There’s at least one more big date on the gaming calendar before the end of the year: the Game Awards.
The show takes place on December 7 and is split into 32 categories. You can watch the show and vote to take part. Here’s how it works.
When is the Game Awards 2023?
The Game Awards 2023 will be held on December 7 at Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. However, bad news for us UK folks, it takes place in the afternoon so we will already have slipped into Friday, December 8, by the time the awards start.
It is expected to begin at 4.30pm, which equates to 12.30am over here. Last year the show went on for around 3.5 hours, so you can expect to be up until 4am if you choose to watch the whole thing. Time to book a day off on the Friday?
How to watch the Game Awards
The Game Awards 2023 will be streamed across a bunch of platforms. While it’s an in-person event, everyone else will be watching online.
You can watch through YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitch or Twitter/X.
For the best-quality stream, stick to YouTube. It will stream the Game Awards in 4K resolution, letting you see those laughter lines across host Geoff Keighley’s face.
Twitch is likely to have a busy user comments section and, if you have a favourite gaming Twitch channel, it may even be streaming during the show.
How to vote in the Game Awards
Voting in the awards has now closed.
The Game Awards announced the 2023 nominees in mid-November. There are 31 categories from Game of the Year to Best Esports Coach. We posted the full list after that announcement.
You can vote for the lot, by making an account at the Game Awards website.
In almost all the categories, the public vote only has a modest impact. The results are based 90 per cent on the jury’s decision, while the vote has a 10 per cent sway.
The jury is made up of gaming journalists, influencers and accessibility advocates from across the world. In the UK, that includes folks from EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN and the Guardian, among others.
However, there’s also a Players’ Voice category. It is 100 per cent player voted, and a long list is gradually whittled down over three rounds. If you’re going to vote at all, perhaps stick to that category. The first round of voting closes on November 29.
It takes a lot less time than voting for all 30+ rounds. Standard voting closes the day before the awards.
What is the Game Awards?
The Game Awards has been around since 2014 and was set up by Geoff Keighley, a former games journalist and presenter.
Before the Game Awards, he presented the Spike Video Game Awards and was a presenter on GameTrailers TV. Over the pandemic Keighley also established Summer Games Fest, a showcase of upcoming games, after the E3 show was cancelled.
The Game Awards has not published its list of key sponsors on its website, but some of the biggest names in gaming are involved in the show’s advisory board. These include figures from EA, Epic Games, AMD, Microsoft and Nintendo.
Last year’s awards has been viewed more than 5.4 million times on YouTube.
You can expect the show to be packed with game trailers and marketing spots as well as awards because, well, that's how these things are funded.
Who won previous Game Awards trophies?
The Game Awards has too many categories to list the results of previous years here but these were the games awarded the Game of the Year trophy. It should give you some idea of the type of game that ends up winning big with a jury-led structure:
- 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition
- 2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- 2016: Overwatch
- 2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- 2018: God of War
- 2019: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
- 2020: The Last of Us Part II
- 2021: It Takes Two
- 2022: Elden Ring
This year’s nominees for the Game of the Year category are Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros Wonder and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Given the preponderance of epic adventures among previous winners, our money is on The Legend of Zelda or Baldur’s Gate 3.
