The Game Awards live stream was more popular than ever this year
The industry event continues to draw a bigger and bigger audience
Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards attracted more viewers than ever this year.
The event – which took place on Thursday, December 10 – reached a record 83 million people, an increase of 84% on the 45.2 million people that tuned in to watch the show in 2019.
The Game Awards saw a peak of 8.3 million concurrent viewers, too. This is in part because the event was streamed across 40 different services around the world, gaining a significant international audience in the likes of China, India, Japan, Russia, South East Asia, South Korea and Brazil.
On Twitch, The Game Awards drew a peak audience of 2.63 million viewers, over double last year's tally with YouTube seeing an almost identical trend. The Game Awards also dominated Twitter, trending #1 in the world and seeing a 65% increase in authors over the show.
High profile hosts won't have hurt either with the likes of Chris Nolan, Keanu Reeves, Brie Larson, Tom Holland, Gal Gadot and Eddie Vedder all making digital appearances. (How much that brings in the viewers is hard to say though.)
The Game Awards have grown each year to be an ever-important event in the gaming calendar. Where once it was the wintery pairing to summer's E3, this year it felt particularly prominent due to the expo's absence.
Since it first started in 2014, the award show has gotten bigger and bigger announcements to pair with its ceremony. This year a new Mass Effect was announced alongside titles like Perfect Dark, Ark 2, The Callisto Project and even an Among Us map. That inevitably brings more eyes to Geoff Keighley's awards.
Regardless of how you feel about the show, it's clear that the Game Awards are here to stay. With the uncertain state of E3 in a post-Covid world up in the air, it's entirely possible it becomes the place where companies come to show off their most exciting announcements each year. With numbers like these, it's hard to see how it doesn't become an ever-bigger presence in the landscape.