This year’s The Game Awards is just weeks away, and host Geoff Keighley has provided some updates on what to expect at the in-person event. This will be its eighth year. It follows 2020’s massive virtual event where viewership doubled to around 83 million. It will be held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 9. When asked why he didn’t stick with the all-virtual format, he explained that as successful as that was, there’s a strong desire to get back to being in-person in order to interact with people as they accept their awards.
Some people have said to us, ‘Oh, it worked really well last year, why don’t you just do that again, and have everyone on Zoom and you don’t need to go back to the in-person event. I think we all felt that it was great that we did that, but we really missed the energy of people accepting their awards live and the reactions and all that type of stuff.
He explained that while there will be celebrity guest appearances, along with a full-scale orchestra, the greater focus will be on the games.
You know, it’s great to have celebrities, it’s great to have music, but I think focusing really on games is important. Especially this year, there’ll be a lot of content for 2022 and 2023 that will be showing us our kind of biggest lineup yet of world premieres and announcements.
What we really learned last year was at the end of the day, it really is the games and the trailers that drive the show.
There will be roughly 40 to 50 games featured, and the number of new games will be in the double digits. Due to so many games, half of the show’s time will likely be for awards, while the other half will be for premieres and announcements. Trailers for movies or television shows inspired by video games will also be shown. New categories are expected to be added, and a “Best Adaptation” category is in the works for next year’s show.
When asked about plans for future growth and expansion, he had multiple angles on the subject. Although growing toward 100 million viewers is a possibility, it is not a focus, as he doesn’t consider the doubling seen during the pandemic to be sustainable. Furthermore, the show is already seen globally in just about every market. There is thought being put into how the show will be distributed. He also says he has no interest in NFTs.
Source: The Game Awards (via KitGuru)