There was something Geoff Keighley said repeatedly while revealing the nominees for The Game Awards, a turn of phrase that has become increasingly common in the way Keighley has discussed the showpiece event. He said, “The Game Awards jury, which I am not a part of” with all the fervour of Gonzo saying “Tiny Tim, who did not die” in A Muppet Christmas Carol. So why is Keighley so keen to keep the jury at arm’s length? The answer may lie in Fortnite.
For the record, I fully believe that Keighley has zero input in the nominees. It’s the sort of pointless conspiracy theory the internet is full of these days. What does Keighley gain from rigging this? The jury is so large and acts without collaboration, in an industry where smaller experiences are often overlooked and the biggest selling games are also the most critically revered. This pool of nominees, as with every other year, is about what I’d expect from that sort of set up, and more or less acceptable even if I personally would swap a nominee here or there.
The Game Awards Still Needs To Get Serious
So Keighley really isn’t on the jury. Fine. But why is he so vocal about this fact? I suspect it’s because the jury doesn’t only pick the winners. By elimination, the jury also picks the losers. All of the discussion has been about games that weren’t nominated, and how moronic the jury is, even when some of the audience suggestions (Sonic x Shadow Generations for GOTY? Really?) are far more moronic.
Even ‘good’ picks like Balatro don’t see the jury get any credit. Instead, it was scoffed at as ‘the token indie’ nominated to make The Game Awards look better (to who?) made by a jury who probably voted without even playing it (why, and how did they collaborate on the same pick in a secret ballot?). I love award show drama, so I have been in the trenches not just for TGA, but for the Oscars and the Grammys too. Sometimes, some of the jury are morons. They should play a wider variety of games. They should nominate more boldly. It is easier for major studios to scoop up nominations by default. And so on.
If you’ve watched The Game Awards, you’ll know that the name is a bit of a misnomer. It might more appropriately be called The Game Adverts, which I think is the first time anyone has ever made that joke. I find the suspicion that Keighley rigs the vote particularly silly when you consider that Keighley does not appear to care who wins and the show itself shows very little respect to any of the winners.
What Keighley wants (and what he has achieved very successfully) is to be the face of a highly popular and extremely profitable entertainment show. And like any modern entertainer, superstardom is incomplete without a cameo in Fortnite. Keighley’s being so intertwined with The Game Awards themselves is another reason why his influence on the jury is not the story of the hour.
Instead, I want to talk about Fortnite, which has recently revealed a collaboration with The Game Awards. You can currently vote for best fan-created island in the game in a contest that will see the winner revealed at the ceremony itself, almost certainly in the pre-show stream where they give out similarly unimportant awards like Best Indie. While the winner won’t actually get a true Game Award, it still feels like it cheapens the already under-valued award part of the award ceremony.
On this island, you’ll see Geoff Keighley as a MetaHuman, which basically means he’s a terrifyingly photorealistic figure wandering around the otherwise cartoony landscape of Fortnite. Keighley is there in his capacity both as host of the show, and as organiser. His presence makes the collaboration seem official, and provides what little gravitas it is possible to impart to a vote on fan created maps in a video game. But this is the problem – The Game Awards cannot go anywhere without Keighley.
When an unpopular (or too popular) film wins at the Oscars, people aren’t mad at Jimmy Kimmel. They’re usually a little mad at Jimmy Kimmel about other things, because hosting the Oscars is either incredibly difficult or everyone they’ve asked this decade has sucked at it (who can say?), but we all know the winners aren’t his problem. It’s clear that Keighley wants to create that for The Game Awards, distancing himself from the voting jury to be the face of everything else.
But there are two issues with this. Firstly, there isn’t much else. The celebrities wheeled out each year rarely look comfortable in a gaming environment and there’s never anything cohesive or ceremonial besides the musical guest and orchestra. It’s an award show that doesn’t care about awards and has no show. That just leaves a ‘an’. Secondly, Keighley is not just a hired face there to make the night go smoother, he is The Game Awards, and they are him. He has made himself so indelible to the show in the public eye that there cannot be one without the other.
While complaints that Keighley personally picks the winners are almost certainly erroneous, it’s clear that much of The Game Awards is tied too closely to him. Add in Summer Game Fest and his growing presence at Gamescom, and it feels like one man who is not even a developer and is no longer even a journalist might have too much power in the game industry.
This isn’t a big deal when people say he’s the reason Sonic is snubbed. But as he seemingly shuts down Future Class after the group made political statements last year, his hollow critique of layoffs and workplace abuse written in collusion with Activision, his back-pedalled stance on AI, and his refusal to engage in any discussion of gaming deeper than the surface level at a time when the industry faces huge upheaval from greedy studios and angry influencers, it’s starting to feel like he has a greater responsibility to the show than drumming up viewers in Fortnite.
