Background

Geoff Keighley is a video game journalist who has been in the industry for over 20 years. Keighley is most known not just as the host of the Game Awards but more importantly, as the person behind the Game Awards all together. He served as a producer with SpikeTV on the Spike Video Game Awards from 2003 to 2013. Displeased with the direction the show was heading, Keighley parted ways with SpikeTV. He invested $1 million of his own money into a new show in 2014, The Game Awards.

Keighley chose not to partner with a TV network, instead opting to stream the show online through Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube, and Twitch. Keighley’s decision was made due to most gamers not consuming media through traditional TV. “They’re consuming all this content digitally anyway.” The show drew an audience of 1.9 million in its first year and has been steadily increasing over the years with a jump to 11.5 million in 2017. The show has been a success due to its format. Keighley describes it as part awards show and part world premieres.

Geoff Keighley

Keighley began writing about video games when he was 12 years old. He was interested in how games were made and wrote to one of his favorite developers. He was surprised when they wrote back and invited him to beta test upcoming games. Keighley wrote about his feedback on forums and was then noticed by an editor who invited him to write for a magazine.

From there, Keighley met with developers, wrote for the first video game awards, Cybermania ‘94, and he attended the first Electronic Entertainment Expo in 1995. Keighley describes his career path as a “natural evolution” from playing the games he enjoyed. He was just a kid writing about his favorite games and when the opportunities came, he took them. He was once asked if he ever thought about hosting, and to that he simply replied, “No, but I’d give it a try.” Keighley didn’t intend to have video games as a career choice, it just happened around him. Now he’s the producer and host of his very own Game Awards.

The Spike Video Game Awards (2003-2013)

The Spike Video Game awards ran for 11 years. In its final year, known as VGX 2013, the show saw a few changes. The show went from being aired on SpikeTV to being streamed online as a three-hour event. It still ended up being broadcasted on TV but as a one-hour highlights show. It drew heavy criticism for featuring non-gaming celebrities and host Joe McHale for not being familiar with the material. Viewers were upset with McHale being unprofessional in the middle of interviews between developers. It was clear to some, McHale did not want to be there.

Viacom, parent company of SpikeTV, intended to reboot the show as the Video Game Awards (VGX) following complaints from previous years. Keighley wanted to deliver exactly what people had asked for, more awards, interviews, and news. This change in format was meant to address past issues. Keighley acknowledged these complaints, “It's always over-commercialized. It's so Hollywood and it's not for us.” In its final year with SpikeTV, the show drew in 1.1 million viewers.

The Game Awards (ongoing from 2014)

After the VGX 2013 mess, Keighley decided to produce and host his own game awards show starting in 2014. “It sort of came out of necessity because the Spike award show was sort of going in the wrong way.” He’s focused on the show for 70 percent of the year as he sees it as a “huge opportunity” for the video game industry. Keighley was able to gather support from key figures of the industry such as Hideo Kojima, and Nintendo of America president, Reggie Fils-Aime.

“I think you’ll see a show that is about awards and game announcements, but also celebrates what it means to play games. We’re going to recognize people who are doing great things in the community. I realize our opportunity is much greater than just handing out trophies for games. I want to make sure we celebrate what our industry means to everyone.”

The Game Awards drew in an audience of 1.9 million in its first year and has continued to increase with the show reaching other countries such as China in 2017. The Game Awards now has been more successful than it ever was on SpikeTV. The numbers alone speak for themselves, and it’s thanks to the decision to stream it rather than broadcast it on traditional TV.

Keighley sees the show as a “hybrid.” Besides being an awards show, it’s also a reveal show with exclusive world premieres. “I’ll go where the audience goes, and the numbers tell us that people are tuning in for the excitement... The reveals and announcements, it’s different every year.”

The Future of Entertainment Award Shows

Variety writes the format of the Game Awards could be the future for all entertainment award shows. This is in part due to the show being streamed online on over 40 video networks, including YouTube and Twitch. Keighley saw the potential of streaming in order to reach his target audience during his time with SpikeTV.

“Building [the ‘Spike Video Game Awards’] within the system, I learned a lot about making these shows, the challenges of making something for a TV network audience when I wanted to make a show for a gaming audience.”

Secondly, Keighley met with the video game industry to see what kind of awards show they wanted and formed a board of advisers. They serve as a resource to the show but have no say in which games are nominated. The votes are split 90/10 with 90 percent coming from publications (IGN, Kotaku), and 10 percent from fans. Keighley has final say in the show, not game companies, not game developers, and certainly not TV executives. Most importantly, the balance between awards and reveals help keep the audience engaged. Keighley believes, “It’s that mix that drives viewership.”

Watching The Game Awards

I’ve been following Keighley since his time on Gametrailers. From there, he covered the Electronic Entertainment Expo and was the host of Gametrailers TV. It’s nice to see a person who cares about video games as much as him actually do something for the medium. His awards show not only shows us what is coming out next but also allows us to put faces to developers.

The reveals are the highlight of the show. Before the internet, the only way I knew about upcoming games were from magazines. Reading and seeing a few select screenshots does not compare to the excitement of seeing a world premiere on your TV. It’s a great feeling to get hyped up for new games along with friends. This has always been a staple of the Game Awards and it’s a driving factor in staying tuned.

It’s also enjoyable to see the people who work on these games, developers, voice actors/actresses, and motion capture performers get recognized for their hard work. Voice and motion capture actors are the equivalent of actors in movies. Without them, the characters they brought to life wouldn’t be the same, such as Christopher Judge as Kratos from God of War.

All around, it’s a great experience. Motion pictures have the Oscars, the music industry has the Grammys, and TV has the Emmys. Despite its success, Keighley does not want the Game Awards to be the like the Oscars. “In many ways we don't need to be the ‘Oscars of gaming’ or to draw that comparison to the Oscars for validation or legitimacy. The Game Awards are distinct and successful on their own.” It’s thanks to Geoff Keighley that the video game industry now has the Game Awards in its current state. Keighley has found a nice balance for the show and the audience is there. It’s a great way to celebrate the games and people of the industry as well as what the industry means to us.