Game Awards return in December with live-streamed broadcast available in VR

By Danny Cowan Published November 2, 2016

the game awards 2016 nominees gameawards16 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Game Awards, video game journalist Geoff Keighley’s annual gaming showcase event, will return in December with a live-streamed ceremony honoring the year’s best multiplatform releases.

Pitching this year’s ceremony as “one of the most widely distributed digital events in history,” The Game Awards’ organizers revealed plans to host “a first-of-its-kind live VR broadcast with NextVR” from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

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The upcoming event marks the Game Awards’ third annual ceremony. In addition to honoring standout games across multiple categories, the Game Awards will reveal a slate of previously unannounced upcoming releases during hosted segments throughout the show.

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Gamers will have multiple options when viewing the Game Awards this year, as the event will be broadcast live via Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, Steam, Facebook, and NextVR’s virtual reality platform. The ceremony will also be simulcast in China as part of a partnership with Chinese media company Tencent.

“Video games have the power to unite communities from all over the world, and this year we will share the power of gaming with more people than ever before,” Keighley, the Game Awards creator and producer, said.

“For 2016, we will expand our all-digital, no-friction path to global distribution through partnerships that include the first live awards show broadcast on Twitter, an initiative with Tencent to bring The Game Awards live to China, and our innovative, first-of-its-kind live VR broadcast with NextVR.”

Nominees for this year’s event have not yet been named, but viewers can expect to see intense competition across categories like Best Independent Game, Developer of the Year, and Game of the Year. Developer CD Projekt Red made an especially strong showing during last year’s ceremony, where its landmark RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was named Best Role-Playing Game and Game of the Year.

The Game Awards 2016 will kick off on December 1.

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Geoff Keighley sets date for the 10th annual Game Awards

Key art for The Game Awards 2023.

Geoff Keighley announced when the 10th The Game Awards will take place ahead of his latest show, Gamescom Opening Night Live.
The Game Awards 2023 will happen on December 7 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Like last year, the show will have a live audience and an orchestra conducted by Lorne Balfe. For those who can't attend it in person, Keighley doesn't plan on rolling back streaming efforts and is already promising that this year's The Game Awards will have official streams across YouTube, Twitch, Steam, X, Facebook, and TikTok.

This will be the 10th annual The Game Awards show. It began in 2014 as a successor to the Spike Video Game Awards, which Keighley also had a part in creating. While this is a significant anniversary for the show, according to Keighley, it won't break from the established awards and announcements formula that much.
"Each year, we look forward to hosting a show that honors the standout games of the year, while also announcing and previewing some of the world’s biggest and most anticipated video games," Keighley explained in a press release. "With so many beloved video game franchises exploring new mediums and developers creating new experiences across platforms, whether in games, television, movies, and beyond, the industry continues to expand in many surprising ways, and we can’t wait to honor the year’s best games and to show viewers around the world what’s next."
The Game Awards 2023 takes place on December 7. A specific start time has not been confirmed yet, but its preshow has begun at around 4:30 p.m. PT in recent years.

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Impressive mixed-reality laser tag game may be VR’s new ace in the hole

Spatial Ops

It’s an early December afternoon in Stockholm, Sweden, where I’m sitting in a fancy office suite eating falafel amid a small group of journalists and VR content creators. This is my third day in the office-lined Norrmalm district of Stockholm, just a stone’s throw away from scenic Old Town, where approximately 200 game developers from all over the world commute each morning to work in Resolution Games’ labyrinthine three-story studio. It’s shockingly easy to get lost here amidst the chaos and excitement surrounding each of Resolution’s various virtual reality projects, but the atmosphere is so warm that you’d be unsurprised to discover the studio contains two rooms specifically designated “nap rooms” in accordance with Swedish law.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t get much time to nap -- at all, actually, given the extreme jetlag one experiences when traveling from Portland, Oregon, all the way to the snowy Nordic realm of Sweden. But that’s okay because I'm wired from my own excitement in anticipation of one thing: a unique mixed-reality arena shooter called Spatial Ops, which I and 10 others would finally get to test against one another only a few moments later. The VR game, which is out today, may very well be the tech's next big hit, showing the true potential of mixed-reality gameplay.
Parallel space
If you’re unfamiliar with Resolution Games, the studio is best known for creating highly original and somewhat quirky VR games like Demeo and Blaston, the former of which is arguably VR’s most faithful recreation of Dungeons & Dragons, simulating everything from the tabletop experience (allowing you to share a simulated space with up to four players across several platforms, in and out of virtual reality) to the miniatures on the board, which you can pick up and place by hand, giving them a lifelike feel. Meanwhile, Blaston is a physically active shoot-'em-up where you face off against exactly one other player in a duel, but the twist here is that each gun shoots very slowly and you have to outsmart your opponent by blocking off their ability to evade your bullets while they try to do the same thing to you.

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The Game Awards delivered dazzling trailers, but winners played second-fiddle

God of War Ragnarok's Christopher Judge hugs Al Pacino at The Game Awards.

If the goal of the modern awards show is to make "moments," then The Game Awards 2022 certainly rose to the occasion -- and then some. The Geoff Keighley-produced ceremony was among the show's best overall efforts yet, packing in an excellent slate of reveals, some genuine surprises, and enough "WTF" moments to make headlines even at mainstream publications that don't normally pay attention to the world of gaming.

While it may have been a particularly exciting show for fans and casual viewers, it was an uneven ceremony when it came to the actual awards. Rushed winner announcements and speeches took a back seat to flashy trailers over the course of the night. That certainly isn't new for the nine-year-old show, which has built its reputation on providing E3-calibur announcements, but awards felt like a noticeably low priority during the broadcast.

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