Episode 141 - The Game "Awards"

This week Jason dives into the 2023 edition of The Game Awards, as he analyzes what happened at the show, and what needs to happen going forward.

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
Hello, and welcome to episode numberone hundred and forty one of the Chief
Stakes and Controllers Podcast, present ofby Fox PHL The Gambler one oh two
point five FM fourteen eighty AMI HeartRadio. Wherever you get your podcast is
where you're listening to this right now. Be it Spotify, Apple Music,
Amazon Podcasts. If you're that guy, I appreciate you just as much as

(00:47):
everybody else. My name is JasonFonell. I don't know if I said
that already because I have very badshort term memory. But here I am
episode number one hundred and forty one, after a long, long night for
the gaming industry, both in goodand bad ways. I am, of
course, of course, talking aboutthe Game Awards twenty twenty three. They
kicked off last night with all ofthe announcements and award blink and you'll miss

(01:11):
it, awards and all that stuffthat we love so much and hate so
much about this this little event ofhours, and I'm gonna spend the next
good amount of time talking about itbecause there is a lot to unpack.
I had planned on doing this rightafter the show ended last night, right

(01:32):
after the show went kicked off theair, I signed off of twitch shifter
streaming the whole thing for four hoursand dancing around to the song you're hearing
right now and all that other stuff. But I thought maybe I would wait.
I'm gonna wait until the next day. I'm gonna sleep on it,
and I'm gonna see how I feelin the morning. And honestly, I'm

(01:53):
glad I did that. I'm gladI took that approach. As the song
wraps up here, I love thissong so much. It's just so good.
Old Gods Vassard aka Poets of theFall, They're just very good.
Anyway, I don't want to gettwo sidetrack. When I signed off of
my stream last night. You cango watch it. You can go watch
the whole Thing's archived on Twitch.I'm not gonna get rid of it.

(02:14):
I may try and download it forposterity, just so in case they deleted
it for me. But the wholething's there, and I was I was
happy with what I with what wesaw. I was happy with the games
that were announced. I was happywith the things that went on, like
the musical number I talked about.But then when I went back and watched

(02:35):
that outro again, I didn't talkabout the awards. Once I focused so
much on what was announced, Ibasically went into E three mode, right,
I went into post E three pressconference mode, where I talked about
the things we learned about that arecoming in the future rather than the games

(02:55):
that were being honored on the night, And that, right there is a
microcosm of the entire experience. Now, the next thing you say is,
well, how is that different thanany other year at the Game Awards?
And you're right, it always ithas always had that issue. What once
was touted as a feature being ableto blend the announcements that the industry fans

(03:20):
love with the celebration of the industryas a whole has now gotten blurred to
being more of a detriment. Itjust needs to find more of a balance.
But no, but where in otheryears it was like easy to pass
off, it was a little biteasier for lack of better term, ignore
this year. This year it wasone hundred thousand percent on display. And

(03:46):
now that I have come into myown after sleeping on it, we're going
to get into that. But first, first things first, I do I
want to start with the games thatwere announced to get out of the way,
I want to get it out ofmy system. I know, I
just said that I'm basically going totake the same timeline in this podcast episode

(04:06):
that I took in my brain lastnight. So we'll talk about some of
the things I'm most excited about.Uh, we're gonna talk about the rest
of the show after this. AndI don't think I'm gonna do segments in
this one. I know, Inormally, you know, say stick around
or what have you. I thinkI'm just gonna run straight through, no
commercial breaks today. I don't thinkthis one's getting put on the the Uh,

(04:29):
what's the word I'm looking for theradio, you know, that's what
it's called. I don't think thisone's getting radio play this week. This
is just me. I'm gonna gooff for forty five minutes. I'm not
gonna put any ads on it,so you'll adds at the beginning, adds
at the end, nothing in between. We're just gonna run through this and
I'm gonna talk about what I'm feelingright now. This this afternoon, one
pm on Friday, December eighth,the day after the Game Awards kicked off.

