Andrew Rogers
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
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Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
very important for the industry and it's worth saying that watching the stream because it is all streamed live around the world lots of cheers lots of clapping everyone was on good form because this is their one window to really celebrate games so as well as the awards which we'll talk about in a sec
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
You also have some of the biggest companies in the world showing off games that are coming up because they know that there are so many people watching. So last year, 118 million people watched it around the world.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
And so we've got a whole bunch of new trailers for games coming up from some of the big companies you might have heard about from PlayStation, from games that are going to be on Xbox as well.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
They do. So in terms of those announcements, if you've ever played The Last of Us games, the studio that makes that, Naughty Dog, released a new sci-fi epic with a very glossy trailer. A lot of these, you'll watch these trailers and they look like movie trailers in the way that they're put together, especially at this early stage before you can see the gameplay.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
We also got a reveal for The Witcher 4 as well. But in terms of those celebrity guests... In the past, we've had Pedro Pascal, we've had Al Pacino, Timothy Chamelet was there last year. This time it was Harrison Ford who made a surprise appearance. Potentially not that surprising because there's a brand new Indiana Jones game out at the moment.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
But he was there to talk about that and even met the guy who's playing him in the new game.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
The big winner last night was Astro Bar, which won Game of the Year. This game actually started life as a tech demo. So everyone who bought the PlayStation 5 when that came out had a little version of this game to play. They then followed it up because it was so successful and so popular with a much longer game. And that's the one that won the award.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
Brings in all these kind of 30 years of PlayStation highlights and characters in it. It was really a very good night for studios from Japan.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
You had Metaphor Rifazio winning three awards.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
But it is also worth saying Bellatro, which is a small independent game. It was actually made by one single developer who keeps very anonymous based in Canada. That won three awards for a sort of card poker style game that you can play, which a lot of people have been loving recently.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
Well, a lot of smiles and a lot of hopes that it will make a difference, but it's been a really tough year. There was a big boom in spending on games during the COVID pandemic. That's really gone off a bit of a cliff and a lot of these companies have been making work as redundant. It was quite telling that this year they had a new award category, the Game Changer Award.
Global News Podcast
Syria: thousands celebrate 'Victory Day'
given to someone who did something useful or noteworthy. That went to Amir Satvat, who works for Tencent, but in his spare time has created a service where he links people who've been working in games, who've lost their jobs, up with new opportunities. So trying to bring an element of optimism into this. But if you work in games, these last couple of years have been pretty tough.