During the 2024 broadcast of The Game Awards, host Geoff Keighley took the stage to present the ceremony's inaugural Game Changers award. The award was presented to Amir Satvat, who maintained a community of game developers affected by layoffs in the industry and assisted those developers in finding new jobs at no cost.
Satvat's efforts have helped more than 3000 game developers discover employment in the industry, with one interviewee describing Satvat as a "career Santa Claus." Though Satvat's work earned him a standing ovation at The Game Awards, it has also left him at the center of a hateful campaign because Satvat is an employee of Tencent.
The Game Awards has a history of glossing over negative events affecting the games industry and those who work tirelessly to create the mystical worlds so many of us lose ourselves to daily. Massive layoffs have been a flash point in the industry in recent years, spurred by corporations who invested in unsustainable growth during the pandemic. More than 34,000 reported layoffs across studios and publishers, and that's without taking into consideration how indie game studios have struggled to keep their doors open in the last three years.
Keighley's tepid commentary on layoffs during the 2023 TGAs led to calls from the industry and gaming communities for the show to be more vocal and supportive of developers. For 2024, Keighley took the stage to present the inaugural Game Changers award, stating "Honestly, as a show, we kind of struggle with how to address these topics in a constructive way," before presenting the Game Changers award to Satvat. Satvat accepted the award and thanked his parents with a tear in his eye and a humble smile, while the audience provided a standing ovation in a genuinely wholesome moment.
Satvat's name may not have been widely known in gamer's homes the way Todd Howard's or Phil Spencer's may be, but for developers coping with layoffs and studio closures, Satvat has reportedly served as a guiding beacon through the fog of the gaming industry. His free online resource collects open job positions in the industry in one place, and helps those looking for work in the industry by providing access to mentorship and resume guidance. To date, Satvat's project has helped more than 3,000 people find new employment in the industry and Satvat has put more than 2000 hours into maintaining the project he has built.
Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and Satvat's recognition for his efforts to help developers has unwittingly put a target on his back for online trolls. Satvat took to LinkedIn to "share a harsh reality", stating that he has received hateful messages directed at him and his wife, often anti-Semitic or ableist in nature.
The controversy surrounding Satvat's reception of the Game Changers award is supposedly due to his and Keighley's failure to acknowledge that Satvat is an employee of Tencent. Tencent is a Chinese tech conglomerate known for buying up stakes in other gaming and tech adjacent companies. According to his LinkedIn profile, Satvat serves as a Business Development Director for Tencent, building game partnerships and sourcing investment opportunities. However, Satvat maintains that his position does not involve mergers or acquisitions.
Some of the vitriol hurled at Satvat has included calling him an "industry plant" and blaming him for some of the layoffs the industry has experienced. Satvat addressed the latter on LinkedIn, stating he had "never signed a contract or been part of a deal that led to job losses in my career." Satvat also doubled down on that statement, claiming that he put effort into saving people's jobs during restructuring while employed by Amazon's AWS. Still, Satvat has faced commenters who have accused him of committing fraud and downplayed his project's importance as "just making one spreadsheet."
Various members of the gaming industry from multiple studios have spoken up in support of Satvat and his project, including one lead narrative designer who commented, "Anyone who has worked with you, communicated with you, or been helped by you know [sic] the truth and that you are a kind, generous, and compassionate human being."
