The Unofficial Official Game Awards Drinking Game: The Keighleyest of Keighleys
The game is at the bottom but please read the rest this time
Another year, another attempt of the games industry to chase the clout of Hollywood - it’s time for the Game Awards. Naturally this also means it’s time for me to trot out the closest thing to a consistent content output in the form of this drinking game. In the past, these streams and jokes have been a fun type of catharsis and it’s always a blast.
Almost always.
Pointing out that the past several weeks have been particularly revealing about the video games industry is basically typing out the surprised Pikachu meme like some kind of AI bot; but it’s still true. The various revelations and confirmations of how Activision and its subsidiaries (not to mention its contemporaries) have rightfully dominated the news cycle, to the point where even PT Barnum Geoff Keighley was forced to weigh in. He was flamed for his non-answer about trying to balance his desire to “support” developers of games with the fact that he can no longer dodge these questions. Journalists and pundits rightfully pointed out — including within the original WaPost article — that Activision has a member of its board overseeing the awards and that as such it’s difficult for anything Keighley says to be taken seriously. This eventually led to Keighley confirming Activision would not have a presence at this week’s show, outside of the nominations their games had and which were in large part selected by games media, it’s worth pointing out.
Setting aside that another side effect of Activision’s troubles has been a slowdown of releases and a cooling of reception to what does come out; likely meaning they had nothing planned to present to begin with - it’s good that Keighley was cyber bullied into something resembling commitment. It indicates at least some level of a desire to not let this situation drown in a sea of video game marketing like every other time this shit happens. That said, I was a bit surprised in what seemed to be a lot of the community’s shock that the man who used to be known only as the Doritio Pope would take the lukewarm stance he did.
This also revealed to me a confusion some have of my own opinion of the man and his awards. In years past, I’ve tried to be relatively lighthearted about my own disdain of the Game Awards. I usually end the drinking game rules (which we will get to, hang on) with a clarification that while I find the whole affair a waste of time that requires me to drink like I never do in order to tolerate, I don't think Keighley is dishonest about his desire to showcase this medium. However, this seems to have muddied the message a bit, to the point where someone I talk to about these things daily asked me my opinion just this week. A week in which I find myself struggling to even try to find anything to crack wise about, nonetheless. So let’s get crystal clear:
The elephant that is always on stage is no longer just out of frame, but believe me Keighley will go out of his way to make sure it never gets in center stage. Why would anyone expect him to? Geoff Keighley has been a rubber stamped friend to every executive in the industry for longer than he ever had credibility as a journalist or documentarian. This year’s awards have already threatened us with more games than Microsoft reveals at E3 because both he and the people who sponsor him know that the audiences they cultivate don’t give a single damn about any statue handed out, they’re here to be advertised to. The industry doesn’t care either. It genuinely does not matter which of the five games that actually have a shot at Game of the Year win because the other four will still use the nomination to resell the game six months from now, to say nothing of every decently reviewed game that didn’t even make that cut.
What exactly is Keighley celebrating here? What support is he showing these developers? To hear Keighley tell it, it’s all about recognizing the creators and developers behind the franchises we enjoy in this medium. I think that’s where people have a hard time squaring this circle. There’s something about a giant awards show with performances from Sting and a budget so big it needs a cash infusion from Schick that feels fundamentally at odds with all the horrid treatment the people who made those games have to deal with. Or at least, it would be until you recall that the EA Spouse post is more than fifteen years old and is comparatively tame.
Video games have, to some degree or another, always been like this. So has Geoff Keighley.
In my opinion, it’s not this week’s Washington Post article that betrays the character of Geoff Keighley. It’s this one, from 2019, in which Keighley’s childhood and early career is regaled in a light that feels like it was pulled in from another reality. In this piece, we learn that Keighley, and his Awards, come from a place of particular privilege: his parents were members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars. I don’t have the room to get into all the various ways the Oscars also suck but suffice to say this doesn’t shock me one bit. Keighley grew up around an industry that is also well known for chewing up and spitting out its workforce, limited only by the fact that it is actually unionized. Through this same privilege, Keighley has had access to prominent creators for as long as he can remember. The games industry didn’t just grow up with Keighley, it grew up with him in it.
As I’ve said before, I believe that Geoff Keighley is honestly doing what he thinks is good for games as a medium. But Geoff Keighley is not doing good; and barring a lot of introspection and radical change, I don’t think he’s someone who can. See, the truth of the matter is that Keighley has already won, he’s already erected his monument to video games. True to purpose, it reflects everything that this medium stands for: excess, an unyielding need to monetize and exploit the audience, and yes, the abuses the corporate class within these companies exact upon the actual creative labor that make video games. It is impossible at this point for an awards show that counts not only Activision president Rob Kostich but also Riot’s very concerned about “critical race theory” Marc Merrill and Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot among its advisory board to be taken seriously as a celebration of anyone who actually made one of these games, much less anyone who earnestly loves them.
In stone-cold classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, the titular Peanut is seen lamenting his exhaustion over being singled out to his friend Linus. In response to this, Linus briefly confronts Charlie Brown for kind of making the holiday all about his own perception and ruining things for everyone else. I would apply his final thought to this entire situation:
“Of all the Geoff Keighleys in the world, you’re the Geoff Keighleyest.”
It is into this that I have to ask: how exactly am I supposed to make a fun drinking game out of all this? How wrong is it to try to find lightheartedness in a situation as fucked as the game industry? And, honestly, how much of this is me just trying to justify the fact that I’d probably end up watching this trainwreck anyway? That’s the real dilemma here, for a lot of us even tangentially related to games media. We all kind of have a desire, or at least a justification, to tune in, roll our eyes, tweet, stream, and yes, drink. Like I said, Keighley’s already won.
I haven’t really decided if this is something I want to do going forward in that respect. If I’m being honest, I probably should have stopped myself about a thousand words ago. But then I started tinkering with StreamElements and my friends always have a good time with this and, look, we’re going to do this at least one more time. I know that’s inconsistent and it makes me my own strawman, but hey if you’re also going to do it and are above drinking age in your state (and aren’t going to sue me), feel free to play along and join me at https://twitch.tv/suprhero7 at the same time as the awards and we’ll be miserable together.
The 2021 edition of the Unofficial Official Game Awards Drinking Game
Take one drink for every award announced during the pre-show or offscreen.
Take one drink every time the show cuts to a commercial but you couldn’t tell because half the show is commercials but just new ones
When the Sonic reveal happens, chant “Geoff Keighley chasin’ spiny bussy” three times because I didn’t have room to include it before but he fucking hit on Sonic the Hedgehog on Twitter what the actual hell, the last person to finish takes one drink. (shoutout to Evan Griffin for the absolute banger that is “chasin’ spiny bussy”)
When
StreamerContent Creator of the Year is announced, name exactly one piece of content that creator has made that isn’t just the title of a stream. When you fail, take one drink.If Cyberpunk 2077 wins best RPG, take two drinks. No need for a joke here.
If 12 Minutes wins best Indie, play rock, paper, scissors with a person you’re with. The loser must pull up the plot of 12 Minutes and read it out loud. If you’re wondering where the drinking happens with this one, don’t worry — you’ll find out.
*If you’re alone, enjoy automatically losing this one*If Nintendo doesn’t win the family category, take one drink.
And, as always, if an announcement gets you excited at all, take one drink. No joy allowed.
And with that, my self imposed work is done another year. See you on Thursday for the stream (again, that’s https://twitch.tv/suprhero7) and before the year’s out we’ll be talking more about what games I liked this year, and how weird it is to try to decide that.