(04:50):
So let's go through some of thethings that I liked to see Brothers,
a tale of two sons getting remadeor brought back to modern consoles.
That's really cool. Game came outtwenty thirteen. Novel idea of being a
sort of puzzle platform or sort ofgame where you control two people at the
same time, with one half ofthe controller being one brother and one half

(05:13):
of the controller being the other.Made by Joseph Farris who also made it.
It takes two and a couple othergames. Very very cool game.
Happy to see that get some timeback in the spotlight. Pony Island two
Panda Circus only means anything if youplayed Inscription. If you haven't played Inscription,
you should do so that's a fungame as well. Loudest pop of
the night for me or second loudestpop of the night for me went to

(05:36):
The Rise of the Golden Idol becauseThe Case of the Golden Idol is one
of my favorite games ever. Itis a very well done puzzle game,
really makes you think, and it'sone that I feel needs to be played
by everyone. It's on most consolesright now, I believe, and at

(05:57):
least don't switch and PC, soif you have a switcher PC you can
play it. There so go checkthat out. That's really cool and worth
your time. Harmonium the musical wasreally cool. It's a it's a musical
game but made with the death inmind. So we may be hearing things,
you know, hearing the words thatare being said, but the but
like it's all all they're all beingsigned and everything subtitled. Just a really

(06:20):
novel idea there as well. Finji, who most recently made Tunic, is
back with usual June. That wasa cool trailer. Motion twin The Dead
Cell Studio announced their next game,win Blown. That was pretty awesome as
well. The biggest pop of thenight probably went to God of War Ragnarok's
Valhalla update, the new free todownload roguelike game from Sony Santa Monica.

(06:46):
Inside God of War Ragnarok, playerscredos go through some go through this this
some sort of like mysterious island withthis temple that you just fight monsters over
and over again in the rogue lightsetting. That should be cool. Uh.
Hell Blade two looked really great.The new game from House House,
who made untitled goose game, BigWalk looked very very strange. Kids love

(07:08):
that trailer, as I thought theywould, as did the Moon Studios game.
No rest for the wicked, verystark departure from Ari, but I
am excited for that Dragon Ball SparkingZero, which is basically just the next
ten Kaiichi game. I'm very excitedto see that franchise, that spin off
of dragon Ball come back casting afrank Stone, which is a horror game

(07:30):
collaboration between the Dead by Daylight Studioand the Until Dawn Slashed the Quarry Studio.
Plus the Bandy Namco series. Manof Madonn is one of them.
I can never remember the actual nameof the full series. Visions of Mana,
a brand new game in the Manafranchise. Did not see that coming.
Final Fantasy seven rebirth trailer was fantastic. Marvel's Blade probably the biggest announcement

(07:55):
of the night. That Arcane ismaking a Blade game that's kind of cool
for free d enough free but paidDLC for Final Fantasy sixteen first pack out
Last Night second pack coming in springtwenty twenty four. Monster Hunter Wild's ending
the show also a very cool awardsorry, very cool announcement as well.
So yeah, there were some verycool games to get excited about. Some

(08:18):
with twenty twenty four release dates,some with twenty twenty five release dates,
which is a little disheartening. Sotwenty twenty five already has Monster Hunter and
Grand Theft Auto in it. That'spretty impressive. And you know we're a
year away. Lord knows what's goingto be announced in the next couple of
months for that stuff. But yeah, so the announcements are great. I

(08:41):
don't want to take away from thethings that were announced, the things that
were presented. The games look fun. I am excited to learn more about
them. For the games that maybe a little closer to their release date,
I am excited to play them.But this is an award show about
the past year twenty twenty three,right, so, meaning that they should

(09:03):
be spending time, most of theirtime devoted to honoring those shows, at
least honoring those games, at leastin the way, at least in the
way that like the people, peoplewant the Game Awards to be like the
Oscars, right, they want itto be that. They want it to

(09:24):
be this, you know, celebrationof the industry with awards mixed in,
and unfortunately that has never been wherethe Game Awards has landed. Right,
This is more of a pop cultureoriented Award, as exemplified by Anthony Mackie
and Timothy Shallomy for some reason andstuff and people like that coming to present

(09:46):
awards now. Anthony Mackie makes sense. He's in the Swiss to metal game
Twist Metals based on video game,got it? The cast of Fallout,
same thing, makes sense that they'rethere. Timothy Shallomy to make a whole
lot of sense. I mean,yeah, he used to stream video games.
Great, but why is he herenow? And furthermore, he could

(10:07):
not have seemed more disinterested to bethere. But that's another neither here nor
there. At least he introduced andpresented an award, right, he was
the Game of the Year guy,so he got to bring the orchestra on
stage, he got to give theGame of the Year award to the winner.
Stuff like that. That's neither herenor there. My big issue is

(10:28):
the lack of attention devoted to thewinners of these awards. This is a
common critique. It is one thatwe have talked about with this show for
years, and we talked about it, I believe when it was the Spike
Video Game Awards in the early twentytens, and then it went away for
a while. And it came backin twenty fourteen in its current form.

