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The Game Awards 2024

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The Game Awards 2024
DateDecember 12, 2024 (2024-12-12)
VenuePeacock Theater, Los Angeles
CountryUnited States
Hosted byGeoff Keighley
Preshow host(s)Sydnee Goodman
Most awardsAstro Bot (3)
Most nominations
Websitethegameawards.com
Online coverage
Produced by
  • Geoff Keighley
  • Kimmie Kim
Directed byRichard Preuss
← 2023 · The Game Awards · 2025 →

The Game Awards 2024 is an award show to honor the best video games of 2024. It is the eleventh show hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of the Game Awards, and held with a live audience at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2024, and live streamed across online platforms globally.

Background

Geoff Keighley smiling
Sydnee Goodman smiling
Geoff Keighley (left) is set to host the main show while Sydnee Goodman (right) hosts the preshow.[1][2]

As with previous iterations of the Game Awards, the 2024 show is hosted and produced by Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley. He returned as an executive producer alongside Kimmie Kim,[1] and Richard Preuss and LeRoy Bennett returned as director and creative director, respectively.[3] The presentation, celebrating the show's tenth anniversary, takes place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2024,[4] and is live streamed across more than 30 online platforms,[3] including Facebook, Instagram, Steam, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube.[5] Alternative live streams offering American Sign Language and audio descriptions are also available on YouTube.[3]

Sydnee Goodman returned as host of the 30-minute preshow, titled Opening Act.[2][6] Public tickets became available for purchase on November 1.[4] Future Class organizer Emily Bouchac indicated that the Future Class initiative—an annual list of 50 individuals from the industry who best represent its future, introduced in 2020—would not induct new members in 2024, instead focusing on valuing existing alumni.[7]

Announcements

Preceding the Game Awards, several announcements were made during broadcasts by Wholesome Games and the Latin American Games Showcase on December 10,[8][9] and Day of the Devs and the Women-Led Games Showcase on December 11.[9][10] During the show, Hazelight Studios revealed its new game Split Fiction,[11][12] and announcements on both released and upcoming games are set to be made for:[2][13]

Winners and nominees

Nominees for the show's 29 categories were announced on November 18, 2024.[14][15] Any game released for public consumption on or before November 22 was eligible for consideration,[16] including DLC, expansions, remakes, remasters, and seasonal content.[17] The nominees were compiled by a jury panel composed of members from over 130 media outlets globally;[18] ballots were due by November 12.[16] Winners are determined between the jury (90 percent) and public voting (10 percent); the latter was held via the official website and on Discord[a] until December 11.[1][19] The exception is the Players' Voice award, fully nominated and voted-on by the public, for which voting opened on December 2.[20] Specialized juries decide the nominees for categories such as accessibility, adaptation, and esports.[21]

As with the preceding year, the Game Awards partnered with map developer Studio 568 and artists Nighttimes and Spiral House to create an in-game hub world in Fortnite, available from November 25, allowing players to vote until December 11 for their favorite user-created islands among ten nominees selected by Keighley and his team; the winner will be announced during the ceremony.[22][23] The hub world opens with a photorealistic "MetaHuman" model of Keighley,[24] for which he was scanned in to Unreal Editor for Fortnite at 3Lateral in Manchester.[25] Several critics found the model strange and uncanny.[24][26][27] Keighley saw the event as "a prototype" for blending the Game Awards and in-game worlds.[28]

Awards

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).

Media

Nicolas Doucet accepted Best Game Direction and Best Family Game for Astro Bot.
Adrián Cuevas accepted the Games for Impact award for Neva.
Ryan Payton accepted Best VR / AR Game for Batman: Arkham Shadow with Aaron Whiting.
Katsuhiro Harada accepted Best Fighting Game for Tekken 8.
Game of the Year Best Game Direction
Best Narrative Best Art Direction
Best Score and Music Best Audio Design
Best Performance Games for Impact
Best Independent Game Best Debut Indie Game
Best Ongoing Game Best Community Support
Best Mobile Game Best VR / AR Game
Best Action Game Best Action / Adventure Game
Best Role Playing Game Best Fighting Game
Best Family Game Best Sim / Strategy Game
Best Sports / Racing Game Best Multiplayer Game
Innovation in Accessibility Best Adaptation[b]
Most Anticipated Game Players' Voice[c]

Esports and creators

Faker won Best Esports Athlete for the second consecutive year.
Best Esports Game[d] Best Esports Athlete
Best Esports Team Content Creator of the Year
Global Gaming Citizens Game Changer
  • Laura Carter (TreesPlease Games)
  • Amir Satvat

Multiple nominations and awards

Multiple nominations

Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth led the show with seven nominations each, followed by Metaphor: ReFantazio with six. Sony Interactive Entertainment led the publishers with 15 nominations,[e] followed by Square Enix with 11[f] and Sega with 9.[g] In addition to video game publishers, Amazon MGM Studios and Netflix both received two nominations for their television series in Best Adaptation.[14][15][30]

Multiple wins

Games that received multiple wins
Awards Game
3 Astro Bot
2 Helldivers II
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Wins by publisher
Awards Publisher
4 Sony Interactive Entertainment
2 Sega

Presenters and performers

Presenters

The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or introduced trailers. All other awards were presented by Keighley or Goodman.

