He also spoke a bit to the then-recent situation around loot boxes and microtransactions related to Electronic Arts' game Star Wars Battlefront II as Electronic Arts is also the publisher for A Way Out, Fares stated that while "It's nice to hate EA", that "All publishers fuck up sometimes, you know?", while expressing his appreciate for their support for his game. Fares, who had a prior history in the film industry before starting video game development, started his rant by saying "Fuck the Oscars", before speaking about how the Game Awards ceremony helped to highlight the developers and personalities that were passionate about their work. One highlight of the ceremony, noted by several outlets, was a rant given by game director Josef Fares while being interviewed on stage by Keighley to discuss his game, A Way Out. Keighley also attributes the higher viewership due to the quality of games that were released in 2017 and nominated, and the anticipation for yet-seen game trailers and new game announcements, though he wants to avoid future shows from being more like E3. Keighley believed part of this was their approach to gamify the show with the interactive winner predictions on their Twitch and Steam broadcasts, which also helped to increase the average length of time viewers watched, from about 25 minutes the previous year to 70 minutes in 2017. Keighley reported that around 11.5 million viewers watched the show, tripling the 3.8 million viewers from The Game Awards 2016.
The show also had numerous guests as award presenters or commentators, such as Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima, Mortal Kombat series creator Ed Boon, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, film director Guillermo del Toro, television producers Justin Roiland and Conan O'Brien, and actors Norman Reedus, Andy Serkis, Felicia Day, Aisha Tyler, and Zachary Levi. The show included musical performances from French indie pop band Phoenix and The Game Awards Orchestra, a mixed group consisting of an orchestra and other guest musicians, such as Avenged Sevenfold guitarist Synyster Gates and cellist Tina Guo, who performed music from a number of the nominated games. Alongside a mini-documentary shown at the show, a special Industry Icon award was given to Carol Shaw, who was one of the first female video game designers in the industry. During the event, sales on some of the nominated games were held across numerous game distribution platforms, such as the PlayStation Network and Steam. Ī month before the show, Facebook began presenting a five-part making-of documentary series on it via its Watch video service, known as "The Road to The Game Awards".
Certain streaming platforms also incentivized viewers to watch the Awards presentation through their specific service by entering those viewers into raffles for free games. An integrated public voting system was included on Google Search and Twitter and on Twitch, the show had an interactive overlay that allowed viewers to predict award winners before they are announced, the first such use of one on the platform. The presentation was held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Decemhosted by Geoff Keighley, and live streamed across sixteen different content platforms worldwide. 4 Games with multiple nominations and awards.