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The Game Awards
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MediaNotes / The Game Awards

The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony produced by Canadian presenter and journalist Geoff Keighley celebrating the video game industry that is held every December. It is the successor to the Spike Video Game Awards (the VGX in its final year), which Keighley hosted and worked as executive producer. Keighley also hosts the show together with Sydnee Goodman.

Despite other game awards such as the Golden Joystick Awards having been around for longer, The Game Awards has been treated as the premier game industry award since its inception in 2014, the gaming equivalent of the Academy Awards, due to its partnerships with major game publishers. Unlike the Golden Joysticks, whose winners are decided by fan vote, The Game Awards use a weighted split, with fan votes counting for 10% of the verdict; the other 90% are decided by a jury comprising industry experts and representatives (apart from a "Players' Voice" category which is exclusively fan-voted). Notably, due to its December schedule, it doesn't actually consider the games released during the whole year, often having a cut-off date around early November; games released later in the year may be considered for the subsequent year's awards.

The award's place in gaming culture is somewhat controversial. While it is often dismissed as merely an industry promotion event that does little to recognize the changing landscape of the video game industry and community, it is certainly among the most popular events, standing alongside Keighley’s own Summer Games Fest, Gamescom, and the now-defunct E3 as among the events of the industry calendar.

With two exceptions, the awards ceremonies are held at the Peacock Theaternote  in Los Angeles. The two exceptions are the inaugural ceremony in 2014, which was held at The AXIS (today PH Live) in Las Vegas, and 2020, which was held virtually due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As of 2026, The Game Awards gives out the following thirty awards each year:

    open/close all folders 

"In general", "happens every year" or "happens multiple years":

  • Alternate Company Equivalent: The D.I.C.E. Awards and the Game Developer's Choice Awards are comparable to the TGAs in format, and tend to feature similar categories and eventual winners each year.
  • Award Snub: Given that it's an award show, every year tends to either see fan favorites that don't receive any nominations, or get nominated to not win. Some have been nominees in several years/genres and still haven't won. This isn't helped by the awards' voting structure, which is weighted toward the judgment of industry experts rather than fans.
  • Awesome Music: The "Best Score and Music" awards the game with the best soundtrack (original or licensed) released that year. The ceremony also has the Game Awards Orchestra conducted by Lorne Balfe, which performs a selection of songs at different points in the ceremony, including a medley of songs for the Game of the Year award presentation featuring music from each of the nominated games. Among the most famous members of the orchestra is flautist Pedro Eustache (nicknamed "Flute Guy" by gamers), known for his exaggerated movements and his skill with multiple different types of flutes, including switching between instruments mid-performance.
  • The Face: Geoff Keighley is both the host and producer of the show.
  • Genki Girl: Sydnee Goodman, who's been the preshow host since 2019, is generally more upbeat than many of the game devs who are usually pretty reserved.
  • Muppet Cameo: Due to host Geoff Keighley's love of the characters, The Muppets have shown up in-character to present awards, except in the 2021 ceremony. Statler and Waldorf appeared in the 2024 ceremony but didn't present any award, instead just doing their typical heckling a few times. Miss Piggy and Rowlf the Dog also didn't present any award for the 2025 ceremony; they just performed a song.
  • Special Guest: Most ceremonies have special guests visiting to either promote their projects or present an award.
  • Trailers: A large amount of the show's runtime is dedicated to debut trailers for upcoming games. As such, many viewers only watch the show for the trailers. The Game Awards has received criticism for cutting off the winners' speeches for more advertising time.
  • Transatlantic Equivalent: The UK's annual BAFTA Games Awards and Golden Joystick Awards are more or less Britain's version of the American-based Game Awards.
  • Vote Early, Vote Often: Many have criticized the show's voting system over the years for not limiting how many times fans can vote for their favorite games. Others give TGA credit for at least giving the public a say in who ultimately wins, unlike other major award shows.

Awards and ceremonies by year:

Dates in parentheses denote when that year's ceremony was held.

2014 (December 5; PH Livenote , Las Vegas, NV)

    Nominations and awards 

    Trailers and presentations 

    Other notable details 

2015 (December 3)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

    Other notable details 
  • After Kiefer Sutherland accepted the "Best Action/Adventure Game" award on behalf of Hideo Kojima - who had been barred from attending by Konami - for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Keighley called out and criticized Konami live for their treatment of Kojima, both during V's development and for threatening legal action against him if he attended the Game Awards that year.

2016 (December 1)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

2017 (December 7)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

2018 (December 6)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

2019 (December 12)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

    Other notable details 
  • While Untitled Goose Game did not win either award it was nominated for, it received a parody trailer called "Untitled Beaker Game", and the goose himself briefly interrupted the show.
  • For the ceremony's Muppet Cameo, David Rudman was unavailable to perform as Beaker, so Peter Linz, who normally plays Statler and Lips, stood in for him. Dave Goelz reprised Bunsen as normal.

