Geoff Keighley Launching New Game Awards Show

Video games are getting a new awards show, courtesy of Geoff Keighley. The longtime producer of Spike TV's Video Game Awards announced a new event called The Game Awards this morning.

The Game Awards takes place in Las Vegas on December 5. It's only a few weeks away, and will be broadcast on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Steam, and elsewhere.

You can even purchase tickets to the event, which go on sale tomorrow.

Variety broke news of The Game Awards, which makes it sound awfully similar to what's been produced in previous years on Spike TV. In essence, it's less gaming's equivalent of the Oscars and more of an opportunity for the industry to hand out awards while simultaneously advertising what's coming next.

As Variety put it:

"The 'Game Awards' also will be produced as an awards show that hypes new games with a first look a trailers and other content, along with musical performances, appearances by game developers, eSports players and online content creators."

Reggie Fils-Aime, Peter Moore, Hideo Kojima, and others sit on the advisory board for The Game Awards.

Godspeed, Geoff Keighley. Apparently he's going to keep tinkering and rebooting this formula until he gets it right.

Sure, this could be fine. I've never watched or been very offended by the existence of the Spike Video game Awards so if this is similar with less cheese then I might even tune in. Aren't the GDC awards already gaming's equivalent to the Oscars anyway?

I hope this one isn't an embarrassment in the same way the previous one was.

I wonder if they'll officially launch that Doritos flavored Mt Dew during the awards?

So was the VGA cancelled then?

"New" game awards show. It'll be the same shit we've gotten so far.

What a terrible time to announce something that's happening in less than a month.

I expect this will be a more distilled version of the VGAs. Without having to worry about timeslots and commercial breaks and having Linkin Park play on top of a roof somewhere, they can just show a bunch of trailers, give some AAA games special badges to put on their box come release and then be done with it.

Lets hope it isn't crap.

Probably closer to the SAG awards, with all the self-back-patting.

In Las Vegas? The same city as the PlayStation event? On the same weekend? Interesting.

I wonder if Joel Mchale is welcome.

The awardshow last year was a wonderful trainwreck.

The Doritos awards?

@brendan: Neither have I but the last one was rough. Like I found there to be redeeming qualities most years, none for last year.

And yeah looking for these game awards to be the Oscars of video games is silly. GDC is probably the closest you'll get it's just they're not too well known. Though I think I've seen them on TV before.

huh, maybe this is more about SpikeTV ending it's VGA television broadcasts since the last one was hugely successful through it's streaming sites. I still wonder how similar this will be to the VGAs, since Geoff Keighley has a spotty reputation with more hardcore audiences then television audiences.

I wonder how long they spent on the name.

Well I sure don't enjoy these shows that Keighley puts on, but he's a hardworking guy that has a lot of pull, so I'll happily be able to ignore the actual show but still probably get some interesting announcements.

This should be good since Keighley has the reins and doesn't have to deal with network executives. Here's hoping developers still treat this like a big deal and have reveals there.

Can't wait to be witness to another twitter discussion between Alex and Keighley about how it sucked and how to improve it.

Diddy kong racing 2 by retro and monster games announcement on the show. Cmon kevin callhagn rumor.

I never cared for the last and I don't see why this would change anything. Yay, for unneeded ego stroking?

From their site:

The Game Awards is not affiliated with or produced by Viacom Media Networks or Spike TV.

Well, that seems like a friendly enough reminder.

Sponsored by Doritos and Dew

Only way I'll watch it is if McHale comes back to save us from another train wreck.

So the same thing.

Maybe Spike will have less of a hand in it though so that's good.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker comes out on the 5th and Guilty Gear Xrd comes out on the 16th. Any awards for the year of 2014 are automatically invalid.

As long as it's a Fallout not ruined by Bethesda I'm all for it!

They need to put that in giant letters everywhere.