(10:50):
And here we stand. So thiswas the tenth Game Awards. Next year
is the tenth anniversary of the GameAwards, So it's now a decade in
and we're still talking about it beingmore of a marketing presentation oriented event than
it is a celebration or award show. And that sucks, frankly, because

(11:13):
this is easily the most visible,the most viewed, the award show with
the highest reach in the entire industry. There are others the BAFTAs, the
Golden Joysticks, the Aias or theDice Awards, which I think are the
same thing. I could be wrong. The Spawnees run by Khalif Adams,

(11:35):
which is a great up and comingaward show there as well. These all
exist and they all figure out away to honor the award winners along with
if there are any announcements or whatevergoing on and creating that balance here that
seesaw went way too much in thedirection of trailers to the point where winners

(12:00):
of Awards this is the worst part. And if you saw it, you
know what I'm talking about. I'mnot saying anything new right now, Winners
of these awards were given thirty secondsfor speeches if they were one of the
ones selected for speeches, and onemoment they did a bunch of rapid fire
awards at once, including some highlike major categories. Best Indie for Sea

(12:28):
of Stars, Best RPG for Balder'sGain. I guess just blown through with
no care. What is the pointright? Kotaku wrote a great article this
morning. Zaxwison wrote a great headline, It's time for the Game Awards to
just become the Winter e three itwants to be. You want to give
awards, you want to honor people, fine, but just call yourself what

(12:52):
it is. Stop with this.You know, the best form of entertainment,
as somebody pointed out in the gamespot slack today, stop with that.
There is no best form entertainment.The best form entertainment is whatever entertains
you. There is no it's somebody. There's a tweet that I wrote that
I read. I wrote tweet thatI read that said, events like last

(13:15):
night make it seem like we're aThe gaming industry is a very successful little
brother who's trying to measure up tothe older brother who was more popular in
high school. And that is soright, it's so right, it's not
even funny. And in some momentsI kind of I kind of think it's
cool to have like Anthony Mackie thereand and al Pacino last year, and

(13:39):
you know, people like that,But like, are the Muppets necessary?
And I love the Muppets. Muppetthis is my time of year. This
is the Muppets time a year forme. Muppett Family Christmas is one of
my favorite Christmas shows of all time? Was Gonzo needed? Did I need
to hear Gonzo thirst about chickens forsix minutes or whatever it ended up being,

(14:01):
Bring out some Alan Wake corkboard.Never reference to Alan Wake. I
mean, make the Alan Wake joke. You're making an Alan Wake corkboard.
Make the joke. No, We'rejust talking about how much he really wants
to do unspeakable things to that chickenor chicken in general. It's very weird.
It's very I feel, I don'tknow, it's hard to it's hard

(14:26):
to really get into. The moreI think about it, the more problems
I have I want to I'm justgonna paint a couple of situations here that
people have talked about that are reallyreally bad and of course, you can
make your own judgments. If youdon't agree with me, that's fine.
But if you, you know,just listen to what I'm saying and see

(14:48):
if it at least makes any senseto you. So first, somebody on
Twitter, Haley Elise at Haley Eliseon Twitter, because I refuse to call
it what it's called. She wentthrough where they went through. I don't
want to assume they went through andbroke down by timing five different categories for

(15:11):
these award shows. Now, thisonly counts for the Core Game Award show.
It does not include the however manyawards and I think a dozen reveals
that happened in the opening act asthey call it, from seven thirty to
eight o'clock Eastern time. This isjust eight to eleven trailers and advertisements were

(15:31):
given one hour and twenty eight minutes. That is half of the runtime.
Eighty eight out of one hundred andeighty minutes we're spent on trailers and advertisements,
which is fine, but there areother areas that are sorely lacking,

