Game Awards Viewership Sees a 72% Increase From Last Year

The 2019 Game Awards show hosted by Geoff Keighley aired live on the 13th December, and despite the show receiving widespread criticism from viewers it saw a 72% increase in viewership from last year’s show.

This means the show saw a 19 million increase in live viewers, shooting up from 26.2 million last year to 45.2 million. There was also a 50% increase in fan-votes this year, reaching 15.5 million total fan-votes.

This obviously bodes well for the future of the award show, with Geoff Keighley telling Variety via a phone interview that he feels confident in broadcasting the show live on platforms such as Twitch and Youtube, as opposed to a televised broadcast.

However, Keighley does admit that he could see partnerships with certain streaming platforms happening in the future, revealing: “I could certainly see a scenario where we partner with one of the streaming platforms to maybe have some exclusive content that lives on that platform around the show.”

Keighley also talked about the mindset when booking musical performances for the show, stating: “I think we kind of found now that we can’t just book an act to come perform their new radio single on the show. It needs to somehow relate back to games.” This was showcased with musical acts Chrvches and Grimes performing tracks they had written for Death Stranding and Cyberpunk 2077 respectively, and Green Day performing in conjunction with the reveal that some of their music was being added to the rhythm game Beat Saber.

This also goes for celebrity appearances, with Keighley commenting: “But we’ve found also that we really only include somebody when they really make sense. Every year we like to have a couple special guests that we sprinkle in, but at the end of the day, Reggie [Fils-Aime] is a big booking for us.”

There’s currently no word on plans for a 2020 Game Awards show, although in keeping with tradition it will likely air sometime in early-mid December next year.