2020 (December 10; Los Angelesnote )

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

2021 (December 9)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

2022 (December 8)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and presentations 

    Other notable details 
  • Prior to the ceremony, Kotaku's Alyssa Mercante called out the poor fashion that attendees wore at previous ceremonies. Her article led to several attendees start taking their looks seriously, improving the show's fashion sense in the process.
  • Christopher Judge gave an emotional eight-minute long speech for his Best Performance win as Kratos from God of War Ragnarök, which was the first award given on-stage that night. In particular, Judge praised his co-star Sunny Suljic, who played Kratos' son Atreus in Ragnarök, calling Suljic "the future of the industry" in his acceptance speech.
  • Musician Pedro Eustache's very enthusiastic musical performance during the Game of the Year medley (with the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 segment in particular receiving lots of attention due to its heavy usage of flutes), which saw him play multiple wind instruments throughout, became memetic, with online viewers nicknaming him "Flute Guy".
  • The end of the ceremony became infamous when a 15-year-old prankster named Matan Even snuck onto the stage with the FromSoftware crew when they won the Game of the Year award, then after Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki gave his speech and the walk-off music began playing, Even made a brief yet bizarre speech saying, "I want to thank everybody and say I think I want to nominate this award to my Reformed Orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton."note  Although it happened at the end of the ceremony and Even was escorted by security, the interruption overshadowed the show itself.

2023 (December 7)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and presentations 

    Other notable details 
  • This year's ceremony quickly ended up being one of the most roundly criticized ceremonies in the show's history, particularly towards its rushing of award winners' speeches (after Christopher Judge's eight-minute long speech the previous year) with "wrap-it-up" music playing after just 30 seconds and too much time dedicated towards announcements and celebrities. One particularly criticized instance regarding this was Hideo Kojima and Jordan Peele being given at least six minutes to discuss their newly-announced and very early into production game OD, whereas according to The Escapist's Liam Nolan, the total amount of time overall that the award winners gave their speeches was less than 11 minutes. For his part, Keighley posted on Twitter / X the following the day that he agreed with this criticism, saying that he did try to tell the production crew to ease up on the strict enforcing of the time limit and said that he will address this at future ceremonies.
  • Speaking of Judge, several Call of Duty developers criticized his joke where he claims that his 2022 speech was longer than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's single-player campaign.
  • The ceremony was also criticized for what it did not do, namely acknowledging the massive amount of developer layoffs that occurred throughout the industry during 2023 as profits plateaued after the sales boost resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic worn off and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, despite the Game Awards' Future Class recipients past and present sending an open letter to Geoff Keighley to acknowledge the latter.
  • The few positives the ceremony did receive was the musical performances. European folk music group Heilung performed "Seidh" from the upcoming Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, American singer Loren Allred performed "No Promises to Keep" from the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with the Game Awards Orchestra (again conducted by Lorne Balfe), and Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall performed "Herald of Darkness" from Alan Wake II under the guise of their Fake Band the Old Gods of Asgard and were joined by David Harewood (who portrayed Mr. Door in the game), Matthew Porretta (Alan Wake's voice), Ilkka Villi (Wake's model), and even the game's director Sam Lake. And of course, "Flute Guy" Pedro Eustache was brought back to join the Game Awards Orchestra and was again energetically performing and switching between different flutes during the Game of the Year Medley, even using a big double contrabass flute at the end.

2024 (December 12)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and presentations 

    Other notable details 
  • A couple of days before the nominees were announced, Geoff Keighley announced that "expansion packs, new game seasons, DLCs, remakes and remasters are eligible in all categories, if the jury deems the new creative and technical work to be worthy of a nomination". While this was not a complete surprise (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 's Blood and Wine DLC won Best RPG in 2016), this decision was received with some concern by fans, worried that this was a blatant way to include Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Game of the Year contention. Several argued that, given that Shadow is not a standalone game, it should not be considered for Game of the Year. The debate cooled down quite a bit once the ceremony was over because despite Shadow being nominated for four different awards — Best RPG, Best Art Direction, Best Game Direction, and Game of the Year — it won none of them.
  • After the somewhat controversial show the previous year, the 2024 show was largely seen as a return to form, with Keighley and his team seemingly having taken several criticisms of the previous year to heart, including award recepients being allowed to speak for longer and a greater recognition of developer job losses through the inaugural Game Changer award being presented to game developer job advocate Amir Satvat. This was along with a large dose of Self-Deprecation in the form of Statler and Waldorf riffing on several common criticisms of the awards show and Keighley himself. Other highlights included Sven Vincke giving an impromptu speech against Executive Meddling and profit-driven game development as a response to the massive layoffs in 2024, and Nicolas Doucet's acceptance speech for Astro Bot winning Game of the Year where he paid tribute to Nintendo.
  • Performances during the ceremony included performances by d4vd, Royal And The Serpent, and Twenty One Pilots playing music from Arcane, Snoop Dogg (who also presented the award for Best Ongoing Game with his son) performing "Thank You" and "Gin and Juice", and the Game Awards Orchestra performing the Game of the Year medley.
  • Notable award presenters (apart from the aforementioned Snoop) included Troy Baker, Harrison Ford, and Todd Howard for Best Performance, Abubakar Salim for Best Action Game, Hideo Kojima for Best Game Direction, Celia Schilling and Don Velasco for Best Debut Indie Game, Isabela Merced and Shannon Woodward for Best Adaptation, Khalid for Best Score and Music, Sam Lake for Best Narrative, and Swen Vincke for Game of the Year. Other notable guests included Aaron Paul and Laura Bailey to promote Dispatch, Josef Fares to promote Split Fiction, and Randy Pitchford to promote Borderlands 4.