(15:52):
and we'll get to that. Musicalnumbers at thirteen and a half minutes,
that's fine. They had two,right, maybe three? They had Old
Gods of Asgard. They had thefinal Fantasy seven rebirth one. I think
it might be it. That's fine, that's perfect for a three hour show.
One or two songs to mix thingsup. Good Oscars does the same
thing. If you want to keepmaking that comparison, they do the same

(16:12):
thing for all their best music.Whatever I'm in, that's fine with me.
Presenters of the awards, the peoplepresenting the awards got almost triple the
amount of time as people to givespeeches who won them. Twenty six and

(16:32):
a half minutes for award presenters,ten minutes for the speeches of the winners.
That is bogus. That to meis completely backwards. Now, some
of that may have been extended byAnthony Mackie, who was very upset with
the crowd for yelling at him,were very drunk or very both um yelling

(16:56):
at the crowd to stop talking,and how much he loved them. He
kind of padded his time there.Whatever. Christopher Judge I think patted it
on purpose, making fun of callof duty because of his speech last year,
which kept going on and on andon, and they got a get
inside joke whatever, and that startedthe show that was a great icebreaker to
start the show. Bring out ChristopherJudge, make fun of him, play
him off. But also, asI'm just now realizing, it, kind

(17:18):
of set the stage for the entirenight because he starts talking and they immediately
turn on the playoff music, whichfor him is a joke. But then
when they did it to everybody else, when they weren't supposed to the joke,
it wasn't a joke anymore. Thereis one award in particular, it's
either Accessibility Games for Impact. Ihave to go look where the accepters of

(17:41):
the award. The two people whoaccept the award, it's a man and
a woman, and they go upand the man gives his speech and he
says, you know, whatever hewants to say. He says, thank
you. The woman walks up tothe mic to get her turn, and
damn they play the playoff music,full bore, full blast boom. They're
playing the off as if they assumedshe had nothing to say. As soon

(18:03):
as that happened, I go backto my live stream. I immediately was
like, oh no, that's notgood. You let them both speak.
That didn't happen again for the restof the show, but it happened to
them. I have to find theaward specific award that that happened to,
and I will do that while we'retalking here. But that was just not
not a good look at all,and I am genuinely curious how that was

(18:29):
able to happen. But then youhave the voice actor for Astarion, who
won the best Performance category for Balder'sGate, giving a very moving speech to
Neil Nubahn is his name, givinga very moving speech about how his performance

(18:51):
helped people who were suffering from abuse, and it's just very wonderful, wonderful
thing, and their playing him off. Give him time, let him soak
in that moment. He had whatthirty seconds forty seconds before that screen that

(19:12):
has become the lasting image of thegame awards, please wrap it up,
was being shown to him, andthat was the first award to bookend the
show, the last award Game ofthe year, also for Balder's Gate.
The head of the studio, ina suit of armor by the way,

(19:32):
Great Touch comes up and starts givinghis speech and talking about members of the
team who have died, won asrecently as a month ago, and they're
playing him off again. It's theend of the show. There should be
no time limit for the Game ofthe Year speech. What are you doing?

(20:00):
Why are you doing this? Iunderstand, I mean, I can
sympathize or understand if, in thebeginning of the show the lesser not lesser,
but these smaller categories get less timeto speak. Fine, that makes
perfect sense to me, but notGame of the Year, right, And

(20:22):
even then, the smaller categories deservelonger than thirty seconds before they're being played
off with a patronizing Uh, pleasewrap it up? Who picked that?
Please wrap it up? You couldwrite, you could have written anything.
You could have written overtime, youcould have written, you know, something
else, like, uh, justjust have the zeros there flashing. That

(20:45):
would have been enough. Please wrapit up. What the hell? Man?
Somebody's put on Twitter and this isright. I don't remember exactly who
wrote it. I want to sayJavier Cordero was the name I got find
that tweet. I want to makesure I get that appropriation or not appropriation,
that attribution correct as well. Thatsaid, if I'm accepting an award

(21:08):
for Game of the Year on aproject I spent blood, sweent and tears
on and I'm talking about people onmy team who have died while making these
games, and you're playing me off, I'm gonna be pissed. And he's

