When a game gets an award, it rewards the entire process, from planning till release, with all the numerous developers coming together to make that vision a reality. Starfield didn't get any recognition, neither did Call of Duty, Overwatch 2 or the many other games that fester with malpractices. Sure, the CEO will pick up the award, but to get there you need to do things right. It's difficult to stand up on the stage as a truly scumbag company.

E3 died because companies pulled out. If there's enough community backlash to these events, and people stop actually appearing to pick up their awards or stop allowing their games to appear on TGA (and all you see on there are indie games and smaller studios), TGA will have the music played for them and be told to "wrap it up".

When the allegations against Blizzard came to light, they were banned from appearing at TGA, and could only be nominated. I do think Geoff is aware of the public perception of the show and is trying to balance making money, and giving time to winners. What happened to Neil was unfortunate as he was one of the first winners and Geoff Keighley did say he found people had too little time to talk and stopped enforcing it as the show went on.

I don't understand your point about Kojima. Isn't him calling out the company precisely what he should do? Sure, he needs to do it tactfully, but I don't see anything wrong with his delivery. That he sequed into a musical performance was hilarious and actually pretty cool.

I do agree with you about the ads though. The OD segment was far, far too long, for what wasn't even a teaser. I still don't understand what Gonzo was doing there, and the Alan Wake musical number (as well as the Hell blade 2 one) were fun, sure, but I'll take longer speeches over those anyday. The show is not without fault but it's the public who vote on the winners and make it what it is. I'm sure there's enough discourse this year about his failings for him to fix things next year, and I'm sure he'll address them.

What I'm concerned about though, is the lack of AAA titles. "World Premiere" seemed a bit grandiose a term to use for many of the titles shown. Everyone was waiting for Elden Ring, Titanfall, a surprise Nintendo announcement or, hell, a Fallout New Vegas remake maybe? Something?

We got Monster Hunter Wilds as the only really big game there. Light no Fire and Hellblade 2 are good offerings from established devs but hardly headliners. Major studios still don't think TGA is a platform worthy of their products and if public perception doesn't drastically improve, it may never be.