@onemanarmyy: Geoff has an account on NeoGaf and is answering questions in the official thread about the awards. He confirmed Joel is NOT hosting.

You know I say this as someone who thinks Keighley has done wonders to bring video games to the mainstream audience but I think it's time he hands off the reigns to someone else to produce. I think of it kind of like when a show or game you really like or enjoy starts going down the hillside midway through it's run. Sometimes you just need the rejuvenation of a new creative team to get the juices flowing again.

I wonder how long it took to come up with that title.

When discussing the Spike Video Game Awards show, the criticism/apology that has always been made by the press is that the show has to be this way because a straight forward awards show would be too boring. I'm starting to wonder whether that is actually true. At this point, an actual awards show might be better. Am I the only one who thinks that an Oscar-style awards show - with tuxedos and limousines - would actually be more fun than the show they're doing now?

Whenever anyone comments on how the Spike show is just an embarrassing mess of previews and celebrity appearances, the response we get from the press is always some version of, "Well, they're doing the best they can to make it entertaining. You wouldn't want a regular old awards show, would you?"

At this point.... yeah, I actually would.

@gaff said:

Hmmm... this at least gives me a little bit of hope that it'll be better than the VGAs. I've never had a problem with Keighley, so him being in charge of the production doesn't bother me... and without the corporate presence there, this could potentially be a more honest award show, even if they still sprinkle in trailers and music performances and such.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Points for trying again (and again and again). Better someone like Keighley, much as I'm not a fan, than some Spike TV genius with no concept of what games mean to people. Maybe they'll get this right one day.

Keighley is a good people and it's clear that he really cares about trying to make a quality show but this sounds like same shit, different name. I know everyone likes their trailers but if you want to be seen as an actual award show, you should get away from what are essentially ads for upcoming games and focus on actually giving out the awards.

I'm glad to see more events here in Vegas. Looks like I'm going to this during the same week that I'm going to the Playstation Experience event.

Nope. No thanks! There is no way this can be much better than the Spike show with what they've said to be planning.

I expect it to be a rehash of earlier VGAs, although I will always hold a bit of hope that something changes for the better.

In reality though, who am I kidding?

interesting that means that we could both ps4/xbox one reveals if both psn/xbox live are broadcasting

Boy, that sounds awful.

Which games will the Dewritos Pope canonize this year????

No Joel McHale and Odd Future? FOR SHAME.

It could be alright, I guess. It sounds like the exact same thing as the VGAs except without Spike and the public can attend.

Is Spike still doing the VGAs?

People complain about this too much. At the very least, the VGAs are a wonderful train wreck to witness, and the drinking game potential is so high!

They almost always get one pretty awesome video game reveal too; as awful as VGX was last year, they revealed stinkin' No Man's Sky, and Skyrim was revealed at a VGA.

Info dumping from NeoGAF:

• Not a black tie event.
• Mixture of (international) press and fan votes.

• "The advisory board is not involved in the selection of nominees or winners. They are supporters of the show in terms of airing it on their platforms, sharing it with their fanbases, and so on. There are also many other partners of the show (including media outlets), but we will share those details down the road.

  The advisory board members do not pay to be on the board, nor is there any fee to submit games for nomination."

• Started after Last of Us: One Night Live: "Neil (Druckmann) turned to me as we walked off stage and said, "You should make the awards feel like that."" Geoff Keighley also draws inspiration from his work on the Final Hours series.
• Not sure about Joel McHale.

I don't care one bit how cheesy the show is as long as there are some good reveals.

@hammondoftexas: I just mean is it going to be a good Fallout, like Fallout 1 and 2, or a soulless husk like Fallout 3?

Reggie Fils-Aime, Peter Moore, Hideo Kojima, and others sit on the advisory board for The Game Awards.

What does an advisory board do? Are they the ones that pick which games go in which category?

Perhaps the show will be more condensed and less focused on corporate sponsorship. They might actually have time to talk about the award categories and the games receiving them.