(21:30):
right, there's no excuse for that. And then and then, which is
where there are weird practices got intheir own way. That man, the
head of Balder's Gate three, whenhe was accepting his award for Game of
the Year, was supposed to announcethat the Xbox version shadow dropped. The

(21:52):
Xbox version of Baltersgate three was availableon Xbox right then and there for the
first time. They didn't give himthe time to do that. Now he
says he forgot. He says hewould. You know, he wasn't thinking
he was in the moment. Butif he's not played off after thirty seconds
of accepting an award or giving aspeech for Game of the Year, maybe

(22:17):
he remembers that particular tidbit, huh. I mean, that just makes sense.
He gave more time on the stageto that dope from games Com who
rushed the stage looking for GTA six, who I hope is still riding in
the gooleg because that, I mean, they had more security last night.
But that's that whole I'm not gettingonto that your haste and your lack of

(22:44):
focus on the winners kept you froma pretty big announcement, which is your
bread and butter anyway, right,you spent half the show on trailers and
stuff like that, and as Ihave been saying, the social media reaction
has been strong, to say theleast. Jeff Grubb over there Giant Bomb

(23:04):
says, I don't think we Idon't want to say we shouldn't criticize the
game awards. We should. Ijust think maybe it's more useful to question
the whole importance in the first place. Some guy just decided to hand out
trophies, we don't have to takeit as seriously as default. That is
a very good point that he madethere. I think that there is something
you could something to be said abouthow this guy just, you know,

(23:26):
decided he wanted to do this.Now, granted, he did invest a
million dollars of his own money,and he clearly does care about the industry.
He just has to get his prioritystraight here. It is Javierra Cordero.
That's the name. If I hadone Game of the Year and was
dedicating the award to a member ofmy team who had died during development,
and saw the words please wrap itup. I'd be expletive pissed. I

(23:47):
would too, Pavierra, you areabsolutely right about that. Swen Vinki is
his name from Larry and he wasthe one accepting the award. One great
joke didn't know gave de Game devAward acceptance. Species were also subjected to
crunch. That was a nice littlelittle dig there. Simoulu, who came
out to present himself a present anaward and reveal himself in a game called

(24:12):
Stormgate, got to talk about hisbroken foot longer than developers won an award
tonight. That was pretty pretty goodcommentary there. Roger Clark, who was
the voice I believe is the voiceof Arthur Morgan, I think I have
the guy right here. He tweetedthat the gaming industry has an odd complex

(24:33):
at the moment. They're disregarding theirown plate, their own disregarding their own
in a place in place of afilm industry that doesn't really care about them.
They're like the more successful little brotherhere it is still seeking validation from
the big brother who was cool inhigh school. Yes, that's one hundred
percent true. It's it's a shame, right, It is a shame.

(24:53):
That the awards that we most associatewith this industry have become fifty percent marketing
and fifty percent and not even fiftypercent celebration. Let's go back, Let's
go back to those times again,shall we? Let me find that tweet

(25:14):
again while I'm right here. Onehour and twenty eight minutes for trailers,
thirteen and a half minutes for musicalnumbers. That's the only one I'm okay
with award presenters twenty six and ahalf minutes. Winter speech is ten minutes.
I didn't get to the other thingthat really makes me upset, and
that is forty two and a halfminutes devoted to other I believe Kajima is

(25:37):
in that because he had eight minuteswith Jordan Peele and all the other stuff.
I think the warframe stuff is inthere because they were talking about the
warframe drop and stuff like that.That right, there is more time that
should be devoted to winter speeches.There is no reason that the speeches of
the people who are winning the awardsshould have the least amount of time.

(25:59):
What are you doing, Jeff?Now? I did have a thought that
maybe he was overreacting to Bill Clintonkid last year, right he didn't want
that egg on his face again aftersome kids snuck up on the stage and
talked about Bill Clinton out of nowhere. Yeah, fine, that's fine.

