One of the biggest annual events in video gaming is The Game Awards, which honors the best of the best in the gaming industry. But The Game Awards 2018 is more than just an awards ceremony: several developers will also make some important announcements about new games they're releasing and titles they're working on.
The Game Awards aired for the first time in 2014, after game journalist Geoff Keighley pulled his involvement from Spike TV's video games awards show, which focused more on commercial achievements of games. The Game Awards has a large advisory committee that nominates a variety of video game news organizations: this team includes representatives from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Rockstar Games, Ubisoft, and others industry leaders. The selected news outlets then offer up nominations for games in each category.
Related: The Game Awards: 2018 Nominees Revealed
Although the awards portion of The Game Awards provides a lot of excitement for the video gaming community, it also offers developers and publishers a forum to announce new titles as well as provide updates to previously announced games. This year should see a new game announcement from Obsidian Entertainment, as well as a potential announcement about Alien: Blackout. As Keighley has a good relationship with Hideo Kojima, viewers can also expect a few new details about Kojima's highly-anticipated Death Stranding.
When and Where is The Game Awards 2018
The Game Awards 2018 will take place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday, December 6 at 5:30 pm PST. For those who would like to attend in person, tickets are still available through AXS. Although the show usually runs around three hours, there still isn't enough time to go through each category during the live event. And so, the official list of winners (in all categories) will be revealed online later that night.
How to Watch The Game Awards 2018 Online
Although The Game Awards won't appear on broadcast television, a variety of online outlets will have streaming video of the show as it happens live. Both Xbox and PlayStation offer live streams of the event, which will feature an interactive component that allows watchers to participate with the awards show and vote on their favorites. The Game Awards 2018 will also be available for viewing on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter and Facebook Live. It will also air worldwide on a variety of other online platforms. Links will be made available closer to the ceremony.
How Does The Game Awards 2018 Pick Its Winners
As previously mentioned, The Game Awards has an advisory committee that selects news organizations, each of which chooses five games per category, except for esports games, which a separate esports-focused group. After the advisory committee compiles each list and comes up with the final list, those news organizations vote on their favorites. But fans also get a chance to vote, although their votes only account for 10 percent of the overall vote in most categories. However, fans get a full vote on the following categories: Best Esports Game, Best Esports Player, Best Esports Team, Most Anticipated Game, Trending Gamer, and Discord Server.
Be sure to check back on Screen Rant for the complete list of winners from The Game Awards 2018 on December 6.