The Game Awards are over and the video game marketing machine is winding down for the year, but this industry never completely stops. This week, we take a look at what The Game Awards could have done better (a few things, it turns out) and break down some of the biggest announcements from last week's show.
This week's stories
Do not light fire
We'll be talking a lot about The Game Awards this week, but one of the biggest announcements from last Thursday's show was the existence of Light No Fire, a new game title. no man's sky Hello Games studio. It's a planet-sized multiplayer game about exploration and community building, and uses procedural generation to fill every valley and mountaintop with life. At least that's the promise. There is no release date for Do not light fire Still, but Hello Games has been working on it for five years.
The rest of The Game Awards
Also at The Game Awards, we saw the reveal of a Blade game from Arkane Lyon, OD from Kojima Productions, Windblown from Dead Cells studio Motion Twin, and Exodus from Archetype Entertainment, a studio made up of BioWare, 343, and Naughty Dog veterans.
As for the awards, best narrative went to Alan Wake 2, best debut indie game went to Cocoon, and esports coach of the year went to Potter. Indie game Baldur's Gate 3 won game of the year, while Sea of Stars won best indie game over Dave the Diver, a title that was never indie to begin with. I understand? Good. Forward.
Free Radical Design closes
British studio Free Radical Design, which was working on the revival of TimeSplitters, laid off more than 80 people and closed its doors on Monday. It marks another round of layoffs under Embracer this year: The holding company announced in June that a $2 billion financing deal fell through and has spent the last few months closing studios and laying off staff at places like Saints Row developer Volition and Chorus creator Fishlabs.
We can do better
Last week's Game Awards lasted three hours and was hosted by organizer Geoff Keighley. It was fancy and full of movie stars, which, honestly, is Pretty strange for a show that's supposed to be about video games. Between copious ad breaks, rushed speeches for winning developers, and plenty of stage time for celebrities, this year's Game Awards didn't feel like an industry celebration.
I'm not the only one who noticed the imbalance. After The Game Awards, many developers, players, and critics expressed discontent with its pacing and priorities. Of the show's 180 minutes, the award winners' speeches took up only 10 minutes, and the developers were asked to “please conclude” after just 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, Jordan Peele and Hideo Kojima had almost 7 minutes to talk about their next project that seems more like a movie than a game. There were appearances by Simu Liu, Matthew McConaughey, and actors from TV shows based on video games. The Game of the Year award went to Timothee Chalamet, for some reason. Gonzo the Muppet even had 2 minutes.
Keighley was quick to review most of the awards by reading the categories and winners directly on camera, back to back. The ad trailers were indistinguishable from commercial breaks, and no time was spared for the industry's most relevant topics, such as the turmoil of mass layoffs, the fight to establish unions, and the medium's relationship to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. .
These themes would feel drastically out of place at The Game Awards, and that alone is a criticism of the show. If there is no space to discuss, celebrate and condemn these issues at the industry's most public event, what are we doing here?
The Game Awards organizers have done a great job replacing the embarrassment that was Spike's VGX with a spectacle that's more like the Oscars, but the video game industry is not Hollywood. Where are our luminaries? What are our problems? How are we innovating? Making video games more like movies isn't the goal, unless you're Kojima, I guess.
There are many other events that provide game creators with time and broader conversations, such as the Game Developers Choice Awards and its Independent Game Festival competence, the spawns to engender me, Gamedev.mundo by Rami Ismail, and Developers Day. And there are always presentations from independent publishers like Annapurna Interactive, Devolver Digital and Panic throughout the year. But with E3 officially dead, Keighley's two big shows, Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards, are now the major industry events on the gaming calendar. There is a responsibility that comes with that position, and his organization clearly needs to strike a better balance.
playing now
It's been a strangely stressful time, so I've been relaxing with the couch co-op on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It's familiar and comfortable, and switching between old and new graphics is still an absolute pleasure. I'd love to discover some new couch co-op games, so let me know in the comments if you have any favorites.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-game-awards-missteps-and-light-no-fire–this-weeks-gaming-news-144549193.html?src=rss
