It wasn’t just a clown car with 90 clowns, it was a three ring circus. Not once was there mention of the nearly 6,200 positions lost by layoffs this year, at a time when gaming has never been more profitable.

This event needed a kid going up and being cringe at the end. At the end, it felt like the industry jerking itself off.

🤦‍♂️ It’s always been an ad show with some awards. So what made this year so special?

The article seems to highlight that the money behind such a big event mainly goes to the hype for games yet unreleased, rather than focusing on praise and even advertising for really high-quality games that are already out.

Sometime I’d like it if video game marketing changed this way - it’s much easier to market a game that already has tons of great reviews, and they’ve kind of generated many gamers that are unsure about any marketing they hear. The streamer I watched the awards with ended up finding out about a previously-released game by a developer he’d really enjoyed, thanks to the show.

Only reason I cared about it was the one in a gazillion chance to get a free steam deck.

They may as well rebrand it The Geoff and Kojima show.

You’d think the tentpole genres would at least get a little more airtime.

They ran through the awards for Action Adventure, RPG, etc.

You could cut the “2023” from that, and it’d be no less true.

I mean sure, this year’s ad-centric nature was particularly obvious, but come the fuck on, journalists/readers/whatever: Did you ever have any doubt, seriously, ANY doubt, that this is 100% ad-space? And if yes, how?! What part of this did you watch in what year that wasn’t just ad-space for publishers?

I thought it was great? I really enjoyed it. Flute Guy killed it again!

I’m honestly glad I didn’t bother watching this year. Kinda just forgot about it as it started and went and saw Godzilla Minus One. After reading about its reception I think I’d made the better choice.

TGA sucks and always has, nothing new here