By focusing on the near-future of the industry, the honours failed to adequately celebrate its present
The high point of the ninth annual Game awards arrived within its first 15 minutes. A charmingly unkempt Al Pacino arrived on stage to present the award for best performance, quickly admitting that he neither played “a whole lot of video games” nor could read the teleprompter especially well. Still, he managed to hand the gong out to actor Christopher Judge for his electrifying performance as Kratos in God of War Ragnarök. Dressed in a sparkling gold suit, Judge began his moment in the sun by hugging the Hollywood star. This was just the start of a further 10 heartfelt minutes on stage, the actor relaying the personal anguish he went through leading up to the game’s production. As the minutes wore on, the show’s producers seemingly began to fret about the night’s schedule, eventually playing orchestral music in an attempt to hurry him along. Yet this only made Judge’s words more epic – all the more affecting.
Judge’s time on stage was a rare moment of spontaneity and personality in a three-hour awards show otherwise sorely lacking these ingredients. Creator, host, and producer Geoff Keighley, had promised a “streamlined” runtime compared with its predecessors, and so Judge’s extended appearance left less time for other winners. However, this year’s glitzy event continued to show the extent to which the Game awards lack balance. The length of time given to the awards and their winners was dwarfed by that allocated for what the show calls “world premiere” trailers of new and announced games. The awards should be a celebration of the year’s interactive excellence yet the evening demonstrated the extent to which it remains fixated on a hype-filled future, often to the detriment of the creators it purports to recognise.
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