It featured musical performances from d4vd, Royal & the Serpent, Snoop Dogg, and Twenty One Pilots, and presentations from celebrity guests including Harrison Ford, Hideo Kojima, and Aaron Paul.

The inaugural Game Changer award honored Amir Satvat for helping workers in the industry find jobs amid mass layoffs.

Journalists praised the game announcements, developer speeches, and deserving winners, though the eligibility of downloadable content led to mixed responses.

[4] The presentation, celebrating the show's tenth anniversary, took place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2024,[5] and was live streamed across more than 30 online platforms,[2] including Facebook, Instagram, Steam, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube.

[17][18] Any game released for public consumption on or before November 22 was eligible for consideration,[19] including DLC, expansions, remakes, remasters, and seasonal content.

[27] As with the preceding year, the Game Awards partnered with map developer Studio 568 and artists Nighttimes and Spiral House to create an in-game hub world in Fortnite, allowing players to vote from November 25 to December 11 for their favorite user-created islands among ten nominees selected by Keighley and his team; the winner was announced during the ceremony.

The inaugural honor was awarded to Amir Satvat for helping an estimated 3,000 developers find jobs amid mass layoffs.

[g] In addition to video game publishers, Amazon MGM Studios and Netflix both received two nominations for their television series in Best Adaptation.

[17][18][46] Astro Bot led the show with four wins (and its publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment with six), followed by Balatro (Playstack) and Metaphor: ReFantazio (Sega) with three.

[14][49][50] Keighley and his team monitored the ongoing SAG-AFTRA video game strike when booking celebrity guests and allowed them to choose how they would participate in the show.

[52] The Game Awards Orchestra, conducted by Lorne Balfe, performed during the ceremony,[55] including Pedro Eustache, dubbed "Flute Guy".

[62][63][64] Balatro's nominations pleasantly surprised critics due to its genre,[65][66][67] though some felt other indie games remained overlooked outside of their dedicated categories.

[67][74] Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA Sports College Football 25, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom were considered among the biggest snubs by some critics and viewers.

[88][89] TheGamer's Tessa Kaur felt the game's biggest accomplishment was its popularity, comparing it to Barbie's Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards.

[71][95] Kotaku's Zack Zwiezen considered Statler and Waldorf the highlight for their humorous interjections and heckles directed at Keighley,[104] though TheGamer's Kaur felt their appearance acknowledged the show's issues without addressing them.

[108][109] Journalists praised Swen Vincke's speech criticizing publishers who chase "arbitrary sales targets" instead of making games "they want to play".

[115][116][117] Following the ceremony, the game's producer Feng Ji expressed disappointment over the loss and confusion about the award's criteria, writing "I feel like I came all the way here for nothing!

[113][114][119] Some foreign media interpreted Feng Ji's comments as criticism of the Game Awards,[119][120][121] which was attributed to machine translations misconstruing the meaning, self-deprecation, and humorous tone of the original Chinese text.

[125] Referencing the viewing figures, Reggie Fils-Aimé called the show "the biggest global entertainment event of our time",[126] though TheGamer's Kaur considered the claim disingenuous, citing the FIFA World Cup finals and Olympic Games, and the fact that shows like the Super Bowl are generally viewed in groups rather than individually.