As the spotlight shines on the biggest night in gaming, The Game Awards’ voting system blends expert critique with fan passion to crown the year’s best titles. But how exactly does this hybrid process work, and why does the jury’s voice carry more weight than the public’s? Dive into the mechanics behind the scenes where over 100 media outlets and millions of gamers worldwide shape the future of gaming glory.
That’s not unheard for awards shows, which often focus on entertainment, not on acceptance speeches from the winners themselves. But the awards are still a huge part of The Game Awards, especially for the artists, performers, designers, and producers who are nominated each year.
Who votes for The Game Awards nominees and winners may not be obvious to viewers of the show itself. But organizers behind The Game Awards are pretty transparent about who’s behind the awards nomination process and who decides the winners. (Hint: It’s not Geoff Keighley.)
What’s less clear is who is responsible for tabulating the votes for various awards as the show increases in prominence and influence over the years.
Who votes for The Game Awards?
The Game Awards voting is conducted by a specialized jury of over 100 global media and influencer outlets, selected for their expertise in critically evaluating video games. These jurors submit confidential ballots listing their top five choices in each category, which determine the nominees. After nominations, the winners are chosen through a blended voting system where the jury’s vote counts for 90% and public fan voting accounts for the remaining 10%. Fans can cast their votes online, but the jury’s decision holds significantly more weight to ensure fairness and prevent platform bias or manipulation. This hybrid approach balances expert opinion with fan participation to select the most credible and authentic winners.
Since its inception, The Game Awards has relied on a jury of traditional media outlets and influencers to decide which games get nominated and which games ultimately win their respective categories.
In 2014, just 28 individual members of the games media decided the winners for the inaugural TGAs. The size of the voting jury has more than tripled over the past decade, shifting in size and makeup as new influencers come to prominence and media outlets fold.
For 2024, the voting jury consists of more than 100 publications – including AELGAMES – and influencers across the globe who have been “selected for their history of critical video game evaluation,” according to the show’s organizers. The voting jury includes representation from more than 30 countries.
Here’s how the nomination process works, according to The Game Awards’ FAQ:
Each voting outlet completes a confidential, unranked ballot based on the collective and diverse opinion of its entire editorial staff, listing out its top five choices in each category. Ballots are tabulated, and the five games that appear on the most ballots are put forth as nominees. In the event of a tie, six (or more) nominees will be announced in a category.
Voting is handled in a similar fashion. Outlets and influencers vote on the nominees, using one ballot per outlet.
The Game Awards also has separate, specialized voting juries for esports and accessibility awards categories.
Who tabulates the votes for The Game Awards?
The votes for The Game Awards are tabulated by an international jury consisting of over 100 global media and influencer outlets, selected for their expertise in critically evaluating video games. Each voting outlet completes a confidential, unranked ballot listing its top five choices in each category. These ballots are then collected and counted to determine the nominees, with the five games appearing on the most ballots becoming the official nominees. After nominations, the winners are decided by a blended vote where the jury’s decision accounts for 90% of the final result, and public fan voting contributes the remaining 10%. The Game Awards producer and advisory board do not participate in the voting process, ensuring impartiality.
Mainstream media outlets like to cast The Game Awards as video gaming’s Oscars. That may be true purely for its spectacle, but based on how the nominees and winners are decided, it’s an inapt comparison.
The Game Awards is more similar to the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes. Those Hollywood awards shows are voted upon by professional media critics, unlike the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and Tonys, which are decided by members of their respective academies composed of entertainment industry professionals. (The closest comp for games might be the GDC Awards, held each year in March.)
If you’ve ever watched the Oscars or the Emmys, you’ve probably seen members of an accounting firm, like PricewaterhouseCoopers or Ernst & Young, getting their obligated screen time. These accounting firms are tasked with verifying the authenticity of the votes to present a level playing field and dispel any sense of impropriety born of outside influence.
The accounting firms that tabulate the votes that decide the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and Tonys are often dealing with tens of thousands of votes that will decide the winners. In the case of The Game Awards, the main voting body consists of a little over 100 votes.
The Game Awards organizers haven’t made it clear who is responsible for tabulating and ensuring the sanctity of the press and public’s voting, however. We’ve asked the organizers for clarification, but Geoff Keighley declined our requests for an interview around the awards’ voting process. AELGAMES has reached out to representatives for the show multiple times to ask who tabulates the tens of thousands of votes that decide or influence certain awards, but we have not received a response.
Why doesn’t the public vote on The Game Awards?
The public does not have full control over the voting at The Game Awards because the winners are decided through a blended system where the jury’s vote counts for 90% and the public vote only 10%. This approach is taken to ensure fairness and credibility, as a 100% fan vote could disadvantage games exclusive to a single platform compared to multi-platform titles and could be susceptible to manipulation or “social engineering.” The jury consists of over 100 media outlets and influencers specialized in critically evaluating games, providing a broad and expert assessment. This hybrid voting system balances popular opinion with expert judgment to select the most deserving winners, while still allowing fans to participate meaningfully.
To some degree it does. Winners are determined by blended vote between the voting jury – which accounts for 90% of the vote – and public fan voting – which accounts for 10% of the vote. So while the public can sway a vote, it can only influence the results to a certain extent. The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley said in the past that he’d “toyed with public voting” for the awards, but had concerns about “social engineering” and turning voting into a “a popularity contest [that] isn’t really fair to first-party games. Those titles naturally have a smaller addressable audience base.”
There is one purely fan-voted category for The Game Awards, however. It’s called Players’ Voice, and is entirely decided upon by the public over the course of three rounds of voting. Players’ Voice was introduced in 2019. Prior to that, fans could vote in the esports player, esports team and most anticipated game categories.
Unlike some other game awards shows, like the Game Developers Choice Awards and DICE Awards, game developers themselves don’t vote on The Game Awards. According to Keighley, “Peer-based voting in gaming is tough – most developers don’t have time to play all the games right when they come out, they are too busy making them. So we prefer our approach. But always open to tweaking.”
How does the blend of jury and fan votes shape The Game Awards winners
The blend of jury and fan votes at The Game Awards shapes the winners by giving overwhelming weight to expert judgment while still incorporating community input. Specifically, a panel of over 100 media outlets and gaming journalists holds 90% of the voting power, ensuring that winners are chosen based on critical evaluation and broad industry expertise. Meanwhile, fan votes account for just 10%, allowing the public to have a voice but preventing the awards from becoming a pure popularity contest. This system balances credibility and inclusivity, with fan votes potentially influencing outcomes in close races but rarely overturning the jury’s consensus. The approach addresses challenges like platform exclusivity and social media campaigning, maintaining the awards’ integrity while celebrating fan engagement.
How does the 90% jury influence the final winners at The Game Awards
The 90% jury vote at The Game Awards exerts decisive influence on the final winners by relying on a large, international panel of over 100 media outlets and gaming journalists who critically evaluate the games. This jury’s vote carries the vast majority of the weight, ensuring that winners are chosen primarily based on expert assessment rather than popularity. Each outlet submits confidential ballots reflecting the collective opinion of their editorial staff, which are then tabulated to determine nominees and winners. The jury’s dominance means that even if fan votes create significant online buzz, they only account for 10% of the total, making it unlikely for fan voting alone to overturn the jury’s consensus. This system aims to maintain the awards’ credibility by prioritizing informed critique while still allowing some fan participation.
