The Game Awards is today and fans are excited! Between celebrity appearances and trailers for new games, we might even see some awards given out! As quickly as possible to make room for more trailers, sure, but there will still be awards given out! If they want to shave some runtime off the ceremony, they could even interrupt speeches that are going too long by cutting to a commercial for the next Gran Turismo game or something.

So as we patiently wait to angrily post on social media sites about games that did not win, I thought it might be fun to make a few The Game Awards 2023 Predictions.

Geoff Keighley Will Say This Was The Biggest Year Ever For Games

Every awards show talking about games will always kick off by saying that it was a big year for games. Did you know video games came out this year? Did you know some of them were great? Some of those great games even sold a lot! To be fair, 2023 was a big year for amazing games. But no matter what came out in any year, it’s not like they’re going to open with someone saying, “We got some real stinkers nominated tonight.” It would be one of the greatest moments of my life if they did, though.

They’ll Mention The Industry Collapsing As Fast And Quietly As Possible

2023 was such a fantastic year for games that thousands upon thousands of people in the industry have been laid off. And don’t forget all the studios that closed - some after decades of making games. Even one of the world’s largest gaming conglomerates punched itself in the face by putting all its chips on a Hail Mary deal with Saudi Arabia. Regardless, almost none of this will come up organically. At best, we’ll get the world’s briefest mention of “a lot of difficulties” before moving on to show a trailer for a game that will be canceled in 2026.

My big hope is that award winners bring up the industry’s struggles this year and the poor way many of its workers are being treated. I feel like at least someone will. At which point, game company execs will dive over themselves to hit the button that plays the music to get someone off stage.

Celebrities Will Be Vaguely Confused Why They’re There

Following another great tradition of The Game Awards, there will be plenty of celebrities who have absolutely no idea why they’re there or how they got booked. Despite having existed for over 50-odd years, the industry has used movie stars to justify video games existing. “See? We’re big art because the big movie people say so!” Fortunately, more celebrities have grown up with games and recent game adaptations have been pretty good. Maybe this will change in the upcoming years. Which is good, because it’ll be hard to beat Al Pacino in 2022.

Trailers, Trailers, Trailers!

Why celebrate what’s good now when we could celebrate what might be good later? Better carve out more time away from the suckers in the audience hoping to win an award and put more time into a trailer for a live-service game that will shutdown 15 minutes after you buy it.

We’ll Kind Of Feel Bad For Starfield

Look, was Starfield the best game of the year? No. Was it in the top ten best games of the year? Also no. Was it in the top twenty games of the year? Yes! But also, Starfield really wanted to be great. It took a long time to develop and you can see where certain parts of the love went. You can also see where certain parts of the love didn’t go (for example, maps), but still. And, heck, it has the potential to make a Cyberpunk 2077/No Man’s Sky-style comeback. But whether you didn’t play much of Starfield or played enough to know you’ll never finish Starfield, we’ll still feel a little bad for it. Hopefully there will be a DLC trailer that fixes the game’s problems. Either way, we’ll inexplicably feel a little sad about it.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Wins Everything

Or at least it should. Even categories it’s not nominated for. Best Mobile Game? Yes. Best Esports Coach? 100 percent. Baldur’s Gate 3 is the culmination of the human experience. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Nobody can add to the greatness of this game, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect." The paraphrase comes from Twain’s introduction to a then-new edition of English As She Is Spoke, an unintentionally bad Portuguese-to-English phrasebook that became one of the first modern viral comedy sensations. Hey, now you know.

Beautiful Performance Of Game Music From Throughout The Year

Give credit where credit is due - this part of The Game Awards ain’t too bad.

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