The Game Awards is the most prestigious awards event in the gaming industry with it coming equivalent to now defunct E3. The event celebrates the games and developers and gives publishers and developers a platform to reveal their upcoming games and products.
The event has been growing every year since its inception in 2014. The recently concluded The Game Awards 2023 has broken viewership records as it hit 118 million livestreams worldwide, making this year’s event the most-watched The Game Awards event ever.
The Game Awards 2023 Sets New Viewership Records
According to a post on the official The Game Awards X/Twitter handle, The Game Awards 2023 has recorded a growth of 15% over last year’s viewership as it hit 118 million live streams from around the world and has become the most-watched Game Awards since it started. The awards event has been growing in popularity year by year and has established a dominant position in the industry.
The awards event was held at the Peacock Theater in L.A. and was livestreamed across 30 platforms including YouTube, Twitch, TikTok Live, X/Twitter, Steam, Facebook, WeChat, Bilibili, Instagram Live, and more.
The host and producer of the event, Geoff Keighley, also took to X/Twitter and shared the milestone, saying that they are humbled and thanked the audience for watching and for their feedback as to how the awards could improve the coming year. Keighley wrote:
We are humbled to announce that #TheGameAwards reached a new viewership milestone of 118 million global livestreams in 2023, the most watched show in our 10 year history.
Thank you for watching and for your feedback! pic.twitter.com/wbabzF59Cp
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 14, 2023
Keighley added that the 4K TGA feed on YouTubeGaming saw a 53% increase in year-over-year peak concurrent viewers to more than 900,000 and there was a 35% increase on YouTube to more than 1.7 million peak concurrent streams.
More than 4000 other channels also co-streamed the event. Twitch saw 24% year-over-year growth in co-streaming with peak concurrent viewers numbers reaching to 1.94 million. He also mentioned that 17,000 channels co-streamed the event.
This year’s game awards saw appearances from Hollywood stars Timothée Chalamet, Anthony Mackie, Jordan Peele, Matthew McConaughey, Simu Liu, Vince Zampella, Caroline Marchal, DJ and producer Zedd, and the cast of the upcoming Prime Video series Fallout, Aaron Moten, Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins. The biggest names in gaming like Ed Boon, Hideo Kojima, and Sam Lake were also present, and it seems to have contributed to its increased viewership.
The awards event had some big announcements and reveals, which also contributed to the new record. Gaming auteur Hideo Kojima revealed his upcoming horror title OD, Santa Monica Studio announced a DLC expansion called Valhalla for God of War Ragnarok, Marvel’s Blade game for Xbox, a Jurassic Park game, Sega’s plans to reboot some retro games, and many more that delighted the fans.
The biggest game releases of the year such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and more were nominated for several awards including the coveted Game of the Year which would have promoted the fans of the titles to tune in to watch their favorite games pick up awards.
Ultimately, BG3 swept the event with 6 awards including Game of the Year, Alan Wake 2 won three awards including Best Narrative and Best Art Direction, and many more.
The Game Awards 2022 also saw a growth of 20% from The Game Awards 2021 as it garnered 102 million livestreams, setting a new record. The awards event notched 85 million livestreams in 2021 and the 2020 event garnered 83 million livestreams from 45.2 million livestreams in 2019, recording a growth of 84% percent. It is quite evident that the event has made a big name for itself in the industry and after the death of E3, the event is only set to grow.
However, it hasn’t all been good for The Game Awards as the event was criticized for rushing the developers and publishers who won the awards and not giving them enough time to speak.
There was even a teleprompter that asked the award winners to “wrap it up” and criticized the organizers and Geoff Keighley for giving more time to ads and marketing than the developers and publishers that it claims. However, hopefully, it will change next year as Keighley has acknowledged the feedback.
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