Although Geoff Keighley set lower expectations, The Game Awards 2022 broke more viewership records to become its most watched show.
At this year’s awards ceremony, Elden Ring excellently received the Game of the Year award.
The Game Awards 2022 set a new record for combined viewership across all platforms where the show was streamed. Hours after the event, Geoff Keighley announced that The Game Awards 2022 may have surpassed previous records and now the official viewership numbers have been revealed.
The show is being talked about by fans and video game talk shows as one of the best in years. With the Game of the Year category about to switch to a two-horse race, everything else around the show is equally entertaining. The show also hosts various giveaways on several streaming platforms like Twitch and Steam, helping to draw even more viewers to the show. Those efforts to encourage viewership paid off for The Game Awards as they surpassed expectations.
The Game Awards announced that the 2022 show has garnered an astounding 103 million global viewers across over 30 different streaming platforms. This is a testament to Geoff Keighley for making the show as accessible as possible. This marks a 21% increase in viewership from last year. Viewer count analysis on The Game Awards website lists that Twitter peaked at 11.5 million viewers and show-related interest increased 28% year over year, which is likely The feature was bolstered by a strange incident at the end of The Game Awards 2022. #TheGameAwards rose to #1 on Trending Tags during that time.
The Oscars 2022 attracts up to 16.6 million viewers but is still far behind The Game Awards 2022, in part because the Oscars have fewer methods of reaching viewers.
YouTube viewership peaked at 1.3 million concurrent viewers, with 603,000 coming from The Game Awards YouTube Channel, with the remainder coming from other partners and channels that co-streamed the event. 9.5 million unique Steam customers watched the show there, trying to earn gifts for viewers on the platform. Twitch has 1.9 million concurrent viewers across the platform, including co-streaming partners, up 20% from 2021. The Game Awards Twitch channel peaked at 571,000 concurrent viewers.
Viewership also spread to other platforms such as TikTok Live, Instagram Live, live streaming partners in other countries such as China and India, and IMAX experiences in theaters worldwide. Specific details about those numbers were not shared. The show made its own memorable highlights with gameplay reveal of Hades 2, Armored Core 6, Death Stranding 2 and more, moments like Christopher Judge’s Best Performance acceptance speech and the appearance of Pedro Eustache aka “Flute Guy”.
The Game Awards has been confirmed to return in 2023 for its 10th Anniversary and Geoff Keighley is making 2023 his busiest year yet. There will be a live concert performance at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2023, honoring music from honored games throughout the year. That will also be around the time he holds his Summer Game Fest event, which will also happen with or with E3’s return that month.
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