Geoff Keighley had a lot to talk about. Onstage at this year’s Game Awards, the host, who is also the event’s creator and producer, took an in-person and online audience through hours of trailers, announcements, celebrity appearances, and awards. His event has become, almost by default, the biggest show in gaming. By the time the lights went down and gamemakers ambled their way to the bars of Los Angeles to celebrate, there was one thing many in the gaming community had wanted to hear Keighley say. On that point, though, he stayed silent.
Many knew he would. Still, beginning November 24, dozens of participants in The Game Awards' emerging talent initiative, Future Class, had signed an open letter addressed to Keighley, Future Class director Emily Bouchoc, and the event’s planning team asking them to show support for Palestinian human rights and call for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war. The Future Class represents a group of young developers that Game Awards organizers believe will lead the industry forward.
To some Future Class members, the open letter meant calling out an industry that they believe “systematically produces works that dehumanize and vilify Muslims, Arabs, and the many brown and Black people living in the regions of South-West Asia and Northern Africa.” Signatories of the open letter also asked for a statement to be read at the awards on their behalf, and for the industry to invest resources into games that don’t further those discriminatory narratives. When Keighley didn't make such a statement, it widened a rift in the industry, one that runs along the line between what the video game business is and what it could be.
To date, more than 3,000 people have signed the letter, though not everyone within Future Class has put their name on it. “I do not support this letter that perpetuates misinformation, one-sidedness, and an irresponsible conflation of the war in Israel/Gaza with xenophobia and misrepresentation of Muslims, Arabs, and brown people in video games,” tweeted developer Amiad Fredman. In an email to WIRED, Fredman said he “felt compelled to stand up for the victims of Israel.” Those who have signed say organizers from The Game Awards did not respond or acknowledge the letter in the weeks that followed its circulation, or in the days after the event.
That silence has some Future Class members questioning the program’s mission and its dedication to diverse creators. The initiative began in 2020 as a recognition of individuals across the industry “who represent the bright, bold, and inclusive future of video games,” but some members now say they believe the Future Class is something of an empty gesture, a way to draw in sponsorships. For example, one video shown at this year’s awards show highlighting a new Future Class member was presented by Old Spice.
“Do [The Game Awards organizers] actually care about the needs of marginalized game devs, or are they simply using us as diversity tokens for their promo shoot?” says game developer Younès Rabii, who organized the open letter. “To this day, it's still very unclear for me.”
The significance of the Game Awards, and what purpose the event serves in the industry it purports to celebrate, is a familiar debate. Is it the so-called Oscars of gaming, or is it a press conference dressed up in a tux?
Throughout this year’s show, awards were rattled off like auction items, with little time for developers to take the stage. Those who were given airtime typically had under a minute to speak before being played off with music cues and, per one tweet, an off-screen prompter that told them to wrap it up. Meanwhile, gamemakers such as Game Awards favorite Hideo Kojima (Death Stranding) were given ample time to discuss new projects with Hollywood darlings like Jordan Peele.
This is generally how The Game Awards go. It’s an event that, critics argue, remains aloof from the criticisms the industry faces. Red Dead Redemption 2 won four awards during 2018’s ceremony without so much as a whisper about reports of the heavy crunch within developer Rockstar Games. In 2021, Keighley announced that Activision Blizzard would not be part of the year’s celebration, without mentioning the claims circulating that the company allegedly had a toxic workplace culture. Onstage, he delivered an unspecified declaration generally decrying abuse, harassment, and predatory practices, but the company’s existing nominations that year were not revoked.
This year was no different, as developers clamoring for a statement about Palestinian rights were ignored. Ahead of the awards, on December 2, Keighley posted his first message in the Future Class Discord following the open letter: an audio recording featuring two seconds of silence. It disappeared after Rabii replied. “I wish your first message in the Future Class server following the publication of an open letter signed by half this group wasn’t 2 seconds of literal silence,” they wrote. “There is still time to address us.”
