by infantpipoc
It’s that time of the year again. Christmas plus solar New Year approaching and awards for video games being handed out starting with the Keighleys. Between 2017 and 2018, all the video game podcasts I listened to would discuss the meaning of this category: Best Game Direction. The discussion stopped once that award was given to Kojima Productions in 2019 for Death Stranding. Guess Geoff Keighley’s pursuit for the so-called video game auteur had finished its first phase with the award finally going to something branded “A Hideo Kojima Game”. Or maybe it's because we all got a bigger fish to fry by 2020.
While the “Best Game Direction” category did not start until 2016, it got its root back in Keighleys’ Spike days. “Studio of the Year” was introduced to Video Game Awards in 2006 and continued until that award ended in 2013. When the Game Awards got started in 2014, it has a category called “Developer of the Year” and it was quite a mess in the first 2 years. In many ways “Best Game Direction” is a return to form.
So yours truly think instead of their works, why not take a look back at the companies that won those Keighleys? I got some wise to crack when it comes to games I played or for some other reason. Again, just regard this as some mad rumbling of a consumer.
(The introduction above was originally written late November, 2022. I intend to upgrade this yearly. Of course, the Game Award 2022 editing coming very soon)
Edit Note December, 2022:
Added the winners of The Game Awards 2022. Guess there are two more rings, pun not intended, Mr. Keighley placed his kisses on. Congratulations to From and Bandai Namco for taking both. Maybe I will check out Armored Core Six if there is no Soulborne shenanigan in it.
Edit Note December, 2023:
Armored Core Six played and "crowned" by yours truly. And congrats on winning Best Action, under the rag style as it was. Damn, nothing makes the Keighleys more "rigged" than this. 2022's lousy Bayonetta 3 winning just feels like giving Doug Bowser another spot for speech. Oh well, such is life. And I guess it's high time a fluent English speaker like Sam Lake getting on Keighley's auteur list.
Edit Note December, 2024:
Guess the voting committee behind Keighley's is tired of photo real hellscape as well. Or maybe it's just time for kiss Sony's ring again, the bloody thing was kissed 3 times at the turn of the decade after all. Funny, here in Game Science's country of origin, yours truly did see Astrobot being played more than Black Myth Wukong. Playstation had big booth in the year's China Joy and the Astrobot was the center of it. Then a Sam near my home had a PS5 showcase and I always saw kids playing the game on it whenever I went there.
Edit note Jan, 2025: some overhaul
When I first made this unordered list back in 2022, I didn’t know that it would get this messy only a couple of years in. So, this is the chronological order listing:
2006: Epic Game for Gears of War
2007: Harmonix Music Systems for Rock Band
2008: Media Molecules for Little Big Planet on PS3
2009: Rocksteady Studios Ltd for Batman Arkham Asylum
2010: Bioware for Mass Effect 2
2011: Bethesda Game Studio for the Elder Scroll V Skyrim, Keighley's game of that year
2012: Telltale Game for the first episodic series of Walking Dead, Keighley's game of that year
2013: Naughty Dog Inc. for the Last of Us
2014: which part of Nintendo for what game actually? The category was called "Developer of the Year" for crying out loud!
2015: CD Projekt Red. probably for the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, Keighley's game of that year
2016: Blizzard Entertainment for Overwatch, Keighley's game of that year
2017: Nintendo for the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Now, the era of double jeopardy. Unbroken up to 2024.
2018: SIE Santa Monica Studio and Sony Interactive Entertainment for God of War soft reboot, Keighley's game of that year
2019: Kojima Productions and Sony Interactive Entertainment for Death Stranding
2020: Naughty Dog Inc. and Sony Interactive Entertainment for the Last of Us Part II, Keighley's game of that year
No fourth kiss on Sony’s ring next year, but it was for a PS5 exclusive, at least when the award was given.
