when i was going in to this i was still excited, despite how i tend to always come away with more negativity than positivity, but i wanted to have a good time, i got snacks and coffee and my favourite brand of monster, i wanted to make it a special night and against all odds, despite a few major bumps on the way, Geoff really managed to pull through and make this the best game awards in a long time, maybe even the best one period, he really listened to the criticism and put in an earnest attempt to improve and i think the results really show, this showcase was genuinely great.

i will get the bad off the front, there's still ads but this year they felt less intrusive, or maybe i just got better at tuning them out and they felt a lot more relevant to video games versus the anti smoking ads and stuff in previous years and there were still some boring GAAS titles and even a scam ai cat game, which after checking out some threads seems to be a big scammy nft outfit collector thing, it even has some celeb endorcements like by felecia day of dragon age 2 and supernatural so this thing must have some investors behind it, gross and a scam and it uses ai, so Geoff still needs at least some better quality control for this, but that's really the worst of it, Nintendo didn't have much of a showing but for reasons i'll get into later i kind of don't care and a better time for euros would have been nice, i didn't sleep until 5AM because of this. i could also do with less irrelevant musician showcases, the one with arcane was fine but the snoop one went on too long and i just muted it, plus getting rid of the influencer catagories would be nice, those are just lame. but the rest was great, for once the muppets actually added to the show with them heckling Geoff the whole time and referencing old controversies like "please wrap it up" and nominating dlc for GOTY (which was this year but still) and the lifetime achievement awards for preorder bonus's got a laugh out of me, it was just super charming and it felt nice to see the show acknowledge its own faults, it was nice to see them acknowledge their own mistakes instead of sweeping them under the rug. we also got an award for someone doing good in the industry and he got to go up and make a real speech, the guy seemed super happy and it was just very nice to see someone who deserves it get some acknowledgement.

the game announcements were generally great too, virtua fighter, project century, a new onimusha and okami along with the refounding of clover with kamiya, there was some crazy stuff, hoyoverse made appearances and best gatcha of the year infinity nikki was there too, slay the spire 2 and the new ninja gaiden look cool, we had edgy pac man (pac man act zero). thick as thieves looks like a ton of fun, a multiplayer imsim could work out super well with the right people attached and this one seems to. the yu Suzuki mobile game could be super cool, though it sucks that it's a Netflix exclusive. another elden ring thing i guess is cool, though i haven't played the original and i'm getting very tired of fromsoft making the same game over and over again, at least a little variety would be nice, make a new enchanted arms or an action game like otogi again, just something other than the same formula again and again, please. clive in tekken was cool too, it's nice to see final fantasy slowly becoming a tekken staple, i'd kill for squall or lightning in one of these games though. there was a new team ico game that looks great, outer wilds 2 looks fun and it's coming to ps5 so i can actually play it, split fiction looks like a fun time (i need to try hazelights other games). fragpunk seems like a ton of fun, super excited for that one, the gimmick cards really seem like they'll make for a unique experience, oh and borderlands 4 seems like one of the other good shooters here, a certified randy pitchford moment. turok looks super fun and i like the developers other big licenced me (world war z) so that has me very interested. wuthering waves seems very good but only time will tell if i have it in me to do another gatcha game. the new dying light could be cool, i need to really give the first one another shot sometime. double dragon revive looks great and that screamer game seems super cool, its great to see racing games with different art styles. sonic racing, even if barely shown, will probably be great, those games always have been and sonic R is a contender for my favourite sonic game. mafia looks like it could be very interesting and i'll be keeping an eye on it, i still need to finish 3 one of these days, i really liked that game, you could work with the RA in it. the new telltale also looks cool, though i'll need to see more to know weather i'll get into it. the show ending with intergalactic was cool too, a game i was slightly unsure of in the moment but I've came around to be very excited for it, i think the style and protag are both really cool and i trust ND after just how much i loved TLOU2.

sure there were also less cool games, dave the diver seems really lame, like a psy-op indie game nobody actually likes but that people tell you everybody likes, yet I've never met a fan of it, it's weird. there was a far too long witcher trailer (i just do not care and will not care about these games, not even for a second), the ai cat game, that minecraft shooter thing that looked kind of ick,*another* bland social deduction game, the sifu guys making a weirdo GAAS free soccer game which is, a choice, i guess, seems like a waste of talent to me, same could be said for many of the bland GAAS games shown off, like the mecha or the Canada one. palworld also sucks as usual, one of the very few games i would ever give the moniker of "cringe", just deeply cynical and lame, i really hate seeing it. the dungeon fighter game also seems super derivative in a way that's a little bothersome, with its "aventurine at home" character front and centre. there was some hunt showdown event with some rapper, seemed lame, the game does look like it could be fun though but those kind of celebrity endorsement events in games themselves just rings as a little ick and sleaze to me. the squid game bit was a little lame but that mostly annoys me because i dislike kyle bosman, that bustafellows vid was misogynistic and gross and mean spirited and i don't like you , please stop showing up to these events and making them worse just by being here.

