In a year where many an event has been cancelled, and sometimes turned into a solely digital event, one will be coming to all of us later this year to celebrate gaming, and bring good tidings. Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards have managed to emerge from the shadows to announce that they will be coming back Thursday, December 10th, live from Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo.
Geoff Keighley has previously tweeted about the fact that the Game Awards are a challenging event to put together in good times, and this year even more so with all the pandemic restrictions and troubles that have come. Talking to VentureBeat, he revealed that each area will have sound stages and award nominations and recipiants will be in the crowd, although there will be no public audience this year, unlike past years (see: 2020, pandemic for why).
“We’re looking into ways for people to experience the show in different ways,” Keighley said to VentureBeat. “We want people to feel part of the show and interact in different ways. We’re thinking of the ‘metaverse’ and the idea of people gathering online to celebrate the show.”
On hosting the event, Keighley has said that it was going to happen, even if it was out of his room. But, speaking with Variety he revealed that when he talked with the board of consultants on the event, made up of major publishers and stakeholders in the industry, they gave him a clear message - to go big with the event. And thus, we end up with three locations, in three different continents across the globe. It won't just be Keighley on a stage presenting things either.
Beyond Keighley, the same core team is returning to lead the event, which will also have new world premieres and exclusive announcements like in past years. Also returning is the Game Awards Festival, which will have a selection of game demos available for everyone to try. This was successful last year, and this year it has inspired Valve and PAX to take similar steps with audience events all canceled. The Game Awards Sale will also be back, meaning you'll be able to acquire some of the year's greatest hits at a discount.
One new addition is a new award that Keighley is excited to have: Innovation in Accessibility, which will be awarded on a mixture of opinions from their regular jury and specialists in the area of accessibility.
There are still a few things to work out it seems, however. The cut-off date, when new games are no longer accepted for being eligible for this year's awards, hasn't been finalized and will be somewhere between November 15th and 30th, impacting whether or not highly anticipated juggernaut Cyberpunk 2077 will be eligible for this year's show or not. Additionally, while we have a date of December 10th, we do not have a time. Keighley has noted that due to the global focus of The Game Awards, especially this year, he wants to have the event a little earlier in the day so that it works better for people in regions overseas. Likely, this is eyeing the London location, where the 5:30 PM Pacific start puts it past midnight for show start.
The Game Awards return Thursday, December 10th, 2020 and will be live from LA, London, and Tokyo, that you can watch from basically whatever streaming platform you prefer.
