Posted in: Games, Movies, Video Games | Tagged: entertainment, games, The Game Awards, video games

Nearly 2 Million People Watched The Game Awards

I was quite pleased with The Game Awards this past weekend. It was excruciatingly long and certainly overdid it with the adverts, but I suppose that was inevitable with Spike TV being out of the picture. Besides that though, it was a solid showing and Geoff Keighley has a solid platform to build upon in coming years.

It seems there is an audience to move forward with too. It's been revealed 1.93 million viewers tuned in across all streaming outlets this weekend to watch the ceremony. That is a 75% increase on last year's Spike produced VGX. With such staggering numbers, it even took Keighley by surprise. Talking to Polygon, he said:

I am absolutely stunned by the results. We didn't have any marketing budget or TV spots for the show. I'm used to having a lot of support resources — a promotional team, a digital media team, a PR team. All we had was the support of the game publishers and fans to spread the word and on social media.

He elaborated on the power of that community and how it shaped the awards into what they were:

It's empowering that we as a community can get the word out virally about a show like this. I always knew the show would get a better critical response from the community, but in many ways I was making a more serious show that risked not having as much mainstream appeal. That's why Kiefer Sutherland, Conan O'Brien, Trey Parker and Imagine Dragons were such important bookings. All of them truly love games and came to celebrate our medium.

In this case, the gaming community seems to have blown away the conventional TV marketing sector and that is exciting for the awards. It should be the important next step to have an award ceremony that stands on its own and makes its own creative decisions. I genuinely believe in the practice of awarding great pieces of work every year, and it's high time the BAFTA Video Game Awards didn't stand alone as the major and respectable ceremony each year.

There is plenty to improve on, but this has been an encouraging start.

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