On December 10, the Sunday after the awards, Keighley reached out to members requesting a video call in the coming week; those present say they were asked not to discuss the conversation publicly. (WIRED agreed to withhold the names of sources who spoke about the meeting to protect their privacy.)
“If [Keighley] had said something privately [to the group], then we probably wouldn't have been in this mess,” one Future Class member tells WIRED. “His silence created a snowball effect and got everyone talking, sharing, and comparing notes. It was a collective disappointment.”
Although two Future Class members say Keighley listened to their concerns, he “deflected, and had excuses for everything. His answers were very ‘corp speech’ but also unprepared. His lack of understanding of the people and background of the folks in Future Class was evident,” one person who attended the meeting claims.
During the meeting, one Future Class member recalls, Keighley didn’t address the letter or the Israel–Hamas war, which he referred to as “certain events,” until he was admonished by another Future Class candidate for not addressing the conflict directly. Those who were hoping to hear him talk about the purpose of the program, if not to address issues like the ones raised in the letter, were left unsatisfied. “We wanted him to tell us what he thought we were all there for, what we were all chosen by our peers to do other than kind of sit there,” says one member who was on the call.
Another attendee claims they believe that Keighley wanted Future Class members to be background players, adding that “his attitude was … we should be thankful and appreciative to him for the opportunity.” Future Class members have no say about what happens with the program publicly, they add, “hence the feeling of tokenization.”
Keighley did not respond to emails seeking comment for this story.
In the 10 years since The Game Awards launched, the event has only gotten bigger. Whether it’s an awards show or a powerful hype machine almost doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s a platform.
“The Game Awards is this big show that advertises the brand-new products of the game industry,” Rabii says. “It has a hundred million viewers, and plays a role in which games the audience will buy. Even though it is supposed to celebrate games, it seems like The Game Awards are not really interested in game workers.”
Developers who were either not given stage time or who were rushed offstage have chosen to share their would-be speeches on IGN and X. A Future Class member says that fence-sitting on issues is “the most detrimental thing about the future of the show.”
“We have had so many historical, cultural moments that happened at award shows,” they say. “That I think is what award shows should be for, to exist as a living record. And the more you try to doctor or excise that element, the more likely it's going to just be irrelevant.”
The Game Awards functions with the cooperation of publishers and developers who want to share exclusive footage and announcements with an attentive audience. Some may argue it’s in the show’s best interest to remain neutral to avoid alienating viewers, advertisers, and developers. In 2021, after publishing an article on how to help Palestinians, IGN took the post down after blowback; it later published a letter with a lengthy update about its editorial standards as part of an amended version of the article.
The rift between The Game Awards and its Future Class members means that organizers run the risk of alienating those who could be running the companies they want to partner with in the years ahead. As it stands now, the Future Class isn't involved with anything related to the awards, Rabii says. “We're supposed to be this group that can lead the game industry to a better tomorrow, but as soon as our names are written, we're forgotten about,” they claim.
One developer in Future Class says that the program started on the heels of the George Floyd protests in 2020, as diversity and racism were being reckoned with on a national scale. “We saw companies scrambling to shove ‘diverse’ people into the spotlight to prevent bad optics,” they claim. Game companies and figureheads made a similar push around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Game Awards did, too, but a tweet from its account that spoke of supporting a studio “who worked tirelessly … even as war invaded their homes and private lives” has since been deleted.
Future Class members say that conversations with Keighley about the program are expected to continue, with the hope that The Game Awards will offer firm statements about problems within the industry as well as material support to developers and the program. “He has the eyes and he has the attention,” one developer says of Keighley. There are fewer pillars for people to look toward as institutions like E3 crumble. The industry should be reminded of why this matters, the developer argues, regardless of whether or not the awards have passed. “Whatever happens here,” they say, “will reverberate in some way.”
Updated: 12/19/2023, 9:00 PM EST: This story was updated to correct when Geoff Keighley met with Future Class members via video call.
