Are we overthinking the Games For Impact category?

Pushback on the Pushing Back

1.

Since 2020, I’ve hosted a Game Awards watch party with the community I pastor.

Almost all of those who join in share a similar kind of ennui for the discomfort that an award show can inhabit.

And yet — it’s one of my favorite times that we share together each year.

We laugh until we’re in tears. We cheer for the underdogs and celebrate when they win. We even cheer for them being in the running at all, if they don’t take the award home. We share memories of the games we actually played that year. We offer one another excitement — genuine excitement — whenever a game trailer drops for something any one of us has been anticipating or is completely blindsided by. We give bad trailers a hard time with loving cajoling. We make memes, memories, and moments together around a shared YouTube tab.

If everything else were put to the side, this is what The Game Awards can actually do. It can bring people together around a shared enthusiasm for something that matters to us all individually and collectively.

It’s a third space. It’s a nineteenth hole — the place golfers go after the course just to be together. It’s a reason to do anything at all in the world, especially in a world with so many things that it can be paralyzing.

But that’s just one way I’m doing this with a particular awards show.
It doesn’t have to be The Game Awards, but for me, it is.
In the same way, it doesn’t have to be Games for Impact, but for me, it is.

This isn’t about convincing you to like The Game Awards. It’s about being honest that this weird, corporate show has become a tender, communal ritual.

If these nights didn’t exist, some of us wouldn’t have this ritual of shared joy in December. That’s impact.

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2.

There is plenty of discourse around the global gaming event, The Game Awards. This show has a fascinating and nuanced history, but it’s fairly clear it wants to present itself as an Oscars-like awards show for the video game industry.

I would go so far as to say I’m a fan of the show.

That being said, I’m very aware of its flaws:

Like any award show, it’s more of a popularity contest.
It’s a shame that not all categories are given a speech.
The industry's lobbying for game trailers is overwhelming.
An underlying tension with all things Nintendo.

But this year, I’ve seen a particular rise in the questioning of the categories themselves, which I think is fair.

Should Sports/Racing share a category?
What’s the difference between an ongoing game and community support?
Why is there a best eSports game — isn’t that like voting on the best sport?

But my favorite category has been catching strays — it seems like people don’t love the Games for Impact category.

According to their website, The Game Awards defines these games as,

“For a thought-provoking game with a pro-social meaning or message.”

Admittedly, this is a weirdly worded category.

Often, this gets called the ‘woke’ award. Or it gets questioned with the silly provocation, “Does that mean every other game *isn’t* for impact?”¹

Look — I get it.

It’s a weird award. It’s a weird prompt. But here’s the thing…

The video game industry is weird.

Like, the whole thing. Not just this one awards category. Pick any show. All the categories could be interrogated this way, and we would find a string to pull.

But what if that’s the whole point? What if we’re interrogating the wrong thing?

The real point I want to drive home here isn’t that we’re taking The Game Awards too seriously. It’s that we’re taking them seriously the wrong way.

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3.

A vulnerable confession: I love the Games for Impact category.

Every single year, I wait with bated breath to see what games will show up on the panel, and I add any unplayed entries to my wishlist right away. When I was still streaming, I would pick them all up when the nominations list dropped and play them literally on the next available stream date.

I’ve found some of my favorite games ever made from tracking this category: Neva, A Space for the Unbound, Citizen Sleeper, I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, Before Your Eyes, Spiritfarer, and the list goes on and on.

I think the reason I am becoming an advocate for this category specifically is that it feels like it is being custom-made for me.

And that sentiment — dear reader — is precisely what I am getting at.

The Games for Impact category is made for me. That really is how it feels.

Are these games actually impactful?
Are these games actually pro-social (whatever that means)?
Are these games actually thought-provoking?

Who cares? I just need a list of games that I know will reliably make the cut for my specific tastes.

That’s what The Game Awards (and arguably any awards show) is actually doing. It’s marketing.

I often hear pushback about the show being 3 hours of inflated video game trailers with World Premiere slapped on the front of them.

And yes — exactly. That’s precisely what an awards show is.

This isn’t an actual presentation of merit performed through a rigorous approval process. There is no thesis being defended before a panel of highly trained scholars.

The Game Awards is exactly the same thing as my being crowned Most Likely to be a Comedian by my high school senior class. It’s a popularity contest used to boost game sales or Steam wishlists.

I do still love comedy and have become a comedian in many ways I couldn’t have expected — my peers’ perception of me did impact me in a subversive way. In the same way, the marketing of The Game Awards still shapes what we play, who we gather with, and what we remember. That’s meaning.

And we can view that with nihilism, or we can embrace that for what it is: I can now have games added to my wishlist that will speak to me directly, because I know myself, and I know that the Games for Impact is made for me.

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4.

To be clear, I want to make sure I write out what I am not saying:

1. I am not suggesting The Game Awards are perfect, or even good.

   1. But I don’t need a perfect or good show to be entertained.

2. I am not suggesting that Games for Impact is well-defined.

   1. But the definition hasn’t changed my love for the games that land here.

3. I am not suggesting that award shows themselves are beneficial.

   1. But the conversation they inspire can be.

4. I am not suggesting that I am infallible in this.

   1. But I am allowed to express how something has impacted my personal experience.

I’m not saying The Game Awards are good or that their categories are well-defined or that awards shows are inherently beneficial. I’m just saying: they’ve genuinely given me games and moments that matter

If I really had to sum up my argument here, it’s that I am exhausted by people trying to yuck my yum. I wanted to speak into the void of the Internet, offering a perspective on why something has mattered so profoundly to me that others find upsetting.

To answer my hypothetical above, maybe we are overthinking this category—but we’re overthinking the wrong parts. I’d rather spend that energy enjoying the gift of sharing these moments with the people around me.

The Games for Impact category at The Game Awards isn’t an objective statement about which games ‘matter most’; it’s a flawed marketing label that, in practice, has given me some of the most meaningful games and communal moments of my life—and that’s all the justification I need.

Whatever category they fall under,
Video games matter.
And so do you.

1. I had the same crisis naming this very space “Games That Matter.” Does that secretly imply other games don’t? Of course not. It just signals: “these are the games that have mattered to me.” If I write about games that matter, does that imply that every other game doesn’t matter? I’m really not sure why we let ourselves get away with this fallacy. It feels like as redundant a question as the ‘if everyone’s jumping off a bridge, then would you do it too?’ I feel that this question is just calling out a category for ‘begging the question,’ when the truth is that every superlative begs the question. Game of the Year doesn’t actually mean that every other game wasn’t someone’s Game of the Year. My sharing games that matter in my experience isn’t negating a game that matters to you.