(26:21):
But you had the guardrails for that, You had the extra security guys at
the end of the rows for that. You took care of that. You
don't take care of that. Bylimiting the time of the people who are
supposed to be giving the speeches,you are punishing the wrong people. And
to be honest, I don't evenknow where the solution is, right,
I don't know is it. Imean, well, clearly the answer would

(26:45):
be less attention given to the trailersand the ads. But that's why the
people tune in, right, Sowhat do you need? What needs to
happen here is you can have yourtrailers and your reveals and all that other
good stuff. You can still havethat stuff, but you need to spend
just as much time honoring the speechestoo. I don't want to hear that
people get bored if speeches are toolong, and and people on Twitter or

(27:08):
whatever start saying move it along,move it along. That's because people on
Twitter have no attention span, myboy. They just as long as something
is the least bit boring. They'recomplaining about it. It's what they do.
If anyone's live tweeting this, they'vealready told me to move it along
fifteen times in twenty seven minutes.It's just how it works on social media.

(27:30):
Man, you need to be theone to hold up You and your
team need to be the ones tohold up the Hey, we need to
give these people equal time. Andit's gotten me wondering what a Game Awards
show would look like without Jeff Keey, somebody else hosting, just his team

(27:51):
organizing everything. I don't know howhands on he is now. He talks
about going to a studio like houseHouse and playing Big Walk or whatever that
game was called from the untitled GooseGame. People. He talks about,
you know, being in the roomfor all these demos, But is he
booking them or is team booking them? Is he producing the rundown or is

(28:14):
his team producing the rundown? Isthis a Vince mcmn situation where a bunch
of people do work and he hasthe final say. And I hope that's
the extent of the vincetrick Man situation. If that's what it is, I
don't know. Maybe we get somebodyon the not on the inside. Maybe
we get some of those answers,we get some of those things told to
us, so we know maybe maybeI don't know. I don't know.

(28:37):
All I know is something's wrong.Something's wrong, And it was very apparent
last night based on the the reactionsof people on Twitter about the show and
what they were seeing. There isa problem here. There is a rot
at the core of the Game Awardsthat has been festering for almost a decade

(29:00):
aid and it's time to figure outhow to get rid of it and create
a balance. Does it mean addingan extra hour to your show? Fine,
start at seven six thirty, seveno'clock, six thirty opening act,
seven o'clock start time. If youadd an hour and give all of that
time to the winner speeches, nobodysays a word, everybody. You have

(29:22):
thirty awards at this show. Yougave ten minutes to the winners. If
you make that seventy, that's what. Let's do the quick math here,
real quick. More than a littlemore than two minutes per speech, that's
fine, And then you can playwith it as is. You want to
give Game of the Year more time, then I don't know, the e
Sports Awards whatever, that's fine too, or maybe the Esports Awards are in

(29:47):
the pre show and then you dothem and you give them their their their
their laurels, and then we moveon. Because it's mostly about the actual
industry, the the core gaming industry, and not so much about esports.
There are ways to do this,I don't I think anyone would complain if
that show starts at seven pm EasternTime instead of eight pm Eastern time.
But every every single speech, everysingle winner of an award gets more time

(30:07):
to give a speech. I wouldhave loved to see Sabotage on that stage
last night for Best Indie Game.I would have loved it. Was it
there, No, it wasn't.It got mentioned, it got clapped for,
and then it was moved on tothe next one. Sabotage deserved that

(30:30):
time on stage. They deserved it. They didn't get it, and that,
to me is bogus. And Ihate to do this because I look
forward to this. I look forwardto this from Thanksgiving. I mean,
I'm always kind of on the peripheryof it. It's one of my favorite
events of the year and has beenfor years. I've been talking about going
to this damn thing for five years. You think I would do it eventually.

(30:53):
But I love this show, Ilove streaming it, I love talking
about it friends. With the absenceof E three, that void has been
filled to a point by this andnow I'm realizing that that's a problem.

(31:15):
But it's not an unfixable one.There just needs to be more time given
to the people winning the awards asopposed to those who want to announce the
games that may be winning them inthe future. It amazes me how much
Alan Wake two is a perfect exampleof what's going on in this industry,
in this particular industry event. Rememberwhen alan Wake two was announced in twenty

(31:38):
twenty one. Remember how much timethey got on stage to talk about the
return of alan Wake on that stagetwo years ago. Now, when it
came time to win the awards,their creators got what third of that time.

