It’s 2012. Barack Obama is president. Gamers are melting down over the ending of Mass Effect 3. Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio, then at Dishonored developer Arkane Studios, are flying on a Bethesda-chartered private jet to Los Angeles for the Spike Video Game Awards, hosted by Samuel L. Jackson and held at Sony Pictures Studios.
Dishonored is up for several awards, including Game of the Year (it loses to Telltale’s The Walking Dead), Best Xbox 360 Game (it loses to Halo 4), Best PS3 Game (it loses to Journey), and Best Action-Adventure Game (it wins). Jessica Alba presents Smith and Colantonio with their trophy.
“Man, when you get it good, and when someone says, ‘Here’s a bonus, and by the way, we’re going to take you to The Game Awards,’ you cry. Literally. We literally cried,” Smith told me over a video call.
Things are a little different 13 years later. Donald Trump is president. Gamers are melting down over whether or not Lara Croft is hot enough for them. Arkane Austin doesn’t exist anymore (though both Smith and Colantonio are still working on games). And the Game Awards streams online as cable TV is dismantled and sold for parts. The only constant is the man who worked on both shows: Geoff Keighley.
But the video game industry in which he operates has changed dramatically. Back-to-back years of layoffs and studio closures, market consolidation, and a race to embrace generative AI have left many developers dazed, confused, and unemployed. Video game launches don’t have as much fanfare as they did in the aughts—there are no appearances from Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. And the Game Awards, while still boasting some Hollywood talent, isn’t as star-studded as the defunct Spike ceremony.
Organizing gaming’s Oscars
There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes organizing for awards ceremonies that doesn’t get as much attention. The teams that work on putting together these events are vast, and often involve multiple companies that aren’t directly tied to the industry being honored that night (they might be production companies, security firms, contractors, and seasonal staff). The Peacock Theater, where The Game Awards is held, seats up to 7,100, and Keighley and company have to decide how they all get divvied up.
The cost of putting on an awards show broadcast on cable TV is offset somewhat by the ad sales from the commercials that air during breaks, but the Game Awards are only available on streaming platforms (no commercials), so Keighley sells coveted spots for reveals, trailers, and previews, as well as sponsorships for specific awards. While some slots are reserved for the biggest surprises and Keighley curates free slots for what he personally wants to champion, others have to pay to get in front of the millions of eyeballs watching from home.
And the prices keep going up. According to two sources familiar with this year’s show, a 60-second trailer during the 2025 ceremony can cost up to $450,000. A three-minute trailer costs over $1 million. Two separate sources in the video game publishing world said that while they had not been briefed on this year’s rates, these sounded in line with what they’d expect from previous years.
But what about attendance? Tom Cruise gets to go to the Oscars, but he may only be allowed a single guest, and most of the people behind the latest Mission: Impossible flick likely won’t get an invite. You don’t see the gaffer from Challengers sitting at the table next to Zendaya, and Keighley clearly wants to evoke Hollywood-style allure for his annual ceremony (why else would Al Pacino be invited?).
However, the video game industry isn’t Hollywood, despite its best efforts. It’s not financially viable to invite 100-plus-person studios to attend the Game Awards for free, but do you know of a single awards show that offers for-sale tickets to its potential honorees, tickets which are pulled from the same pool as those sold to the general public (i.e., fans)? The Game Awards does.
According to multiple developers from both smaller indie studios and AAA monoliths who wished to remain anonymous, the Game Awards only offers two tickets to attend the ceremony to studios that get nominated, though there was at least one instance in which a developer received more than that, and some overall confusion about which studios get preferential treatment (aka more than the two generally allotted). The Game Awards’ organizers did not respond to a request for comment.
A source told Kotaku that Sandfall Interactive, the studio behind this year’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, bought a swath of tickets at face value (around $300 each) to ensure more of the team could attend. Expedition 33 recently set a record for the most nominations in Game Awards history with 12, so the desire to send as many people to the ceremony as possible makes sense. Sandfall did not respond to a request for comment.
But not every studio has the means or the desire to send a large crew of developers to the ceremony—whether it’s due to ticket pricing, the cost of travel, or other factors.
One developer who worked on a game nominated for Best Accessibility at the 2024 Game Awards told me that their studio had to “buy the rest” of the tickets, as there were “only two up front for our nomination.” The two team members who were given the free tickets through the Game Awards sat in one area, while the larger group was scattered throughout the Peacock Theater. The source said that the tickets the studio purchased for the developers appeared to be full price.
“I was told that the team was offered two tickets as nominees (these tickets come with access to the red carpet and green room experiences), and then provided a link to a page where additional tickets could be purchased,” a lead designer nominated last year who wished to remain anonymous told me. “As far as I could tell, the page was just the publicly available ticket page, and there were no discounts or special access to ticket allotments (i.e., particular seats in the theater) available.”
Because of this, the game director purchased their own ticket from the public-facing ticket pool for around $700. “I didn’t want to miss a likely once-in-a-lifetime experience of being there in person for a nominated game that I’d had a major hand in, so I paid.” The Game Awards did not respond to a request for comment.
Seat fillers and superfans
While restricted availability for nominees can be chalked up to limited space and funds, things get complicated when you open up attendance to an industry’s award show to the general public. Matan Even, the 2022 stage crasher, told Polygon he bought a ticket to the ceremony during the general sale and “simply walked up from his seat in the audience alongside the award winners.”
This year, tickets were released on October 30, while nominees were revealed on November 17. “Don’t watch the surprises—be in the room,” The Game Awards official announcement for ticket sales read.
