The Game Awards is upon us, with the 2025 edition of the event going ahead on Thursday, December 11th. TGA is always a big celebration of the industry, both in terms of what's come out over the past year and what's to come in future - and this week, host Geoff Keighley has been talking about that very balancing act in a lengthy interview with The Game Business.
We've thrown the full version of this chat up above, where Keighley discusses a whole range of topics relating to both The Game Awards and the industry at large. Pretty much every year, there's a discussion about the awards themselves vs. the number of new game trailers at TGA; and that "balancing act" is something Keighley talks about extensively here.
"There are many different constituents that tune in [...] and it is a balancing act. You correctly pointed out that 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.
My view always is that the announcements create a very wide audience that tunes into the show. And because of that, when we do give out these awards, they’re seen by a lot of people. Lots of games get sold out of The Game Awards. Balatro had a huge boost. So hopefully it’s a good thing for developers. But that careful balance is a hard thing to strike and we don’t always get it right.
Every year is different. So, it’s very hard to predict what the reaction will be. We wake up the next morning and we see how people feel about it. Last year people generally liked the show, the year before people didn’t. And we’re going to show up every year and keep building it with the industry. And if people don’t like something, we come back and try and do it better."
Keighley went on to highlight how some of these breakout games we see always have the opportunity to surprise people during The Game Awards - both in terms of the awards side of things and also in terms of brand-new premieres. Clair Obscur is one of the examples talked about here; a game that Keighley "didn’t think much about when it first got announced" but has gone on to be nominated for a record-breaking 12 awards in this year's show.
The full interview is absolutely worth a read/watch if you're interested on Geoff's take on TGA here, and for a look ahead at what may be revealed this week, we have our full The Game Awards guide down below. Exciting times for what typically turns out to be the final big gaming showcase of the year!