Last year, in the grand American tradition of ripping off other people’s traditions, I published a post titled “What Time Does ‘What Time Do The Game Awards Start?’ Start?” that rounded up the precise times websites began posting basic Game Awards information in an attempt to suckle traffic from Geoff Keighley’s underbelly. I was planning to do so again this year, but my research yielded some interesting results. At the extreme edges of the time-honored tradition of SEO bait – where intrigue lives – the game has changed.
As I began Googling “how to watch The Game Awards” like some kind of idiot who doesn’t already know how to watch The Game Awards, I noticed that last year’s earliest birds seemed uninterested in this year’s worm. Sites like Marca and ScreenRant, which in 2023 posted Game Awards start time guides as early as February, waited until November 2024 to get their headstart on the competition. Almost unanimously, sites posted their variations on the theme three weeks ago, yesterday, or today. And that’s if they posted at all! A few of last year’s top contenders didn’t. That doesn’t make for the most interesting roundup, sadly.
But why have things changed? It’s not entirely clear. I asked a couple friends at larger gaming sites, both of whom referred to Google’s algorithm for this kind of thing specifically as “voodoo.” However, we can make some educated guesses as to what happened here. For one, between AI and carousels at the top of the page, Google has turned this kind of a post into less of a surefire hit. Admittedly, I’m not seeing an AI summary when I search for Game Awards info, but I do get a series of modules before I reach regular search results. If you’re not in those modules, you’re functionally invisible to most people.
"My guess is that this kind of post is no longer worth it because of the featured snippets,” Veronica de Souza, current executive digital director at Inc and veteran audience development head, told Aftermath. “If I’m looking for how to watch the snippet answers it for me without having to click."
The news module does cycle stories, so it behooves sites to publish near the event in question and then hope for the best.
There’s also Google search-related conventional wisdom that sites might be wising up to, according to an SEO expert with whom Aftermath spoke: A quick look at Google Trends shows that most people search for information about when The Game Awards start on the day of the show or just before. They tend to search for The Game Awards more broadly, meanwhile, right after major announcements concerning the show – for example, November 18, the day Keighley announced this year’s nominees. So sites’ best bet is to take advantage of those traffic spikes when they inevitably happen – not to toss a lure out months in advance and wait for readers to bite.
Some publications have also gotten creative about capitalizing on general interest in The Game Awards as an entity. Polygon has spent the past handful of months – dating all the way back to August – running a multi-story package about which game might win game of the year.
Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the Geoff Keighley-fication of video game announcements in general. Once upon a time, The Game Awards was Keighley’s main event, and to some extent it still is, but he also hosts Summer Game Fest and Gamescom Opening Night Live, both of which sites can build “how to watch” guides around long before The Game Awards. In previous years, we were all still figuring out how to acclimate to this relatively-new reality. Now it’s a well-oiled machine, and we’re all cogs in it. Hooray.
So there you go. Now you know what happened to “What Time Does ‘What Time Do The Game Awards Start?’ Start?” Come back next year for “What Happened To ‘What Happened To ‘What Time Does ‘What Time Do The Game Awards Start?’ Start?”
