Why would you pick a purposely polar opposite idea as my implication?  Who said I would just want a "gamer"-run show lol...  I literally already say that most user reviews lack the proper granularity to even be accurate, so I'm keenly aware.

When you say "we", I think you're just referring to the media.  Me and most people in gaming consider the XSX and PS5 as "current" gen, it's only marketing people at corporations that keep calling it "next" gen in an attempt to continue building marketing hype.

Having said that, the problem really is that it was marketed to us as "a celebration of gaming" and like it was really for "us", the "gamers".  As one can see, it's really anything but...  Of course, one might then ask, "well what do YOU suggest?!".

That's actually rather easy: for one, there should be a clearer designation of weight of user votes, and an increase in percentage (maybe 20-25%?).  Additionally, all the "media outlet" personnel that chose the nominees should be also outlined/named/listed.  Furthermore, they should probably set different standards for media outlets they allow to choose nominees, or at least create a sort of representative limitation.  Did four people from IGN pick nominees, and only two people from Eurogamer?  Is it one person elected per media outlet?  These sort of things help adjust media representation, and allow us to look closer at the breadth of the media representation for GOTY.  This also factors into the math of their supposed "10%" user vote: if four people from IGN picked God of War, and there were 10,000 votes out of 200,000, how does that pan out?  See, it's missing too much information to tell me wtf that 10% even does.  Four media personnel out of, what, 100?  The moment you bring in percentages, it no longer becomes a simple count of how many votes.  There's many pieces missing here, and that's likely on purpose because as I said before: they want to draw traffic to drive advertiser-friendly algorithms.  This way, they can look at the numbers and fudge things without us knowing and just pick whatever creates discussion.  And so far, that seems to be why they always put some indie game or other lesser known game in there because it gets people talking like "wtf why is that cat game in there" and to draw in people who love rooting for the underdog.  This also leans into your discussion stating indie/small games would never have a chance: that's not true at all.  Stray being less popular wouldn't count it out from winning, it would simply mean it would need to be an even better game to win it rather than "haha PLOT TWIST" GOTY stuff.

Then you've got the advertiser-heavy method of making the show profitable (or least not a monetary loss), only to spend that on celebrities.  Throwing money at things does not always make it better, and in fact it often dehumanizes it.  The show lacks intimacy, it does NOT feel like a celebration of gaming, it feels like a massive marketing ploy, or as I mentioned above, a media circle-jerk.

Now, when you say I shouldn't take it so seriously, I clearly don't.  The thing is, I would LIKE to.  It's hard to invest my time in an awards show that is just one big fucking commercial lmao

Tbh, if TGA was about celebrating "gaming", it should really be shifting to celebrating the devs who make the games, and by that I mean the thousands of indie devs out there who make their craft with far, far smaller of a budget than the AAA side of things.

They should be doing that, instead of the current format, where it's ads, mobile game, wasting too much cash on getting celebs in, mentioning big publishers/big 3, instead of the indie scene and creative games, not the latest AAA game that holds you by the hand and tells you how to complete every single puzzle in the game (big hint as to what game that is).

Also, years ago Geoff tried to bring Youtubers into the scene, but they got fobbed off so fast when celebs started getting that limelight, and it's partly thanks to streamers and youtubers that indie games get that much exposure, not Snoop Dog or Tiger Woods (and yes I know Snoop streams, but he's not the equivalent of all of Youtube).

The current state of TGA has me agreeing fully with ZyroXZ2, the show is a bit of a sham, and more or less acts like one big paid for circle-jerk, there is much the show can improve upon, but it's never going to change if enough folks act so stubborn/ aggressively defensive (which I like to call positive toxicity).

Yeah, its easy to say what should be done when you have zero on the line. Indies can be great, but not many people is going to tune into developers talking about their games for hours. Like it or not AAA games are still very popular even if you have had bad experiences with them. Also most of the games being revealed are usually indie games and they have several categories aimed only at indie games/developers. 

I'm not here to debate what should be done, I'm saying it for how it currently looks, and it's pandering toward celebs/ads/sponsors and partly journos, not the smaller indie devs or the influencers out there that actually help the smaller dev games being discovered, let alone becoming hits over night.

We don't need them to talk about their games for hours though, TGA doesn't last for 6 hrs, at best it lasts around 2hrs if at all, and you only ever need 5-10 mins a pop for an interview, and the dev doesn't have to talk about "here's what we coded", because no gamer is going to care nor understand code, instead talk about your inspirations, what drove you to make your game, why you chose the style that it has, what influencers have done to help your game be known, thanking ppl for buying your game.

I can tell you now that no one on this planet is going to give a shit that a multi million/billion dollar corp is going to go "thanks for buying $70 game", but others out there would care that the smaller dev gets the chance, because it means they can create future projects, whilst a million dollar company is almost always expected 100% of the time to craft a new game, not so much with an indie dev that could seemingly go bankrupt in a year (like an indie dev that did an exclusivity deal with Epic games, forgot their name, but they made one game, it didn't get marketed much at all thanks to Epic, and now the dev has gone out of business, with the game only reaching Steam in a few months out of obligation). 

Like it or not Mobile games reign over our core form of entertainment, but does that mean normies with clicker games should invade our awards show?, no, they already have a show, it's called the Oscars, and they almost always tune in to that show every year.

Indie games getting reveal spotlight isn't really enough, especially when you consider the fact that AAA's get more spotlight and award nominations/winners than you do indie, that's 2-1, that's just not good enough, I'm sorry but it isn't. 

Like I get what you and Hynad are trying to say, but I fully agree with, ZyroXZ2, the show can definitely do better than what state it is currently in, and tbh, I'm not up for being convinced that I have to accept the current state of the show, when I know and want it to do better. It's fine if you're okay with the show, I'm not here to snatch your opinion away from you, but understand that I'm not up for being convinced, I'm up for wanting things to change, and that starts with the want for the celebs to go and the smaller guys getting more limelight, so I'll continue to see Geoff as a guy who is more for PR than care for the smaller fish.

Fair enough. I just dont think a more focus on indies would do much. Like the Nintendo Direct Indies doesnt get anywhere near the attention a regular Direct does. Its just not as popular as the AAA games. If Stray didnt get nominated for GOTY this year, almost no one would care. But if Elden Ring or GOW Ragnarok hadnt been nominated, people would scratch their heads and wonder WTF was going on? 

Maybe it would be better to have a seperate award show for each? I dont know. That would kinda seem like Indies arent good enough to be counted as real games. But one thing I know for sure. The award show with the AAA games would crush the ratings of the indie show. Thats just how it is.