2025 (December 11)

    Nominations and Awards 

    Trailers and Presentations 

    Other notable details 
  • This was the first ceremony that was streamed in 1440p on Twitch.
  • Konatsu Kato was the first non-English voice actor to be nominated for Best Performance.
  • Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 broke the record for most nominations with 12 (13 if Players' Choice is included), beating out previous record holder The Last of Us Part II, which received 11 nominations in the 2020 awards. It would go on to win 9 awards on the night, breaking The Last of Us Part II's record of 7.
  • A few days after the reveal of the nominees, Megabonk developer vedinad withdrew his game from the Best Debut Indie category, stating that due to him being an experienced game developer, he did not feel comfortable having his game being nominated as a debut title.
  • A few weeks before the ceremony, a giant statue was placed in the Mojave Desert, prompting wide speculation as to what it was meant to promote; the final show would reveal that it was a reveal for the newest game in Larian Studios's Divinity series, Divinity.
  • Musical performances included Alice Duport-Percier, Miki Martz, and Lorien Testard performing "Une vie a t'aimer" from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33; Evanescence performing "Afterlife" from Devil May Cry (2025); and Miss Piggy and Rowlf the Dognote  performed "The Game Awards Will Never Let You Down".
  • Notable presenters included Jeffrey Wright and his son Elijah for Best Action Game; Maggie Robertson and Neil Newbon for Best Performance; Jenova Chen for Games for Impact; the cast of Street Fighter (2026) for Best Ongoing Game; Felicia Day for the Game Changer award; Lenny Kravitz for Best Score and Music; Dan Houser for Best Narrative; Milla Jovovich (who also promoted an Elusive Target in Hitman 3 starring herself) for Best Multiplayer; Todd Howard for Best Game Direction; and Team Asobi director Nicolas Doucet for Game of the Year.
  • Other notable guests included J. J. Abrams and Mike Booth to promote Four Loop; Tricia Helfer to promote Warlock Dungeons And Dragons; Gemma Chan (and the aforementioned Lenny Kravitz) to promote 007 First Light; Rahul Kohli to promote Saros; David Harbour to promote Total War: Warhammer 40,000.
  • Eustache once again showed off his creative flute-playing chops during this ceremony's "Game of the Year Medley" by playing a custom-built flute made out of PVC pipe.
  • The "Game of the Year Medley" also had Jenny Kidd sing "Breaking Through (Heart of Gold)" from Donkey Kong Bananza during the medley; Kidd voiced Pauline in the game.
  • The ceremony's most notable moment has to be its final game reveal, which is a coveted spot normally reserved for games that are expected to be hugely popular. Near the end of the show, Keighley announced that a new game was coming from veteran developers who worked on Titanfall and Apex Legends, which got live viewers interested at first. Following that, the debut trailer for said game, a free-to-play hero shooter called Highguard, was shown. Confused gamers expressed disappointment, which then turned into mockery towards the game and its reveal. The game would release on January 26, 2026, to mediocre reception, and although it launched at a peak of nearly 100,000 players, it lost 90% of the playerbase during its first week. The game would lose more players over the course of February 2026 before developers Wildlight Entertainment, who laid off most of its staff by then, announced that the game would shut down on March 12, 2026, just 45 days after launch. Highguard's failure has led to discussions on whether its Game Awards reveal—with Keighley having provided the coveted final reveal spot to Wildlight for free—ended up causing more harm than good to the game and its reception.
Statler: Waldorf, you old fool!
Waldorf: What a nightmare I was having. I dreamed we were still at The Game Awards.
Statler: We are!
Waldolf: Nooo!
Statler: Yep, and even worst, I heard a Final Fantasy game is up for Game of the Year.
Waldorf: Hm well, my final fantasy is for this show to be over.
Statler: Yeah, right, and I also heard they nominated DLC for Game of the Year.
Waldorf: That's like giving a lifetime achievement award to pre-order bonuses.
Both: Dohohohoho!
— The Game Awards 2024

Alternative Title(s): Game Awards, TG As

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