2023-12-08 11:09:03
On the night of Thursday December 7 to Friday December 8, the Game Awards took place, often presented as the Oscars of video games. A cultural and marketing event which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, with a central figure at the helm: Canadian Geoff Keighley.
« Please welcome to the stage the creator of The Game Awards: Geoff Keighley. » When he appears on the stage of Peacock Theater of Los Angeles for the 2023 edition, the one who defines himself as a “media entrepreneur” has the same look, the same haircut and almost the same gray suit as during the first edition, in 2014. At 45 years old, he looks also proof of the same artificial enthusiasm, with him everything is ” amazing », « wonderful », « spectacular “. In an industry accustomed to turmoil and controversy, he appears to be a rare consensual figure.
In 2021, while the industry is rocked by a series of scandals, pillars of major studios are accused of sexual harassmentto maintain a misogynistic and toxic culture internally, he evacuates the subject with two sentences: “ Before we begin, we cannot ignore the news. Game creators must be supported by the companies that employ them. Tonight, I’m calling on everyone to build a better, safer and more inclusive gaming industry. » It’s hard to get any smoother. Activision, Ubisoft, Blizzard: none of the studios involved are named. Geoff Keighley especially wants not to get angry with anyone and especially not with those who pay a lot to promote their games and upcoming releases between the awards.
No political stance is tolerated
Geoff Keighley, both producer and master of ceremonies, has made the Game Awards an unmissable marketing event a few weeks before Christmas and the end-of-year holidays. And there is no question that politics will interfere with this well-oiled mechanism: despite an open letter of several nominees in the category “ Future Class » (which represents the young hopefuls of the industry) calling for a position to be taken in favor of the Palestinians of Gaza, not a word on the subject was spoken during the ceremony. A developer who was to present a trophy was even disinvited after expressing her intention to take advantage of the platform to denounce “ the ongoing genocide in Palestine “. Nor on the thousands of developers laid off in 2023 while the industry is going through a dark year.
Geoff Keighley does not want to take the risk of upsetting the industry leaders, some of whom he has worked with for 30 years. When takes place Cybermania ’94, the very first televised video game awards ceremony in 1994 on TBS, he wears a tuxedo and sits in the front row. Knowing his passion for video games, his parents who both work for Hollywood from Toronto introduced him to production. The teenager comes to help the authors – who know nothing about it – to write the texts for the presenters – who know nothing about it either – on the games nominated in the different categories. Geoff Keighley already loved video games, he caught the television bug.
The “Pope of Doritos”
Later, he became a journalist specializing in video games, first in the specialized press which was enjoying its hour of glory online. But very quickly, he returned to television: on Spike TV, a cable channel. In 2003, he became executive producer behind the Video Game Awards. We already find the formula that will later make the Game Awards successful: concerts, stars from the cinema, game trailers and an assumed mix between editorial content and advertising. The target audience is young, white and male, the performances are often sexist and homophobic. But Geoff Keighley has already managed to attract big names: Snoop Dogg and Samuel L. Jackson will present the ceremony in turn.
And it was at this time that Geoff Keighley was nicknamed “the Dorito Pope”. Reference to a interview he gave in 2012 to a specialized site. In the video, he appears surrounded by packets of chips and bottles of soda. The product placement is so disproportionate that it becomes the symbol of a video game press being sold to the highest bidder.
103 million spectators
A reputation that did not harm him for long: when Spike TV ended the Video Game Awards two years later, he went solo on Twitch and YouTube. In 10 years, it has become essential in an industry which in the world is now four times heavier than that of television. More than ever, Hollywood comes to look for sources of inspiration, and movie stars no longer have the impression of compromising themselves by agreeing to participate in projects carried out by game studios. This year, Timothée Chalamet came announce the winner of the 2023 edition: Baldur’s Gate 3 from the Belgian studio Larian. Geoff Keighley has made himself essential. Last year, 103 million people around the world watched its Game Awards, that’s six times more than the Oscars.
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