Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards announced nominations today on a YouTube livestream and it wasn’t what the public expected.
Most assumed that the tenth iteration of Keighley’s annual event, which is typically driven by corporate interests and the legacy games journalism elites, would celebrate failed “woke” titles like Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Concord, Dustborn, and Star Wars: Outlaws. However, those games received very little attention while fan favorites like Black Myth Wukong and Astrobot ruled the day.
A screenshot of Geoff Keighley from The Game Awards – YouTube, TheGameAwards
It’s possible this about face could be a response to Stuttering Craig of Side Scrollers launching his own video game award show, dubbed The Real Game Awards.
The nominees for GAME OF THE YEAR at #TheGameAwards on December 12.
Vote Now: https://t.co/ExP93r9Pcq pic.twitter.com/75AZeqo6KS
— The Game Awards (@thegameawards) November 18, 2024
The games mentioned above weren’t even up for the Games for Impact award, which celebrates “thought-provoking games with a profound pro-social meaning,” according to Keighley. Those four titles, with their heavy handed identity politics and social messaging, seemed poised to dominate that category, with many expecting at least one to appear for other big awards like Game of The Year, Best Game Direction, and more.
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
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The presentation was (of course) hosted by Keighley, a man who never backs down from an opportunity to be on camera. Despite its listed start time of 11:30 am EST, the stream began with a 30-minute countdown. Once Keighley actually appeared, the nominations took only 11 minutes to announce.
The big nominees this year were Astrobot and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, which netted seven nominations eache, including the coveted Game of The Year.
Here are the most nominated games for #TheGameAwards on December 12: pic.twitter.com/jF0IJvKtZL
— The Game Awards (@thegameawards) November 18, 2024
Up next was Metaphor: Refantazio with six nominations.
Black Myth Wukong, a wildly popular action game from China, received four nominations. This surprised many as the games journalism industry attacked the Chinese game before its release, alleging sexism issues with the developer. Many took this as another sign that things were changing.
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong (2024), Game Science
Eyebrows collectively raised during the announcement for Game of the Year nominees. Listed among them was Elden Ring: Shadow of The Erdtree, a DLC expansion of the original title, which won Game of the Year in 2022. Full exploration of the DLC can take in excess of 40 hours, so while it is DLC content, its size does rival that of a standalone game.
Still, it was odd to see a DLC expansion listed among so many heavy hitters.
GAME OF THE YEAR nominees at #TheGameAwards on 12.12:
🔹ASTRO BOT
🔹Balatro
🔹Black Myth: Wukong
🔹Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
🔹Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
🔹Metapahor: ReFantazio🗳️ Vote Now: https://t.co/ExP93r9hmS pic.twitter.com/AU7pToEteo
— The Game Awards (@thegameawards) November 18, 2024
The other nominees for Game of The Year include:
- Astrobot
- Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
- Balatro
- Black Myth Wukong
- Metaphor: Refantazio
Star Wars Outlaws, the much maligned and extremely buggy Ubisoft failure in a galaxy far, far away only garnered two major award nominations. Humberly González, who plays Kay Vess in the game, was nominated for best performance. Women made up four out of the five nominations in this category for 2024. The game was also nominated for Best Action Adventure game, despite Ubisoft admitting recently that the title underperformed.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
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Outlaws also got a nod for best accessibility features. Veilguard was also nominated for that same category. This was the only nomination for Veilguard, an agenda-driven BioWare RPG which failed to break 100,000 concurrent players on Steam.
Concord, a live service game that Sony shuttered after only two weeks, and Dustborn, a game that weaponizes cancel culture (yes, really!) received no nominations.
Keighley ended the broadcast by urging players to cast their votes for the award winners, however that’s not going to do much in the long run.
A screenshot from Concord (2024), Firewalk Studios
The Game Awards nominations and winners are decided primarily by a committee made up of legacy access media games journalists from outlets like IGN, Polygon, and Variety.
While the public votes on winners, that public score only counts for 10% of the actual results. The jury gets 90% control over who wins and loses.
This unbalanced power dynamic was what led Stuttering Craig of Side Scrollers to launch his own award show, dubbed The Real Game Awards.
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“Year after year, over and over again after The Game Awards people say there has to be a real award show for gamers,” Stuttering Craig said in his official announcement back in March. “Well, let’s do it!”
The new show’s winners are voted on by players, with no legacy access media involvement and no corporate sponsorships. The exact opposite of how Keighley’s show has operated for the last ten years.
Craig’s show appears to have rattled Keighley, who recently tried to file a trademark with the US patent office for “The Game Awards.” This would, if accepted, prevent others from running their own award shows with the incredibly generic term “game awards” in their title or description. Keighley’s filing marks the first time he’s tried trademarking the name, even though he’s been running the award show for a decade.
A screenshot of an interview in which Geoff Keighley was given the nickname “Dorito Pope” by gamers – YouTube, LevelSave
The only difference this year is that there’s a new game in town that’s getting a lot of traction.
It’s unlikely that Keighley will succeed in his attempt to trademark this term as the US patent office has laws against trademarking common use terms.
Do you think the threat of The Real Game Awards made an impact on The Game Awards nominations for 2024? Sound off and let us know your thoughts!
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