What was great at the Game Awards and what was a flop: a diary report!

Mid-September 2023

Every now and then, certain emails will put a big smile on your face, even during a stressful week. Today it happened again: Post from Geoff Keighley. He asks if GAMES.CH would like to participate in the Game Awards again this year and be part of the jury. Just like last year, our answer is positive. What follows is a complex nomination process in which the entire editorial team is involved. Using a Google Form, each team member can make suggestions for each of the 31 categories. All entries will then be combined and sent to the organizer.

End of September 2023

Based on the entries from more than 100 jury media, the organizer has now determined the list of nominated games. In the next step, the editors have to work on it again. Based on the new list, each team member votes on which of the nominated games they think deserves an award. The results will later be sent in bulk to the TGA organizers.

December 5, 2023

From Zurich we flew across the pond straight to LA. The internet on the plane was pleasantly fast, allowing us to clarify the final organizational details along the way. It was also nice that this time everything at LAX Airport went much faster than normal, after just five minutes we had completed the immigration formalities and were quickly on our way to the hotel via Uber shuttle.

December 6, 2023

It was foreseeable that we would suffer from jet lag the day after arrival. However, two of the three planned dates leading up to the Game Awards are cancelled. But that doesn’t matter because it gave us more time to visit the Santa Monica Pier and record material for the GAMES.CH VLOG.

December 7, 2023

Well fortified with an American breakfast, a tight program awaited us today. It started with an exclusive event from 505 Games. The Italian publisher handed journalists controllers for almost an hour to play the JRPG “Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes,” written by Yoshitaka Murayama. The latter scored a role-playing hit in 1995 with ‘Suikoden’ for PlayStation and describes his new work as a spiritual successor.

After this promising RPG excursion, Microsoft invited people into a network ghetto. Industry celebrities were well represented in the form of Phil Spencer (head of the Xbox division), Todd Howard (creator of “Starfield”) and Co. and the atmosphere was relaxed. No wonder, because three Microsoft games have been nominated for awards: ‘Forza Motorsport’, ‘Hi-Fi Rush’ and ‘Starfield’.

A memorable evening

Around 7:30 PM the time had finally come: the 2023 edition of the Game Awards started – initially with a pre-show presented by Sydney Goodman. Prizes were awarded in several categories: “Super Marios Bros. Wonder” was named the best family game and “Forza Motorsport” won the accessibility trophy – thanks in part to innovative gaming aids for the blind.

This was followed by numerous esports awards, which Goodman quickly collected. The actual winners could not be seen and were not brought on stage – too bad. After all, when Goodman VTuber honored Ironmouse as Content Creator of the Year, the Puerto Rican woman, who suffered from variable immunodeficiency syndrome (CVID), was able to use her avatar to express words of gratitude to the community.

Most of the evening was led by Geoff Keighley, who, as in previous years, repeatedly invited many Hollywood celebrities to the stage. For example, Matthew McConaughey (“Interstellar”) announced the sci-fi epic “Exodus,” while Anthony Mackie (“The Hurt Locker”) presented the makers of “Cyberpunk 2077” with the award for best “Ongoing Game.” There were also numerous developer celebrities, including legends like Hideo Kojima, who teased his horror game ‘OD’, and Sean Murray of ‘No Man’s Sky’ developer Hello Games. The British unveiled “Light No Fire” for the first time – an impressive multiplayer fantasy survival game featuring a procedurally generated planet the size of our Earth!

And the biggest prize winners? Certainly “Alan Wake 2” by Remedy from Finland and “Baldur’s Gate 3” by the Belgian Larian Studios. While the former won awards for best game and art direction and best story, the latter not only won best role-playing, multiplayer and community game, but also game of the year. In addition, Neil Newbon received an award for best acting performance.

December 8, 2023

Once the Game Awards are over, the next event follows – again in downtown LA. We talk about “Developers’ Day”, an indie festival organized by adventure legend Tim Schäfer, among others, at which more than 50 games from small developers were shown. On site we met the Swiss indie studio Oneira Games, founded in 2019 by sisters Adriana and Eléonor de Pesters. The duo presented a wonderfully calm, watercolor-painted 2.5D game called ‘Echo of the Waves’.

The day after the awards ceremony, the first controversies flooded our Twitter account. In particular, there is a heated discussion about the lack of respect for time towards some developers, especially ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ game director Swen Vincke, who – while paying tribute to a deceased employee – was asked via teleprompter to “get to the end ‘. We also agree with this criticism and would like to see an even more optimized format for the future, where the actual game makers get even more speaking time, while at the same time the total playing time is reduced to under three hours.

December 11, 2023

Shortly before our departure back to Switzerland we were able to visit the Amazon Studios. So visit the location where the streaming series ‘God of War’ and ‘Fallout’ are currently being filmed.