Nominees Inverses Corey Plante felt the cutoff date led to several games getting snubbed, including ''
Demon's Souls and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, as well as Pokémon Sword
and Shield
, which was eligible for both the 2019 and 2020 awards but was unrecognized in both. He felt Ghost of Tsushima
was more deserving of a Best Score and Music nomination than Doom Eternal
. Den of Geeks Matthew Byrd similarly lamented the lack of recognition for Demon's Souls
and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
. Kat Bailey of USgamer questioned Doom Eternal
nomination for Game of the Year, describing it as "messy, unfocused, and, well, just not as good" as its predecessor. Kotaku Australias Alex Walker similarly found the nomination misplaced and considered games like Half-Life: Alyx and Microsoft Flight Simulator'' more deserving.
Ceremony The show received a mixed reception from media publications.
VentureBeat Dean Takahashi praised the ceremony, particularly applauding its celebration of diverse games such as
The Last of Us Part II and
Tell Me Why as well as the varied and interesting new game announcements. Todd Martens of
Los Angeles Times felt the show should have allowed more time for the developers to speak and discuss their artistic visions behind the games, noting the presentation does little to demonstrate
video games as art.
Eurogamers Martin Robinson said the show was understandably "low-key" but called it a "three-hour long advert".
Inverses Ana Diaz criticized the rapid announcement of winners between premieres and during the preshow, preventing developers from accepting the awards, and its focus on
Hollywood actors over game creators. Similar to concerns over
Death Stranding predominance in the nominations and ceremony for the 2019 awards due to its creator
Hideo Kojima's friendship with Keighley, some viewers shared concerns related to
The Last of Us Part II at the 2020 awards, both for its awards success and due to the developer's
crunch practices.
The Last of Us Part II was well-received at release but narrative elements polarized some critics and players, and the game had been subject to
review bombing; Keighley clarified the awards were not rigged in the manner some viewers had suggested and there was no influence of Naughty Dog or its staff on the award selection, citing the game's popularity among players and media alike as proven by its runner-up placement in the Player's Voice award.
Kotaku Ian Walker criticized the game's Best Game Direction win, noting
Hades should have won due to developer Supergiant Games's less demanding work culture.
TheGamers Peter Glagowski similarly felt the game's awards were a message excusing crunch culture in game development. Keighley felt it would be difficult to incorporate criteria related to games developed under poor industry practices like crunch into the awards selection process without becoming a
slippery slope, but believes discussions of these practices should be a conversation held by the larger community.
Viewership Over 83 million streams were used to view the ceremony, the most in the show's history to date, with 8.3 million concurrent viewers at its peak. On
Twitch, the show had over 2.63 million concurrent viewers, more than double the previous year, with 9,000 creators co-streaming the ceremony. On
YouTube, live viewership increased 84 percent over the previous year. In total, live hours viewed increased by over 129 percent across
Facebook Gaming, Twitch, and YouTube. The show
trended worldwide on Twitter, with a 31 percent increase in conversation from the previous year, while usage of the
hashtag #TheGameAwards increased 107 percent. Keighley expressed his surprise by the consistent growth of the show over the years, but confessed it has led him to fear "that year where it doesn't grow ... There's going to be a year where we don't have the same viewers". == Notes ==