The Game Awards 2016 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2016. It was produced and hosted by

Geoff Keighley Geoff Keighley () is a Canadian video game journalist and television presenter. He was most known for hosting the video game show '' GameTrailers TV'', and for co-hosting the now-defunct '' G4tv.com''. Keighley is also a freelance writer whose ...

at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2016, and was live streamed across several platforms. At the event, ''

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'' won Game of the Year,

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

won Best Studio, and game designer Hideo Kojima was honored with the Industry Icon Award.

Broadcast and viewership

The Game Awards broadcast was streamed on December 1, 2016 at 5:30 pm PST across several video sharing sites, including YouTube and

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, as well as on the gaming services

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PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...

, and Steam. For the first time, the YouTube stream included options for virtual reality and

4K resolution 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominan ...

. Keighley and other event organizers worked with

Tencent QQ Tencent QQ (), also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service and web portal developed by the Chinese technology company Tencent. QQ offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and gro ...

to have the show livestreamed and translated for Chinese viewers using Tencent's QQ and

WeChat WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has been ...

clients, and to participate in the Fans Choice Awards; the two services combined had potential for more than 1.5 billion additional viewers. Keighley identified that with China's ban on video games having been lifted in 2015, it has become one of the fastest growing markets for video games, and obtained the Tencent deal was "really an experiment" to see how well the awards presentation would be taken there. Keighley served at the host of the live event from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The event featured live performances by Run The Jewels the ''

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'' soundtrack by Mick Gordon, and

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. The event included new gameplay videos for several upcoming games. Prior to the event, Keighley stated that the show would have less reliance on computer generated (CGI) trailers and more on in-game footage, which was due to the effect of '' No Man's Sky''s misleading marketing earlier in the year. Among games shown during the broadcast included '' Mass Effect: Andromeda'', '' The Walking Dead: A New Frontier'', '' Prey'', '' The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild'', '' Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment'', '' Halo Wars 2'', ''

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'', '' Dauntless'' from Phoenix Labs, a ''

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'' remaster, Telltale's ''

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'', '' LawBreakers'', '' Warframe'', ''Assassin's Creed: The VR Experience'', and clips from the 2016 ''

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'' film. ''Breath of the Wild'' was also featured in the pre-show. With the addition of streaming to Asian audiences, the broadcast saw a total

viewership Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometim ...

of about 3.8 million, an increase of 65% from the 2015 show. The show is infamous for its marketing tie-in with Schick razor blades. Hydrobot, a buff, humanoid robot with a razor blade head, appeared throughout the show and posed with game developer Hideo Kojima. The stunt was criticized for its commercialized nature.

Winners and nominees

The nominees for The Game Awards 2016 were announced on November 16, 2016. Candidate games must have had a commercial release date on or before November 24, 2016, in order to be eligible. On November 21, The Game Awards dropped

fangame A fangame is a video game that is created by fans. They are usually based on one, or in some cases several, video game entries or franchises. Many fangames attempt to clone or remake the original game's design, gameplay, and characters, but it ...

s ''

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'' and ''

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'' from their "Best Fan Creation" nominee list. During a stream before the event, Keighley elaborated more on the situation and explained that the fangames were not legally cleared by Nintendo, who owns the rights to the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, c ...

of both games, to be included on the show. Most of the winners were announced during the awards ceremony on December 1, 2016 with the exception of the "Best Fan Creation" category. Winners are shown first in bold, and indicated with a double-dagger () .

Jury-voted awards

Fan's choice awards

Honorary awards

Games with multiple nominations and awards

References

Notes Footnotes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Game Awards 2016 2016 awards 2016 awards in the United States 2016 in Los Angeles 2016 in video gaming The Game Awards ceremonies 2016 video game awards