This year’s The Game Awards will feature tightened security Keighley confirms

The Game Awards 2023 features tightened security to prevent stage invasions

Don’t expect to see another stage invasion at this year’s The Game Awards. Yes, there are a lot of controversies that gamers could complain about, but tightened security should prevent audience members from sneaking on stage and claiming the microphone. Geoff Keighley has confirmed that security has been tightened ahead of this years show. That means that we shouldn’t expect further security blunders.

This years The Game Awards (TGA) will be hosted at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on December 7th. The event will be streamed live, and should be available to view on all major video streaming platforms.

Security is a major concern for this year’s The Game Awards. While stage crashing may be seen as a fully incident for viewers, they are serious security breaches that place all participants of TGA in potential danger. While prior breaches have not resulted in harm to TGA participants or audience members, the same may not be true for future breaches.

Geoff Keighley had the following to say about TGA security in a recent Q&A stream. He did not go into specific details, as it would be unwise to give the public specific security details.

We don’t want to talk about that stuff too publicly, just because it’s security.

We definitely have plans and we’re trying to do all we can to keep me safe, but also everyone watching the show, the audience, people participating in the show and everything. It’s certainly something we’re thinking about. We appreciate the concern.

Believe me, that’s something that is top of mind for us, but we also want to put on a great show that celebrates these games, and celebrates our love of video games, so that’s an important thing to keep in mind as well. But yeah, I appreciate the concern around that.

(Stage invasions are not uncommon at The Game Awards)

The Game Awards Controversies

As always, TGA 2023 has its controversies. For one, Bethesda’s Starfield has only been nominated for one award, Best RPG of the Year. This has displeased fans of the space-based RPG, many of which feel that the game deserved more nominations.

Another controversy is the fact that Dave the Diver has been nominated for “Best Independent Game”. Dave the Diver comes from Mintrocket, a sub-brand of Nexon, a major publisher. A traditional definition of a independent developer is a studio who does not have the backing of a publisher. Geoff Keighley has also weighed in on this issue.

So yeah, Dave the Diver. That game is made by a group named Mintrocket, [it’s] a smaller game from a smaller group, but [Mintrocket is] part of Nexon. They’re employees of Nexon, which is a very large publisher. So, I think it’s a fair debate and discussion about is that game truly independent or is it not.

You can argue it either way. It’s independent in spirit and that it’s a small game with a- I don’t know what the budget is- relatively small budget, but it’s from a larger entity whereas there are other games on that list from much smaller studios. Even like Dredge or something I think is published by Team17, so is that independent or not because you have a publisher?

It’s a really complicated thing to figure out and come up with strict rules around it, so we let people use their best judgment. You can agree or disagree with the choices, but the fact that Dave the Diver was on that list meant that, out of all the independent games the jury looked at- or what they thought were independent games- that was one of the top five they looked at this year. So, yeah, I think it’s a good question.

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