The Game Awards has become a major global gaming broadcast, and its awards are decided by a jury rather than producer Geoff Keighley. Those facts make a case for the show’s growth and for a clearer separation between production and voting—but they do not prove that Keighley has been broadly “redeemed.” That judgment depends on what the show has changed, what it still represents, and what its success can actually tell us.
What makes The Game Awards worth celebrating?
The show’s achievement is not only that it hands out trophies. It has built a high-profile event around games, bringing awards and announcements together in a broadcast designed for online audiences. The organizer says Keighley launched it in 2014 as an independent, digital-first production, initially self-financed, according to his professional site.
Its reach has grown substantially by the organizer’s own measure. The Game Awards reported an estimated 171 million global livestreams for its 2025 broadcast, 11% above its reported 154 million in 2024. The 2025 figure counts streams of the full broadcast and excludes associated clips and trailers; these are livestream counts, not independently audited unique viewers. The 2024 announcement said its count was 31% higher than the 118 million reported for 2023. See the 2025 announcement and the 2024 announcement.
That trajectory is a meaningful accomplishment for a show launched outside the traditional television-awards model. It shows that The Game Awards has become a durable global event by the organizer’s reporting. It does not, on its own, measure the quality of the winners, the fairness of every decision, or how viewers feel about Keighley.
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How are The Game Awards winners chosen?
For most categories, The Game Awards says nominees are selected by a jury of more than 100 international media and influencer outlets. The jury also votes on winners. The organizer’s current FAQ says Keighley is not a jury member and does not vote on nominees or winners.
That is an important distinction: the person who produces and presents a show is not necessarily one of the people choosing its award recipients. The FAQ describes the organizer’s stated process; it should not be stretched into a claim that the jury is independent in every respect or that every possible concern about the event has disappeared.
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The numbers have changed over time. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, Keighley said voting was handled by 80 global media outlets and wrote, “I don’t vote on the nominees or winners – that’s done by a jury of 80 global media outlets that we list on the website.” That is his historical description, not the current jury count. The 2019 AMA also acknowledged that his industry relationships and production role could prompt audience concerns.
How does the show differ from the Spike Video Game Awards?
The Game Awards followed the Spike Video Game Awards, which ran from 2003 to 2013. Both made video games the subject of a major awards broadcast, but the format and its relationship to entertainment media changed. The Game Awards launched as a digital-first event rather than a continuation of the Spike show’s television-centered approach.
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A scholarly analysis published through DiGRA questions the familiar description of game awards as the “Oscars of gaming.” It argues that the comparison can obscure the differences between games and film, and discusses the Spike awards’ emphasis on Hollywood personalities over game developers. That historical critique helps explain why the presentation and representation of developers matter when judging an awards show; it is not a survey of current opinion about The Game Awards. Read the DiGRA analysis.
The contrast is therefore not a simple story in which one show solved every problem of the other. The Game Awards has a publicly described jury model and a digital-first identity, while the academic account gives readers reason to scrutinize how any show balances game creators, celebrity guests, promotion, and awards. Those are useful standards for evaluation, not proof that the current event satisfies everyone.
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Has Geoff Keighley been redeemed?
“Redemption” is a judgment, not a measurable result established by the audience figures or voting rules. The strongest case for Keighley is that he built a lasting event, that it has grown into a major broadcast by its organizer’s reported numbers, and that the official rules place award voting with a jury rather than him.
The strongest qualification is that those achievements do not settle the concerns that can arise when a producer has extensive relationships across the industry represented onstage. Keighley’s 2019 acknowledgment of that tension matters alongside the formal voting separation. A jury structure answers the narrow question of whether he casts votes; it cannot by itself answer broader questions about influence, presentation, or the show’s cultural role.
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There is also no representative measure in the cited figures of whether viewers believe he has changed or deserves forgiveness. High reach is not the same as public approval, and historical criticism of the Spike awards does not prove that present-day criticisms have been resolved. It is more accurate to say that The Game Awards has made a compelling case for its scale and has a stated process that separates Keighley from voting than to declare a universal redemption.
What was the 2025 Game of the Year?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won Game of the Year at the 2025 Game Awards, according to the organizer’s 2025 announcement. It is a direct place to start for readers who want to experience one of the ceremony’s top picks, though availability and editions vary by platform and retailer.
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