[29][35][36]Pedro Eustache, who became known as "Flute Guy" during the 2022 ceremony, returned to perform as part of the Game Awards Orchestra.[37]
Some journalists were surprised by Cyberpunk 2077's four nominations—twice as many as its original nominations in 2021—particularly due to the game's troubled launch.[39][40] Many considered Destiny 2's Best Community Support nomination poorly timed, coming weeks after layoffs at developer Bungie, including much of its community team.[41][42][43] Journalists felt several performances were overlooked and suggested Best Performance be split to consider leading and supporting performances to widen its scope.[44][45][46]TheGamer's Stacey Henley found Pizza Tower's nomination for Best Debut Indie Game but not Best Independent Game incongruous.[47]
The absence of nominations for Chained Echoes was highlighted as a flaw in the eligibility period for games released the preceding December;[48][49] some writers opined the show had a recency bias, with half the Game of the Year nominees released in October.[44][50] Many reporters and players highlighted the sole nomination for Starfield, a blockbuster game from a reputable developer,[26][39][51] though some found it appropriate due to the game's lesser quality compared to its competition.[50][52] The lack of nominations for Hogwarts Legacy was similarly highlighted, with some citing the game's divisiveness as a possible reason,[39][53] though others felt it was due to its relative quality.[49][54][55] Some lamented the omission of Octopath Traveler 2,[39][56][57] and others felt Final Fantasy XVI was snubbed a Game of the Year nomination.[49][58]
Several journalists and viewers expressed confusion at Dave the Diver's Best Independent Game nomination as its developer, Mintrocket, is a subsidiary of the larger company Nexon, which previously claimed the game was "not necessarily" an indie;[44][47]TheGamer's Henley wrote that Baldur's Gate 3 was "technically an entirely independent game" but was likely not considered eligible due to developer Larian Studios's employee count and use of an existing intellectual property.[47] In response, Keighley said "independent can mean different things to different people" and opted to allow the jury to decide the final selections.[59]TheGamer's Jade King called Games for Impact "a locker to stuff all the diverse games into", with four of its six nominees not receiving any other nominations, and felt it was typically limited to independent games despite others fitting the criteria.[60]
Ceremony
Before the ceremony, more than 3,000 game industry members, including 79 previous Future Class recipients[61]—more than half of the 150 members to date[62]—signed an open letter calling for a statement to be read during the show addressing the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis, supporting the rights of Palestinians and calling for a ceasefire, and asking the industry to address the dehumanization of people from South West Asia and North Africa and their portrayal as villains or terrorists in games. The letter's author, 2021 Future Class recipient Younès Rabii, said it was motivated by Meg Jayanth's withdrawal as a presenter at the Golden Joystick Awards in October after being barred from making a statement about Palestinians.[63][64][65]The Mary Sue's Ana Valens bemoaned the show's lack of response[66] and Paste's Garrett Martin criticized it as "cowardly".[61]Rock Paper Shotgun's Alice Bell felt the show only would have voiced support if it "was a profitable stance rather than a moral one".[67] After the ceremony, developers of nominees Goodbye Volcano High and Venba said they had planned to acknowledge the crisis in their acceptance speeches.[1] Keighley spoke with Future Class members after the show; some members felt he was deflective and unprepared, while others found the meeting productive and hopeful.[68][69]
The ceremony was criticized for prioritizing announcements and celebrity guests over nominees and winners.[70][73][74] Some journalists felt this was represented by actor Timothée Chalamet presenting Game of the Year instead of a game developer.[62][70]Obsidian Entertainment director Josh Sawyer called the show "an embarrassing indictment of a segment of the industry desperate for validation via star power with little respect for the devs it's supposedly honoring".[1]Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell felt future ceremonies should mirror the goals of its own industry rather than seek validation and relevance from others.[62]Video Games Chronicle's Andy Robinson empathized with the production team's challenges and considered the show among the best to date but felt it suffered from runtime and curation problems.[75]VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi felt the show "lived up to the reputation of being ... the Oscars of gaming".[76] Some commentators considered highlights included Old Gods of Asgard's performance[71][77][78] and Abubakar Salim announcing Tales of Kenzera: Zau in memory of his late father.[74][71][79]
Journalists found it disrespectful that celebrity guests were given several minutes to speak—including more than six minutes for Hideo Kojima and Jordan Peele[80]—while winners were allocated thirty seconds before being prompted to "wrap it up" and cut off by music,[1][67][81] and others were relegated to the preshow or announced in quick succession without acceptance speeches.[74][73][71]The Escapist's Liam Nolan calculated that winners' speeches cumulatively ran for less than 11 minutes, compared to the Academy Awards's 30-minute average.[82] Commentators cited Best Performance winner Neil Newbon being cut off while talking about players' heartfelt responses to his work, and Game of the Year acceptee Swen Vincke while paying tribute to his deceased colleague,[1][71][72] and found it disrespectful considering several acceptees speak English as a second language.[70][83][84] Keighley said he asked his team to relax the rule during the show and acknowledged it would be addressed in future.[1]GameSpot and IGN published speeches from winners who were unable to accept at the show.[85][86]
The show was picketed by pro-worker protestors advocating for unionization.[71][87][88]
Critics bemoaned the show's lack of acknowledgement of the video game industry's mass layoffs;[1][89][83]VentureBeat's Rachel Kaser found it particularly disappointing considering the show's focus on film and television industry professionals,[90] and The Verge's Ash Parrish wrote that "Keighley let video game developers down".[89]Dot Esports's Issy van der Velde called it "disappointing but not entirely unexpected" based on the show's history of avoiding acknowledgment.[91]Game Developer's Chris Kerr criticized Keighley's opening speech for calling for unity but failing to address layoffs, and felt the show should spend "less time chasing a hollow sense of legitimacy by curating a showcase that has the cultural awareness and humanity of a shameless Super Bowl ad".[92] The ceremony was picketed by pro-worker protestors advocating for unionization, including members of the Game Workers of Southern California and SAG-AFTRA;[71][87][88] one picket sign read "best year for games, worst year for game workers".[92]
Some Call of Duty developers criticized presenter Christopher Judge's joke that his 2022 acceptance speech was lengthier than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's (2023) single-player story campaign.[93][94][95] Current and former developers countered by citing Call of Duty's higher commercial success, though some deleted their responses and said they respected God of War, in which Judge portrays Kratos.[96][97]Barry Sloane, who portrays Modern Warfare's Captain Price, similarly criticized Judge's joke but later wrote "all's fair in games and war" and complimented his performances.[98][99]Sledgehammer Games's Darcy Sandall found Judge's joke unexpected "from a peer, at an event that [sic] supposed to be celebrating this year's achievements in gaming", particularly in light of reports regarding its development involving crunch.[93]
Viewership
The in-person audience for The Game Awards 2022 at the Peacock Theater
An estimated 118 million viewers watched the ceremony, the most in the show's history and a 15% increase from the previous year. More than 17,000 content creators co-streamed the event, including over 13,680 on Twitch (a 24% increase) and 4,000 on YouTube. On Twitch, the show peaked at 1.94 million concurrent viewers and saw a 10% increase in total watch time.[6] The extension "Twitch Predicts The Game Awards" reached almost four million views, with 330,000 concurrent viewers.[100] On YouTube, the ceremony set a show record with a peak of 1.7 million concurrent viewers, a 35% increase, with over 900,000 on the official channel, a 53% increase.[6]
Notes
^In China, fan voting is held via Bilibili, WeChat, and other platforms.[15]
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