2021: Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks (Not to be confused with the aforementioned Bethesda Game Studio) for Deathloop
2022: FromSoftware Inc. and Bandai Namco Entertaiment for Elden Ring, Keighley's game of that year
2023: Remedy Entertainment Ltd and Epic Game Publishing (Which I consider as the same company as the Gears maker like the Wikipedia page on it does.) for Alan Wake II
2024: Team Asobi and Sony Interactive Entertainment for Astro Bot, Keighley's game of that year
Well, hope that metaphorical ring of yours does not rust from all Keighley’s “saliva” on it, you charging-way-too-much-for-what-you-offer piece of corporate shit!
Showing 1-10 of 20 items
Studio of the Year 2006 Spike Video Game Award for Gears of War The “grumpy grandpa” aspect of yours truly stubbornly thinks that original Gears of War’s third-person over-the-shoulder and cover-based shooting was the last time this industry created a new blend of genres. So kudos to the “Fortnite people” winning the Keighleys a full decade before they created another global phenomenon. Edit Note December, 2023: Best Game Direction 2023 the Game Awards for Alan Wake 2 with Remedy Entertainment Technically speaking, it's Epic Games Publishing, but why not add this one to the Gears maker, heh?
Studio of the Year 2007 Spike Video Game Award for Rock Band
Studio of the Year 2008 Spike Video Game Award for LittleBigPlanet
Studio of the Year 2009 Spike Video Game Award for Batman Arkham Asylum (In memory of Kevin Conroy) While Batman Arkham Asylum is a serious game through and through, it is funny to think that someone out of Konami beat the Castlevania brand owner to making Symphony of the Night in a 3D space with a pitch of Metal Gear Solid. And the said brand owner would likely never catch up in this imagined race.
Studio of the Year 2010 Spike Video Game Award for Mass Effect 2 I still consider Mass Effect 2 as my favorite game of all time.
Studio of the Year 2011 Spike Video Game Award for the Elder Scroll V: Skyrim. The first time winner takes both the awards for the works and the companies respectively. The Keighleys had the tendency to award Elder Scroll games, with Oblivion awarded in 2006 and Skyrim repeated it 5 years later. But 2011 also saw Bethesda winning the counterpart of Best Director.
Studio of the Year 2012 Spike Video Game Award for the first season of Walking Dead the Game. The second time winner takes both. Yours truly only got halfway through the second episode of Walking Dead’s first season. Again, can anyone truly explain why they love zombie fiction this much?
Studio of the Year 2013 Spike VGX for the Last of Us Best Game Direction 2020 the Game Awards for the Last of Us Part II, with Sony Interactive Entertainment. The second time winners take both. Naughty Dog and Rockstar are the 2 studios yours truly think this industry had been way too soft on. Funny enough, while Rockstar’s open world crime epics won every Game of the Year award Spike gave out, the company never got recognized as a good company. Naughty Dog seemed to be handed a bone with Grand Theft Auto V winning GOTY in 2013. Then 7 years late to the LOU party, the Game Awards 2020 was quite a triumph for the Last of Us Part II. Revenge western set in a zombie infested wasteland works like magic to some, but yours truly loathe the original LOU so much that playing its sequel is just out of the question for me.
Developer of the Year 2014 the Game Awards Best Game Direction 2017 the Game Awards for the Legend of Zelda: the Breath of the Wild. The fifth time winner takes both. 2014’s first Game Awards was quite a mess on the Developer of the Year front. The winner is Nintendo, just Nintendo. It’s too simple on 2 fronts. First, the Spike Studio of the Year Awards all had the game the studios worked on stated. Second, is Nintendo even a developer here? Mario Kart 8’s developer was listed as “Nintendo EAD”, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U was said to be made by Sora and Namco Bandai. So which Nintendo developer were we talking about there? Guess Keighley was paving the way for this Best Director counterpart goes to the al’mighty publishers. Edit December 2022: Seeing Mr. Doug Bowser taking the trophies on half of Hal Lab and Platinum on the 2022 ceremony certainly brought back memory of Nintendo crowned Dev of Year 2014...
Developer of the Year 2015 the Game Awards. The third time winner takes both. We can all guess that CDPR was awarded for that third Witcher game, cannot we?