(32:01):
Allen Wait might not be the bestexample because they also had one of
the musical numbers. I understand that, but it doesn't change the fact that
you spent more time on the game'sannouncement two years ago than you did on
the awards that it won. Atthe show that has awards in the title,
and that to me is a problem. We play these games because they're

(32:23):
made by excellent creators, and themost visible award show in the world needs
to give those creators that spotlight.It needs to give the industry that spotlight,
not just the marketing committees, notjust the business side, the entire

(32:44):
industry, which brings me to mylast point. There have been a lot
of critiques about this show, alot of them deserved, none of them
more deserved than anybody who had anythingto say about the lack of mention of

(33:06):
layoffs there. I mean, therewas that wonderful letter that went out by
the Future Class regarding acknowledgment of what'sgoing on in Israel in Palestine. Should
that have happened to Yes, theymentioned Ukraine in twenty twenty one, they
should have mentioned Palestine this year aswell. I won one hundred percent agree.

(33:32):
There were people who were going togive speeches on Palestine. They didn't
win that the team one of thepeople who made Goodbye Volcano, Hyatt co
Op, shared his speech if theyhad won, and it mentions Palestine.
So now is it p will thetinfoil hats put on you go on to

(33:57):
say that that game didn't because theymight mention it. No, you can't
say that because you didn't see aspeech before here. You have to clear
anything. I don't know if theyhave to clear it, but if they
had to clear it, whatever,But that's a whole other That's what I
want to get into. It shouldhave happened, But that is a very
it's a hard topic to talk aboutit. It's a hard topic to give

(34:19):
the gravitas that it needs. SoI would have loved to have hear about
it, heard about it, andthe fact that it wasn't there sucks,
But just as importantly, if notbecause of the industry we're talking about more
importantly, even though it's it's not. I don't want to say one's more

(34:43):
important than the other. I'm justtrying to make a point here that one
that definitely should have been said wasthe layoffs. Both of these things should
have been said. Let me letme make that very clear. But if
we had to choose one, orif I had to, if you came
to me and said, one ofthese two things is definitely going to be
talked about it this award show,what's it going to be? I would
have chosen the layoffs. It wasa huge part of this year, one

(35:05):
of the most successful critically successful yearsin video games ever, overshadowed by nearly
ten thousand layoffs in studios across theworld. That to me is something somebody
would have addressed and should have beenaddressed. At the beginning of the show,
Nope, not a word. Andmy favorite part, My favorite part

(35:30):
of this is that multiple times duringthe show they panned a camera to Leanna
Ruppert. Nothing's wrong with Leanna Ruppert. The Honor Ruppert is great, The
Honor Ruppert was laid off. TheHonor Ruppert was laid off by Bungee.
She was affected, and they keptfinding her in the audience, and anybody

(35:53):
who saw her would be like,oh, that's Leanna. Oh yeah,
she got laid off. Oh they'regonna mention that. They never did.
I don't know if the camera personknew that that was that situation. I
doubt it, if they were justpart of the camera team. But every
time they showed her, all Ithought was, maybe this is an opportunity

(36:15):
to mention something about the terrible layoffs, and this is going to remind somebody
to do it. When she's onthe screen, No, didn't happen.
The Israel Palestine situation sucks. Thelayoff situation sucks. Both of those things
are very important topics that could andshould have had a platform to be focused

(36:36):
on last night. One of themeven stressed by the members of the so
called future class that the Game Awardsconsiders to be the best and brightest of
the younger generation of game developers,and both were ignored. Spineless. It's
cowardice, and it shows a lackof awareness for the world around you,

(37:02):
both internally in your little industry bubbleand externally in the world at large.
And it sucks now and then peoplewill tell me why kit we just walk
it. We just have a nightto start to break the video games.
We wanted that toune. We didn'tget it right. We got ten minutes
of three hours celebrating the actual winners. So spare me that crap. The

(37:30):
awards. The Game Awards need tochange. It's that simple. You want
to give three hours of a platformto this industry, you have to do
it by celebrating this industry. Youwant to celebrate its future as you gave
an hour and a half to lastnight. Fine, that's fine. Have

(37:50):
your trailers, have your reveals,but you need to also make equal time,
if not maybe more time to thepeople who have already made their games
and are looking to be honored afterwinning your awards. It makes me wonder,
like I said earlier, about ashow without him, what would that

