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Major awards shows are rarely referred to by their official names. Most people know the Academy Awards simply as the “Oscars.” The Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Broadway Theater are, luckily for theatre critics, the “Tonys.” Even the Emmy Awards get shortened to “Emmys.” But for more than a decade now, The Game Awards has been known only as… The Game Awards. When will “gaming’s biggest night” earn its colloquialism?
And better yet, what should the show be called? Because “The TGAs” has big “ATM machine” energy.
Since its 2014 premiere, The Game Awards has been referred to as the video game industry’s closest approximation to a pinnacle achievement like the Oscars (though many observers have poked, and will no doubt continue to poke, fair holes in that comparison). Hosted each year by games-journalist-turned-producer Geoff Keighley, The Game Awards are an evolution of sorts of the Spike Video Game Awards, or VGAs, a program that aired annually on Spike TV for a decade and was also produced by Keighley.
Both shows have devoted their runtimes to marketing games, airing trailer premieres, and handing out the occasional award, but the Game Awards purported to offer something fresh: a grown-up take on a video game awards show. Where the VGAs were as subtle as Battlefield 6’s campaign, The Game Awards aimed for a more buttoned-up vibe. More wine and cheese than Mountain Dew and Cheetos. Ties instead of T-shirts (but Keighley still wears sneakers). If you’re familiar with the show, you can come to your own conclusion as to whether or not it’s maintained the buttoned-up image over the years. But if the show’s producers really want to sell that image, it’s high time for The Game Awards to join its fellow prestige awards show peers in adopting a nom de plume.
The Academy Awards began in 1929, but “Oscar” didn’t enter the lexicon until at least the following decade. Film historians pinpoint 1934 as its first public mention. As the story goes, one prominent Academy member thought the statuette handed out to winners bore resemblance to her uncle, whose name was Oscar. By 1939, the Academy had officially adopted “Oscar” as the name for the statuette.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences didn’t dawdle in coming up with a name for the Emmy Awards, but the origin of the name is somewhat of a stretch. Initially, producers floated “Ike” — a reference to the iconoscope TV camera tubes that were commonly used in the ‘30s and ‘40s — as a potential name. That idea was nixed; Academy members worried viewers would draw connection to an American general who played a key role in World War II. (He eventually became president.) Members instead went with “Immy,” as a reference to the orthicon camera tubes that widely replaced the iconoscopes in TV cameras. “Immy” was then adjusted to “Emmy” to suit the statue’s female silhouette.
The Recording Academy (NARAS) struggled, but more behind the scenes, spending the better part of a decade trying to land on a name for the awards show everyone knows now as the Grammys. In 1959, according to a newspaper clipping from the time, NARAS still didn’t have an official name even a month before the awards’ inaugural ceremony that year. (Bob Thomas, the reporter on that story, offered one suggestion: “disky.”) Work on a music industry awards show started earlier in the ‘50s, and producers initially mulled naming the awards the “Eddies,” after Thomas Edison, the inventor of the gramophone, an early recording device. Instead, they went with “Grammy” — a riff on Edison’s invention.
Even the magazine industry took a minute to land on its name, the Ellies. The American Society of Magazine inaugurated the National Magazine Awards in 1966, to bring Oscar-like sheen and prestige to magazine journalism. In 1970, ASME adopted a new symbol for winners: a copper reproduction of a sculpture by the avant-garde sculptor Alexander Calder, best known for his experimental elephant statuettes. Elephant. Ellie. Get it?
The Game Awards has officially run for 11 years now — plenty long enough to earn itself a nickname. Who should get the honors? To me, the answer is obvious. There’s only one man who’s hosted not just The Game Awards but also its predecessor. One man whose first initial would fit neatly between “The” and “Awards” to allow the “TGA” acronym to continue. One man who brings as much vigor toward championing the latest Fortnite x Disney collabs as he does to the legitimately artistic tours de force.
That’s right. It’s time. Bring on the Geoffies.
Keighley did not respond to Polygon’s request for comment on our nickname suggestion.