for once the guests made some sense too, the muppets were great like i mentioned and the others mostly fit the show, it was nice to see Kojima again, the parts with the helldivers guy were fun, harrison ford showing up with people involved with the indy game, the TLOU2 ones fit super well, the kingsglaive guy and laura baily doing a skit (and both were in the game they talked about) and i think the band had something to do with arcane, even snoop was apparently involved in a game though i'm not wholley sure, that whole bit was confusing and went on too long, i muted his song segment and went to refill my water so i missed that bit. the house of the dragon guy was involved with a nominated game (that does look fun actually though i'm super picky on platformers) i was also pretty fine with the award winners, it'd have been nice to see some of the games i liked get more recognition, like silent hill: the short message, dragon age and granblue relink, but wukong lost GOTY and that for me is enough of a win right there. the main thing here is that it's a real attempt to improve, to right the wrongs of earlier years, more developers on stage and less celebraties, more time for speeches and less commercials, acknowledgement of issues and a real showing that they want to do better, it all ads up and it means a lot to me that they want to try and improve, it took some guts for geoff to let himself be mocked on stage in front of millions for his failings and i think he deserves some credit for that plus he seemed to actually show real emotions on stage for once, it was a quick reminder that for as much of a laughing stock as he might be among a lot of people, he does really care about this industry and he's been in it for longer than some people reading this have even been alive, the guy deserves some credit here. i hope this keeps up because it was a great showing and i think they could make next years even better, though weather they can top just how good the reveals were here is going to be a big task.

this show gave me real optimism, not just for the future of geoffs showcases, but also for the industry, even with its issues there was some seriously great stuff coming out, but this optimism wouldn't entirely last, i want to talk about what happened the next day that did put me at serious unease for the future of the industry, the rest of this is basically just blogging that's barely related to The game awards, more a vent at some industry stuff and talking about the day i had, feel free to skip or whatever. so i had originally planned to make a big deal of TGA day, go get snacks and stuff and get something from my fav pizza place, get some games from the game stores in the city near me and just make a big thing of it, but i'd got the day wrong and it ended up being thursday night, not friday night, but i did still go and do all my plans, got the HELL PIZZA for dinner, got some cool games (duel masters for GBA and we love katamari for ps2), i even picked up a cool detective conan blind bag, though i'm not far enough to know who the character i got is, i was hoping for phantom thief kid or conan or even ran, but anyway i had a nice day and when i got home i checked the news and what i saw kind of ruined my day. death end re;quest CODE Z, my most hype game of 2025, had been cancelled for switch, not every version was as it's still releasing for ps4 and 5 and not even in every region as the game has been out in japan for months now, but just on switch and just in every other region. the same had happened, even more strangely, to the switch ports of the neptunia rebirth trilogy, you know, the vita games from a decade ago that are all rated 12 in europe, all for the same reason, the "content". it's so strange since at least neptunia, and at least these versions, are very tame, sure the ps3 versions have some stuff that i can see being hit, but these remakes do not have that, it's so strange, even death end is not that risque, and honestly if that's what nintendos issue is then why do we have 5 ai art hentai games releasing on the eshop every week, it's all such a strange and out of nowhere and it's not just these games either, an indie shmup had also been cancelled in non-japanese regions over it and reportedly several eastasiasoft titles had been too, with things like daymare, the thing remastered and under defeat HD also seemingly hit by it and the list grows by the day with new games being found to be delayed or cancelled all the time with no reason given. it's worrying to say the least, especially since while i'm not super into a lot of these fanservicy games, death end is a big exception, what does worry me is what could happen if this spreads to the games i do care a lot about, and games like daymare and the thing show it's not and won't be limited to those fanservice titles, any adult targeted game could be at risk of cancellation.

idea factory are one of the biggest otome game publishers and those games can be just as fanservicy as even the horniest of compile heart games, check olympia soiree or sympathy kiss, two of my favourite games but two games that for sure earn their age ratings, it even got sympathy kiss banned in austrailia. otome games are my favourite kinds of games, they're most of what i play even if i don't talk about them much on here, not for lack of want to but moreso out of anxiety of talking about things this personal and dear to me and if these games did have to start skipping the switch, i wouldn't have much of a reason to stick around next generation, in fact i don't think i'd be buying a switch 2 period if it didn't have otome games, no offense to nintendo but their first party offerings are just not good enough to warrent a purchase, as much as i do love fire emblem and xeno, hell my favourite nintendo series is style savvy and those are long since dead. an end of otome games on consoles would signal and end to me caring about those consoles and especially if they end up being digital only, i would have no reason at all to adopt into them, it'd be the end of video games to me, so you can see why i'm worried about this. what's also an issue is that on consoles, switch is the only home to otome games, they don't come out on ps5 or xbox and PC is more the domain of OELVN otome games which i just have very little interest in outside of a super select few games (like date with death and dead wishes), the only places the genre would have to go are pc, which is super not ideal even beyond what i said since there aren't many avenues for physical releases and i sure as hell am not about to make a steam account now after going this long without one, i am not making the switch to digital and i will quit this industry before i ever even think of making a steam account, and the other option is mobile, i don't think i even need to say why that's not good, awful preservation and the fact you need to pay exorbitant amounts to even get one to run it, my phone is old and i have no real intentions of getting another smartphone when this one dies for good, i'll be going all in on a Japanese dumbphone, so otome going mobile would be super unideal for me. sure this is all blind panic, we don't know if this will stick, we don't know why and we don't know if this just effects pervy games for men and that otome games will be fine, we just don't know, but its that uncertainty that makes it so anxiety inducing and concerning, i hope this is a nothingburger event and that these games will be fine, code Z is still coming out for PS and i'm fluent enough in Japanese that i could very well import, but it's just, so concerning, what if NOJ take up NOA's stance and every region gets effected, what if the switch 2 just says no to any risqué content, that uncertainty makes any outcome seem likely, i want to stay optimistic but it's difficult to, especially when it hits games you're so excited for, i will still day one code Z, this has even pushed me to commit to whatever limited edition they do to support iffy, but i hope i don't have to repeat it, Nintendo has lost almost all trust i had for them and i'm hesistant to keep switch as my main platform, this will shift me to playstation if it keeps up for sure, which is ironic considering sony's former stance on this very same content, but still, that's something that hurt and has me very concerned, its funny like that, that Geoff who usually makes me feel this way managed to give me a plesant surprise, while Nintendo, who usually bring at least good news for their systems, have me afraid for its future.