The Game Awards 2025 wrapped up yesterday, and to nobody’s surprise, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 completely dominated the show in a never-before-seen fashion. Much like Esquie, the RPG took to the sky and never showed signs of slowing down, mopping the floor with games across all genres.
Following this record-breaking performance at The Game Awards, many eyebrows have been raised, and much has been said about the show itself. On one hand, some believe the show is nothing but a popularity contest designed to cater to games audiences find most endearing at the time. Elsewhere, some think that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was just too good not to sweep all the awards.
Where do I stand on this debate? Personally, I think Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s Game of the Year victory was indeed well deserved. At the same time, there’s certainly a discussion to be had about how this show is handled and awards are handed out. Perhaps The Game Awards need to completely revamp their voting system.
Expedition 33’s Record-Breaking Performance
Sandfall Interactive has done the unthinkable and dethroned a titan like Naughty Dog to secure 9 victories at The Game Awards, a first for the show in its 10+ years of existence.
Not only was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 awarded Game of the Year, but it also took home titles like Best Narrative, Best Score and Music, Best Game Direction, Best Art Direction, etc. Did the game deserve many of these awards? Without a doubt. However, I also think that it took home a few titles that would have been better suited elsewhere.
For instance, a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 arguably excelled more in the role-playing department. I would even argue that Ghost of Yotei had stronger art direction, even if Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s art direction was extraordinary in many ways.
Nothing can be done about the outcome of the show itself at this point, but the bigger problem here is that there’s very little transparency regarding the voting process of The Game Awards for those who disagree with the outcomes. We know that general audiences get a 10% say in the final result of each category, excluding the Players’ Voice Award, which is entirely user-voted.
In the latter’s case, this award typically boils down to users banding together and voting for a specific game, highlighting another big problem with the voting system. Anyhow, 90% of the event’s votes come from The Game Awards’ Jury, but the issue here is that very little is known about said jury beyond the details shared on the official website.
The system needs to be more transparent moving forward. As Gustave would say, this type of revamp is necessary for those who come after.
Revamped Voting System
Currently, if you head over to The Game Awards’ jury page, you’ll find a list of media outlets from across the globe. These include familiar names, but the crux of the issue is that there is very little detail on who handles the nominations and selections within these outlets.
The Game Awards does little to address these curiosities on its FAQs page, so general audiences never really get a clear sense of how the entire event operates beyond a few vague answers. Also, it goes without saying, but a 10% share for audience votes is far from generous.
The good news is that a system based on audience-only voting might not be entirely unreasonable. Let’s discuss a potential Blockchain-based system that hands the power to the people, giving the audience the final say in the final results.
For starters, an audience-voted system would need to consider the anonymity of voters, potential vote manipulation, vote-botting, and privacy concerns. Solving vote manipulation would require a method to verify the identity of each individual voter, while avoiding the pitfalls of manipulation would need a strong system in place to ensure each individual is limited to a single vote.
To keep things simple, voter identity could be verified through email and phone providers. Optional photo IDs or game accounts could also be thrown into the mix to ensure voter credentials are as valid as possible. Not only would this type of system weed out individuals attempting to vote more than once, but it would also be able to verify whether the person voting for a game actually played it to completion.
Once this is out of the way, user anonymity can be handled through the use of Blind Signatures. Solving vote tampering would require the system to work in a way that voters would not be able to produce proof of their choice, and this is where client-side encrypted ballots would come in. This technique would effectively mirror a Minimal Anti-Collusion Infrastructure.
Afterwards, the votes themselves must be published on a public blockchain database while remaining encrypted for full transparency. Then, a zkSNARK tally, commonly used for zero-knowledge proofs on the Blockchain, can be used to authenticate the results of the vote tally without revealing the votes or voter identities.
Because of how this type of system would work, each ballot would be publicly visible on the Blockchain for general audience members to verify and count. The encryption would make it so that no single vote would be visible, but the math would still add up.
The benefit of relying on Blockchain in this instance would be the element of public trust being added to the equation. Because of strong encryption and a neutral infrastructure, this system would effectively be free of third of third-party tampering and take The Game Awards close to the goal of a completely unbiased system.
What’s Next For Game Awards?
It goes without saying, but such a system is still a long way off for the official Game Awards. Gaming discourse typically evolves so rapidly that audiences quickly move on from any single topic, and the recent discussions about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Game Awards 2025 will likely be old news by the time 2026 rolls around.
I fully expect to see Geoff Keighley conduct his award show in a similar manner next year. GTA 6 might even put Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s record to shame, but there’s certainly a valid reason to think about the merits of a potential audience-based voting system.
