I’d say February or later would be ideal imho. I do want a huge showcase each year, but think the awards should be their own thing as a 2nd show after Dec 21st and after hype for those year’s games can die down and editors have time (and less pressure) to play the various games. Then the challenge is to make a second show in February mainstream.
Thing is, ad revenue slows down to a crawl during the holidays. It’s at peak during the year right at the end of November and first week of December. All the companies use the entire budget left in the year during that 3 week span.
I reckon that’s a large reason on why the date is where it’s at. I don’t think a second show in February/March solely on the awards would be enough to carry it considering most gaming companies would just withhold the good stuff until E3.
Yup, that is the challenge Geoff should be facing though. If he wants to celebrate devs, he is doing it exactly the wrong way by having obtuse deadlines that screw lots of teams over and having the actual focus be on pop culture and new game reveals. The actual awards are nowhere near the priority they should be if he wanted it to be as he claims.
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The goty talk has spoilt every single Xbox podcast. I personally think that the goty genre, the walkie-talkie genre is borderline pathetic. It is the AOR of videogames. Games are suppose to be fun. Not supposed to be tools of validation. Fuck drama. Viva Mario and Halo!
Yeah, it’s this and also getting those very lucrative “we want the awards banner on our games for the new console owners during the holidays” sales. TGA is timed in early December for business reasons, first and foremost.
I don’t envy the position Keighley is in with the timing. The business end of it makes sense. The critical end of it doesn’t. That said, I do think having initial voting (for the nominees) take place a full month+ before the show is wrong, as is the second round of voting taking a whole three-ish weeks before the show. It is blatantly excluding those games that release in November, which tend to be some of the more high-profile releases of the year. Especially in teams with larger staff counts, ie. IGN, there is just no way a game that releases in early November can make its way through their staff in time to be voted on fairly and accurately.
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AOR?
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Like I said, The Game Awards is basically a sales/marketing event. There’s a reason why it’s in early December instead of early February. Holiday sales and money.
Personally, I believe that Ratchet has an excellent chance at winning because none of the six games are standouts at all. They’re all bunched in together.
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The only thing Ratchet changes over the course of the series is the graphics.
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There’s a distinction between your personal fave game of the lot and what the press thinks of the games on offer. I’d wager Psychonauts 2 gets it this year.
And you do not seem to be engaging with what I said wrt the awards being a separate show. The entire reason Geoff does this every year (according to him, at least) is to celebrate the dev teams. That is not what he is accomplishing with the way things are run now. Instead, the top line focus is entirely on new reveals, then next priority is the overlap with pop culture references, then waaaay down the list is celebrating the game designers and their teams. They literally give awards away during commercial breaks ffs.
It’s fine to have a full on showcase for marketing. I’m 100% thrilled for that. That’s why I said there should be another show actually built to celebrate dev teams. Short of that, the very least he could do is make the deadlines actually make sense and not screw over lots of dev teams every year. There are games that are literally not eligible during any year due to the way he has things set up now, and tons of others that are at severe disadvantages. That is not how you celebrate the dev teams nor the industry itself imho.
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Like you want to accuse FH5 of being "more of the same then talk about R&C?
Like Rift Apart isn’t even the best R&C game made in the past couple of games.
It’s pedestrian AF with some fun SSD and Graphics stuff.
It’s the most Ratchet/Clank-ass Ratchet and Clank game there could be.
Agreed and the same can be said for about 95% of games.
Ratchet is my personal favorite but do I think it’s winning at TGA? Nope. I personally believe that Resident Evil VIII will win but we’ll see in ten days.
I agree with everything you said in regards to what TGA was meant to be about but that ended years ago. It’s all about sales, marketing and money. Plain and simple. For gamers like me, it’s not about the awards especially when I know that TGA is just one single award and isn’t the be all end all. It’s about the game reveals and trailers.
Personally, I would prefer that TGA be held in early February and that the entire calendar year be eligible/included when deciding the nominees but that’s never going to happen. Too much money on the line.
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FH 5 and R&C are just more of the same. I never said R&C was somehow unique, original or innovative because it isn’t. I do however believe that it’s better than R&C 2016 and has just as much of a chance at winning GOTY as the other 5 games. To me, NONE of them are a standout like TLOUP2 was last year or GOW/RDR 2 in 2018 or BOTW was in 2017. All 6 are just great games in which any single one of them can win GOTY at TGA.
My personal pick is R&C because it’s my 2021 GOTY as of now but the game I actually believe is going to win is Resident Evil VIII: Village. Capcom hasn’t won a GOTY award since RE 4 and I think RE 8 is simply the most known, popular and respected game/franchise on the 6 game list.
RE8 is probably the game least likely to win. It was the worst rated game on that list and when it comes to pure critical votes, it would be near the bottom I’d imagine. I’m surprised it even got nominated. Maybe Returnal was removed so Geoff wouldn’t see it as being sony biased.
Being the highest rated game doesn’t mean anything though. GOW beat RDR 2 and it was 2/3 points lower. While TGA does go with the highest rated game more times than not, the overall winner is usually the opposite. Right now, RE 8 leads with 4 awards while three games are tied at 2. I wouldn’t be surprised if RE 8 wins.
However, im going back to my original prediction of Ratchet because listening to the Iron Lords Podcast yesterday, Sovereign said that the glitch that showed Ratchet the winner happened with every game so if that’s true, it was probably some issue with the site. Either way, I do think that Ratchet, RE 8, Deathloop and Psychonauts 2 are the favorites but can go to any one of them in my opinion.
I would have preferred to see Returnal and Hitman III over It Takes Two and Metroid Dread mainly because I don’t see either game having any chance at winning. While funded and published by EA, I can’t see an “indie” pure co-op only game winning nor can I see a 2D game winning.
But it is what it is.
Like every year, I watch TGA for the game reveals and gameplay trailers. I’m expecting a few things and I think that the percentage of those few things happening is high so if that ends up being the case, I will be very happy regardless of who wins GOTY.
Rachet has a shot because its a sony game. And we all know the Sony influence on these awards.
Like it or love it. Most of the journos voting especially from outside NA are heavily biased towards Sony games. This is a fact.
No argument here.
I’m just hoping to add a few more new games to my gaming list which is currently set at 45.
I will not tolerate this Psychonauts 2 slander
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