Name Role
Troy Baker Presented the award for Best Performance
Harrison Ford
Todd Howard
Abubakar Salim Presented the award for Best Action Game
Josef Fares Presented the reveal trailer for Split Fiction
Randy Pitchford Presented the first look trailer for Borderlands 4
Hideo Kojima Presented the award for Best Game Direction
Craig Lee Thomas Presented the reveal trailer for Helldivers 2: Omens of Tyranny
Rebecca Ford Presented the final trailer for Warframe: 1999
Celia Schilling Presented the award for Best Debut Indie Game
Sean Velasco
Cordell Broadus Presented the award for Best Ongoing Game
Snoop Dogg

Performers

The Game Awards Orchestra, conducted by Lorne Balfe, performed during the ceremony,[31] including Pedro Eustache, dubbed "Flute Guy".[32] Balfe remained updated on new game releases throughout the year to ensure he was familiar with their music when the nominees were announced. He worked with David Campbell to arrange a performance of songs from the second season of Arcane: d4vd, Royal & the Serpent, and Twenty One Pilots are set to perform "Remember Me", "Wasteland", and "The Line", respectively.[31][33] Snoop Dogg is set to debut a new song during the show.[31]

The following individuals or groups performed musical numbers.

Name Song Game(s) / show(s)
The Game Awards Orchestra[j] Civilization VII Main Theme Civilization VII
d4vd "Remember Me" Arcane
Royal & the Serpent "Wasteland"
Twenty One Pilots "The Line"

Reception

Several games saw increased weekly sales following their nominations, including Final Fantasy VII Rebirth by 268% and Metaphor: ReFantazio by 172%,[34] and Balatro had its second-highest-earning week on mobile and a 100% increase in concurrent players on Steam.[35][36][37] Balatro's nominations pleasantly surprised critics due to its genre,[38][39][40] though some felt other indie games remained overlooked outside of their dedicated categories.[40][41] TheGamer's Stacey Henley appreciated that Games for Impact "can finally feel like part of the show" as, unlike previous years, some of its nominees were also named in other categories,[42] though The Guardian's Keza MacDonald found its nominees incongruous and criteria confusing.[43] Some critics were puzzled by Silent Hill 2's Best Narrative nomination as it is a remake of a 2001 game.[40][44] TheGamer's Tessa Kaur criticized the omission of Future Class as "a loss for the industry".[45] Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA Sports College Football 25, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom were considered among the biggest snubs by some critics and viewers.[39][46][47]

Many journalists and viewers criticized Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's Game of the Year nomination—the first for a DLC expansion—as it overshadowed other games,[48][49][38] though some felt its high quality and significant size justified the nomination.[39][44][50] The Game Awards's website was updated before nominees were announced to clarify that DLC was eligible, which many predicted was specifically in preparation for Shadow of the Erdtree's divisive nominations;[17][49][51] some viewers erroneously accused Keighley of changing the rules to make Shadow of the Erdtree eligible.[52] Others also felt its eligibility meant DLC was snubbed at previous shows, like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty in 2023,[53][54] and suggested a new category dedicated to DLC would be more appropriate,[39][55][56] though TheGamer's Henley argued there are too few annual releases to justify it.[57]

Some journalists considered Black Myth: Wukong an outlier in the Game of the Year nominees and were surprised by its success;[48][46] it is the lowest-scoring Game of the Year nominee in the show's history, with 81 out of 100 on review aggregator website Metacritic.[58][59] TheGamer's Tessa Kaur felt the game's biggest accomplishment was its popularity, comparing it to Barbie's Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards.[60] Conversely, Vice's Dwayne Jenkins criticized journalists who questioned its deservedness based solely on its critical reception, despite the positive player response; he argued that such discussions are more appropriate for audiences rather than journalists, who should serve as neutral intermediaries, since the awards have no objective criteria.[61]

Notes

  1. ^ In China, fan voting is held via Bilibili.[19]
  2. ^ Awarded to media based on video games
  3. ^ 100 percent public-voted award with a three-round nomination process that began with 30 games[29]
  4. ^ Presented in conjunction with Old Spice
  5. ^ a b Some outlets counted Sony Interactive Entertainment's nominations at 16 as it is the parent company of Destiny 2 publisher Bungie.[1][15]
  6. ^ a b Several outlets counted Square Enix's nominations at 12,[1][14][15] based on official material from the Game Awards.[30]
  7. ^ a b Sega received two additional nominations as co-producer of Knuckles and Like a Dragon: Yakuza for Best Adaptation.[14]
  8. ^ Some outlets counted Xbox Game Studios's nominations at 12 as it is a sister company of Activision, Bethesda Game Studios, and Blizzard Entertainment.[1][15]
  9. ^ Riot Games received an additional nomination as co-producer of Arcane for Best Adaptation.[14]
  10. ^ Conducted by Lorne Balfe[15]

References

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