By November 7, I was told by the Game Awards’ organizers that there were already no more free tickets available for press (I received one last year as a freelancer and the year before through my work at Kotaku). On that day, the Game Awards tickets ranged in price from $58.92 for upper mezzanine seats to over $1,000 for resale tickets in the back of center orchestra (most of the high-profile attendees sit in the front of this section). Last week, there were three tickets available in the center orchestra for $997 each (resale), and a smattering of tickets surrounding that section, ranging in price from $500-$800. Upper and lower mezzanine seats, also sporadically available, were going for between $300 and $545.
A freelance narrative writer who worked on a game nominated this year expressed frustration about the Game Awards’ ticketing process. Because they are no longer under contract with the nominated studio, they weren’t invited through the typical email from the Game Awards’ organizers, but still wanted to attend the event to celebrate their work.
“Even if I had wanted to pay the inflated prices for scalper tickets, I couldn’t find 2 seats together,” they told me, with said tickets, according to them, running between $600-$1000. “At the very least, TGA should wait to sell general release tickets until after the nominations are announced…or have a separate bucket of tickets for devs who can provide proof that they worked on a nominated game.”
Instead of buying tickets that cost more than some people’s monthly rent, the dev signed up for the seat filler program, which is organized by Gotham Casting. It’s unclear how many free tickets are set aside this way, but they wondered if the Game Awards prioritizes giving fans tickets over industry members because “the fans will scream and cheer for the trailers and the devs won’t.”
The Eventbrite listing for seat fillers is directed at “ALL GAMERS and Video Game Fans & Enthusiasts!” and promises “huge special performances to be announced” and instructions for what to expect on the day of the event. Seat fillers have to arrive two hours before the show starts and are instructed on how to dress (“men: upscale casual attire/button down shirts ok,” “women: cocktail dresses/upscale outfits”) and told not to wear cosplay, ripped jeans, or sneakers (unlike host Geoff Keighley).
“As a seatfiller, there will be an opportunity that you will be on camera,” the description reads. “Seat fillers will begin their night seated in the holding area in the theater. As PAID TICKET HOLDERS ARRIVE, we move seat fillers as needed.” Seat fillers are also reminded that “guests have paid upwards of HUNDREDS a ticket for their seats!” and to make sure they “enjoy show [sic] & have fun!” Gotham Casting did not reply to a request for comment.
Gaming’s biggest night
Keighley clearly wants the Game Awards to be big and bold and shiny—the best annual celebration of video games that monolithic studio money and Old Spice deodorant can buy. But there is a clear, consistent tension between putting on a show that honors the people working on video games and one that keeps the millions of fans watching in the hopes of seeing a trailer for The Elder Scrolls 6.
“It’s a balancing act,” Keighley told The Game Business in a recent interview. “There’s the awards aspect of the show, there’s the announcement aspect, and yes, there are some people that would like to see the show be all awards. Some would like to see all announcements.”
No one feels the wobble of that balancing act more than the developers, especially the ones who aren’t studio executives or creative directors and who struggle to even get tickets to the Game Awards every year.
Despite the pricey trailer slots and expensive ticketing problem, many industry members recognize how important the Game Awards are to those who have spent their careers working on games. Smith and Colantonio spoke at length about how life-changing attending the then-Spike Video Game Awards was.
“It’s career-changing, the market opens up to you in a way,” Smith said. “If you work in games for decades, you’ve probably gotten your teeth knocked out a few times. I’ve worked on games that got 60 percent ratings, I’ve worked on games that got laughed at, I’ve worked on games that got me fired, I’ve worked on games where the studio was shut down…Then I worked with Ralph, and we made several pitches that got killed, and we almost went under. Then we made Dishonored.”
“It was easy for us to enjoy it, because there was Bethesda behind us, so we did not have to worry about paying for flights, what to organize, when to be there,” Colantonio said, referencing the 2010 acquisition of Arkane by Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax. “If Arkane in 2005, when we shipped Dark Messiah, had been nominated, it would have been just me there, period. It’s expensive, and it would have felt like a sacrifice.”
Smith, well-versed in Arkane’s humble beginnings (the studio was started in 1999 by Colantonio and just four other men), recognized the struggle indie studios face when attending gaming’s biggest night. “If you’re a tiny French studio like Sandfall [the team behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33], the pay difference [between countries] means getting to LA, flying from Europe, staying in a hotel, eating there, all of that is way more expensive,” he said.
For some, the Game Awards has felt more like an E3 presentation where everyone wears suits (finally) than a proper ceremony honoring the people who made the year’s best games. Yet for those making games, especially at smaller studios, the importance of a Game Awards nomination cannot be overstated—a big win at the annual event could reinvigorate a struggling studio, or guarantee a second game gets greenlit.
Some think we should all just ignore the Game Awards and their hyper-promotional approach, and instead direct our attention to more celebratory affairs, such as the BAFTA Game Awards and the Game Developers’ Choice Awards, where the focus is more squarely on honoring the previous year’s games rather than on promoting games yet to come.
“Tickets for [the BAFTAs] are also paid (and include dinner), but the entire vibe of the event and the apparent reverence it holds for the nominated games and their creators was so much of a better experience,” the aforementioned lead designer nominated last year said. “It was an extremely stark contrast.”
The Game Awards, like the video game industry itself, represent the chasm between the studios that develop games and can shell out for a million-dollar ad slot during gaming’s biggest night without hesitation, and the people who work on them, who struggle to afford a ticket to the ceremony meant to honor their work.
Additional reporting by Ethan Gach.
