I think it was underwhelming, to be honest. Hot takes below:

• The praise for Clair Obscur was deserved, but I don’t think it deserved to win every category it did. I don’t think a lot of the categories themselves are even very well thought out, to be honest. E.g. “Best RPG” is such a trap because no one can even decide what merits inclusion in the category. And rather than factoring in something like how effectively a game incorporates RPG mechanics, of which Clair Obscur has relatively few, they just pick whatever the the best overall game is that happens to fit within that category.

• The format of the show itself still needs work. They’re trying to make it the “Oscars of gaming” by locking in as much celebrity presence as they can. But you need actors to star in movies, you don’t need actors to star in games. Not enough focus is actually being put on the technical aspects of game development, because it’s boring and no one is interested, just like the technical aspects of making movies.

• More people still watch it for the trailers than they do for the ceremony itself. I think trailers are fine, but if they want to be the “Oscars of gaming”, they should just do it like the Oscars themselves and keep all new trailers relegated to simple ad buys that play during a commercial break between segments.

• A more transparent standard of decisionmaking would be nice. Movies take only 1-3 hours to watch, so there is a reasonable expectation that members of the Academy who make the decision on which nominees should win have actually seen them all (and even then they apparently don’t bother). There is no way that the folks who vote for these categories have actually played through every game nominated, so I’m curious about how they make their decisions.

• I don’t know why the Muppets are there every year. It’s weird to go from Miss Piggy to the trailer for Divinity.

• It’s also weird when presenters are there to mostly plug their own ongoing projects rather than to actually celebrate the people being recognized this year.

• Most anticipated game is a joke category that GTA 6 will keep winning every year it is delayed.

• Actually, every category where fans decide the results should just be thrown out, because it’s inherently not based on any degree of an unbiased, informed critical perspective. Case in point:

Thing that surprised me the most was Wuthering Waves for Players Choice Award over Expedition 33, Dispatch, Silksong, Death Stranding, Ghost of Yotei, and KCD2. Literal complete stable of awesome games across genres lost out to a gatcha game. Are there just more gooner gamers than I thought? 🤔

Gatcha games are huge in China (and elsewhere), and China has more people than anywhere else. So I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s just a popularity contest. The people that voted for Wuthering Waves likely never played the other games nominated, and they don’t care to. It’s also telling that such a massive chunk of trailer content was gatcha slop.