Geoff Keighley Launching New Game Awards Show

Keighley is answering questions about the show in this GAF thread right now. Has among other things confirmed that it will be about 2 hours long.

From the GAF thread about this, Keighley's answer:

The awards will be selected by a combination of the press and fans. More details will be announced in the coming weeks about that.

He later specified that most categories would be chosen by press, some would be fan categories. Pretty much how it worked on VGX, I think?

Hopefully it works out this time.

@sterling said:

Yup, when Viacom cancelled the GameTrailers TV show and fired a bunch of people from the site.

I'll admit it: I'm excited for this because whenever the holidays roll around it sparks my nostalgia and love for video games and as bad as the VGAs were, I enjoyed watching them because of my love for games, the industry, and new game announcements. I hope this is a step up from the VGAs with less embarrassing rap acts and celebrity guests and more noticeable award announcements that aren't tucked into a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. I hope Keighly pulls it off.

Wow, the marketing team probably worked all night to come up with that name.

I don't care how cheesy it is, just give me some cool game announcements and I'll be happy.

The logo looks like someone hit it with his head from the inside.

@humanity: Fallout 2 was pretty Damn soulless too, it's basically a fan game that was made in 6 months (and it shows)

Well, Viacom didn't cancel GTTV or fire anyone, they sold Gametrailers outright. The VGA's were never going to be a Spike thing anymore because Viacom no longer has anything to do with Keighly or Gametrailers.

Giant Bomb makes better video game awards shows with just a podcast room, a green screen, and some pleasant wit.

@sor_eddie: Fallout 2 is one of the greatest RPG's ever made. That said I accept that everyone can have their own opinion about things.

That aside I hope these awards turn out a bit better than the previous ones. They do keep getting better just at a very slow pace. It's like society has moved forward and mainstream media is this huge rubberband thats very slowly catching up with the status quo.

A celebration of vague marketing and giving people pointless shit to yell about on twitter for a week.

no thanks.

VGX was close to working well, they just should've used Daniel Kayser as Keighley's partner. I thought they were on the right track.

I won't lie, I'm just crossing my fingers for a solid place for reveals in December. 6 months from E3 and after the holiday season, games could use a boost of excitement.

Keighley is clearly a good guy that cares about games. I think he just hasn't found the right angle to do a good award show yet. Maybe this is it? Let's give him a chance to try and evolve this thing for a while, we can't get anything good if nobody tries.

I think his last year one was super special. So many gifs came out of it. I think we need the same cast.

An attempt to clean up the awards show image after last year with that dreadful performance. Still I hope there's some cool reveals (please be Fallout 4).

So it's everything that is wrong with Spike's show remade into another show? greeaaaat....

The VGA's were a surrealist masterpiece. How the hell do you not realize that Odd Future are basically professional trolls before you booked them?

I find it funny that many of you consider the Oscars to be about awards .... it is just a huge pr machine people .

I don't think I'd value a show like this particularly much.

I do value finding out what each of the individual GB staff were most impressed by each year. I don't really want or need anything more amorphous or wanky than that.... even the idea of deciding an amalgamated top 10 games for the website as a whole (while entertaining as a process) is actually less interesting or useful to me than learning about each individual staff member's list.

I rather they just forego the awards handing and just show trailers and reveal new games because we all know the reason why people watch the show.

So is this functionally the same sort of awards show, just with no attachment to Spike, and a somewhat different team of people funding/producing it?

I'm sure like everyone else I was hoping this would be something more legitimate than the VGAs, but apparently not. =[

Sounds exactly like the VGA's, which it seems like Spike has given up on, so... Pepsi is now "Pepsi New"

If only there were an academy that hosted a black-tie event, treating video games with the same reverence as cinema and TV.

Oh wait, there is and it has been going for some time now.

http://www.bafta.org/games

I'm guessing that they're more advising the show on like, how their brand can be represented in the show, and maybe broadly, what kind of presenters and co-hosts they are and are not OK with. Also probably advising on what upcoming games to feature and stuff, since they're the game makers.

MOUNTAIN DEWRITOS

Gotta admire Geoff's tenacity with this. I hope he really has the drive to do it right this time.

Awards shows tend to be deeply problematic and controversial things no matter what they cover.

Can't wait to see best PC game again because PC is the only genre for PC.

@galacticpunt said:

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

It will be orange powdery smoke.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try, try...

I can almost hear the sound of thousands of people going: Ugh

@aetheldod said:

lol, what? The VGAs are a million times more of a PR machine; they announce and advertise upcoming games directly in the show. Yeah, the Oscars obviously give some prestige to the things that win and those movies sell a bit better on DVD/Blu-ray, but the awards don't even go to things that are super populist all the time anyways. The Oscars are way more about a bunch of disconnected old film industry fogies sitting in a room somewhere deciding what movies and performances were good based on values from decades ago. And then they build a big show around that.

@aetheldod: I don't mind the Oscars as a Pr machine. They bring a spotlight (and more box office money) to well-told stories that wouldn't get the same chance to shine as standard summer popcorn fare. Several unique, non-action character stories might not even get made if studios didn't put importance on winning those little golden statues. Call it a necessary evil at worst but it's one I appreciate.

Ugh

I like Geoff Keighley so I wish him the best of luck with this new show. Previous efforts have been terrible, but I believe having this big show is something always worth trying.

And it'll be serious this time.

@eribuster: I'd rather someone other than Keighley give it a shot at this point. The concept needs fresh blood, and at this point it feels like he's just banging his head on a wall trying to get his vision of what the show should be to work.

@galacticpunt: Goddammit, its so unfair but these pictures crack me up every time.

Godspeed Keighley. Godspeed.

@amyggen: Cool. Thanks for the info.

@bisonhero: That would make sense.

hey you know, he's trying, and godspeed for that at least.

I look forward to mercilessly making fun of this.

Can't wait.

"The Game Awards takes place in Las Vegas..."

and that's when i stopped reading, lol.

As usual, if I can watch Giant Bomb watch it, I'll watch it. Otherwise, I'll just read about the new announcements after the show.

Game of the year is the most important thing in the biz. That's why there are a bazillion of them.