I think it was underwhelming, to be honest. Hot takes below:

• The praise for Clair Obscur was deserved, but I don’t think it deserved to win every category it did. I don’t think a lot of the categories themselves are even very well thought out, to be honest. E.g. “Best RPG” is such a trap because no one can even decide what merits inclusion in the category. And rather than factoring in something like how effectively a game incorporates RPG mechanics, of which Clair Obscur has relatively few, they just pick whatever the the best overall game is that happens to fit within that category.

• The format of the show itself still needs work. They’re trying to make it the “Oscars of gaming” by locking in as much celebrity presence as they can. But you need actors to star in movies, you don’t need actors to star in games. Not enough focus is actually being put on the technical aspects of game development, because it’s boring and no one is interested, just like the technical aspects of making movies.

• More people still watch it for the trailers than they do for the ceremony itself. I think trailers are fine, but if they want to be the “Oscars of gaming”, they should just do it like the Oscars themselves and keep all new trailers relegated to simple ad buys that play during a commercial break between segments.

• A more transparent standard of decisionmaking would be nice. Movies take only 1-3 hours to watch, so there is a reasonable expectation that members of the Academy who make the decision on which nominees should win have actually seen them all (and even then they apparently don’t bother). There is no way that the folks who vote for these categories have actually played through every game nominated, so I’m curious about how they make their decisions.

• I don’t know why the Muppets are there every year. It’s weird to go from Miss Piggy to the trailer for Divinity.

• It’s also weird when presenters are there to mostly plug their own ongoing projects rather than to actually celebrate the people being recognized this year.

• Most anticipated game is a joke category that GTA 6 will keep winning every year it is delayed.

• Actually, every category where fans decide the results should just be thrown out, because it’s inherently not based on any degree of an unbiased, informed critical perspective. Case in point:

Thing that surprised me the most was Wuthering Waves for Players Choice Award over Expedition 33, Dispatch, Silksong, Death Stranding, Ghost of Yotei, and KCD2. Literal complete stable of awesome games across genres lost out to a gatcha game. Are there just more gooner gamers than I thought? 🤔

Gatcha games are huge in China (and elsewhere), and China has more people than anywhere else. So I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s just a popularity contest. The people that voted for Wuthering Waves likely never played the other games nominated, and they don’t care to. It’s also telling that such a massive chunk of trailer content was gatcha slop.

It’s not ruining my day or anything, but the gacha game basically bribing their players to vote for them feels pretty lame.

And I mentioned it in another TGA thread, but for a 4.5 hour runtime, presenting roughly 10 out of 30 awards on stage with the rest being rapid fire announcements between walls of ads/trailers doesn’t feel great for an awards show.

Those two gripes aside, I did enjoy it overall. All the winners’ speeches were very sweet and nice to see, though clearly a rough year for most games not named Clair Obscur.

*Oh, also, that Divinity trailer was GNARLY. Like, holy shit.

David Harbour was there, I like him. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

The Players Voice award always goes to some gacha trash, cause they incentivise their players to go vote. “If we win, we’ll give everyone free shit”.

Sad to see that so many FANTASTIC games ended up with nil, because E33 stole the show so hard, but it’s tough to argue that they didn’t deserve each one. Myself, I probably would’ve put Silksong over E33 for art direction, it’s ASTOUNDING to me how much of a step up the artwork in that game was, compared to Hollow Knight.

I do wish that they would adjust their criteria for “indie” game. E33 really shouldn’t have been counted as one, IMO. Hundreds of people worked on that game, as many as some AAA games, and yet games like Blue Prince, from a solo developer (or very close to it?) had to compete against that? That really defies the spirit of the indie category, for me. Even if we count JUST the core team of (supposedly) 33, that puts it squarely in AA territory, for me.

Worst “one more thing” reveal…ever. completely tone deaf devs

I hope that game dies. We don’t want f2p live service hero shooters anymore. After it shuts down Then we can go back to single player experiences and never mention the word hero shooter for a long time

How dare they name drop Titanfall.

Wuthering Waves

I have nothing against a beautiful animesque art style, but… does it have to be rail-thin women in schoolgirl skirts and stockings? Is this game the exception?

EDIT:

Watches Steam trailer.

Literally magic schoolgirl skirts and stockings. Complete with winking in action.

I a just sad since no half life 3 announcement

I don’t think I have ever watched the game awards, but I do look at the results and trailers the day after. I am glad Claire pulled through! I was following that game the year before it released and it looked incredible. For me it was a day one purchase and glad I was right! It was definitely an experience. It’s also the only game I have purchased this year outside of black friday where I used a gift card to buy 3 cheap games.

Wuthering Waves should not be surprising. It’s a game that’s popular in China. If you’re polling people from all over the world to determine a winner, the one that wins is the most popular game in China.

Clair Obscur is a good game, but I definitely like it far less than everyone else, and if I were god of video game awards, it would have gone to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II this year.

Fatal Fury winning best fighting game was the objectively correct choice when faced against an early access game and several collections.

The Alters losing out to a port of a PS1 game, even a spruced up one, for the strategy category is pretty stupid. The Alters also should have shown up in narrative and performance.

As for reveals, there’s lots to be excited for. My most anticipated game for next year is probably Invincible Vs; I have not seen Ella Mental at where I’m at in the show, and maybe she won’t show up until later seasons, but she looks like a great Storm archetype for that game.

I saw some gossip about the cost of revealing a game on the TGA, which I didn’t see in years past. Makes sense that they work like ads where the best spot (right before GOTY) is the most expensive.

So imagine: Larian paid less for that unhinged Divinity trailer than Wildlight paid for another generic looking hero shooter (we have Valorant at home).

It was okay overrall some games we will not see in like years from now like that Star Wars game (not the podracing one) but the last two big announcements were funny maybe because people were expecting HL3 somehow even though Valve are known to always do their own thing

I despise the Hollywood-ification of the videogame industry, but the show was decent enough, with good pacing and not too many reveals so that everything had its spotlight. The awards went as expected.

I can understand wuthering waves. I never in 10000000 years thought I’d be saying something like this about a gacha game, but wuthering waves is probably my favorite game in like God knows how many years. The combat is really fun, it all looks absolutely amazing on pc, the story is great even side quests and side stories (a freaking character side quest had me crying as a 40 year old man…) it’s really just a good game.

I’d honestly suggest more people try it, you 100% do not need to spend any money whatsoever to enjoy the game and its story. When needed you get “trial” characters set to the appropriate level to complete story stuff and they’ve actually made a main character who isn’t complete and utter dogshit. They’re good in many team compositions.

The only place you’d feel like maybe you want to spend is if you want to do the dick measuring sweaty gamer endgame fights at the hardest difficulty, but it’s still doable without them.