(38:12):
look like? What would the GameAwards look like if he took a year
off, just decided to do somethingelse, focus on summer games Fest and
games Calm, and let us GameAwards team do that. I truly wonder
what that would look like. AmI saying he's the problem? No,
but he's the final decision maker.What would happen if you made somebody else

(38:32):
the final decision maker? How wouldthat look? It's an interesting idea.
Is it going to happen? No? Not next year, not the tenth
anniversary. Absolutely not after that.No, we'll probably keep doing this as
long as he wants. But Iam curious what that would look like?
Just once, just once? Isuggest, if you want some extra reading

(38:59):
on this subject, you go tothe Verge and read Ash Parish is former
guest of Chief Takes and Controllers.Read her excellent piece on the Verge called
let Me Get the Name of It? For you. I want to make
sure I get it right. Whereis it? She posted it right after
the show she was on it.It is called Jeff Jeff Keilly let video

(39:21):
Game Developers Down? Is flat outwhat it says. She says basically what
kind of She goes into better detailin what I was saying earlier. The
numbers vary. Estimates. Estimates sayanywhere between six and seven thousand workers lost
their jobs this year. No studioor no level of studio size or success
has been spared, and those whohave been let go are now forced to

(39:43):
contend for an ever dwindling number ofopen job prospects. And then she goes
on to talk about how this platformshould have been used to address that and
it didn't. Excellent writing by AshParish highly recommend you go to The Verge
and check that out. Also checkout the zax Weissen article from Kataku.
The Game Awards needs to drop theact and just become Winter E three props

(40:04):
to whoever chose the cover image forthat one. That is a very very
interesting place to do that. Andyou know, I just I just wish
the Awards show would be better,Like I'm sitting here right now, as
I'm saying these words, watching avideo of the Dublin office of Larry and

(40:30):
Studios at what's this eleven o'clock Eastern, so it's four or five in the
morning for them right watching the Gameof the Year announcement. And as soon
as they say Balder's Gate three onthat stage, that studio turns into the
World Series Champions locker room. There'schampagne spraying everywhere. They're screaming, listen,

(40:55):
listen to this. That's amazing,and listen to them. Go look
for at Kirakira Cosmo on Twitter hasthis there. She's associate writing for Luster
Phaleron. Listen to that. Joy. Why am I watching this on Twitter

(41:17):
and not on the stage of theGame Awards. Look at them, Listen
to them. Incredible. That's whatthe Game Awards needs. More of the
cheers of those who won the awards, and not just the cheers from fans

(41:39):
excited to see all the new stuffthat the award winners won't get enough time
to talk about when they win theAwards and Game Awards ceremonies of the future.
And that is episode number one fortyone of the Chief Stakes and Controllers
podcast, presented by Fox PHL.The Gambler won a two point five FM

(41:59):
fourteen I heart radio. Where youget your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Music,
what have you. If you wantto discuss this more, I am
at big Man Finelle on all ofthe socials. Feel free to do that.
This is a tough one. LikeI said, I love the Game
Awards, I love watching them,I love being a part of it.

(42:20):
One of these years I will actuallygo, and maybe I'll drag my wife
with me. But I can lovea thing and also say that it needs
fundamental changes at its core. Andthose changes were never more apparent than they
were last night by the time thatshow had ended. Hopefully next year for

(42:44):
the tenth anniversary, they do betterthan the actual tenth edition. As I
always say at the end of theepisode, if you're hearing these words,
that means you have reached the end, and I am ever so grateful and
appreciative that you have done so you'reeducated. I hope you're entertained again.
I am more than willing to discussfurther on social media. I might try

(43:07):
and do some more live streaming.Now. You can come into my chat
at Jfans sixty four and talk tome there. Ultimately, i'd love to
hear your opinions on the Game Awards, what you liked, what you didn't,
what you're looking forward to, ifthere were things last night that were
on your bucket list to be announcedand they were love to hear that,
But just remember that that's not theonly thing that this is words they're supposed
to be about, and it hasnow overtaken half the show, which is

(43:30):
pretty alarming. Regardless, I hopeyou have a fantastic weekend. I hope
you have an even better week rightbehind it, and we'll be back again
next week with more of the latestand greatest and gaming news here on Chee
Steaks and Controllers. See you later, y'all. F