Did The Game Awards Make Attendees Remove Union Pins?

The Game Awards had many people talking by the end of the night, and not all in a positive way. The awards showcase has always been divisive amongst the community regarding whether it’s really needed and whether the right messages are being sent through the program. That brings us to the question of whether attendees were forced to remove pins that happened to support an important cause. That cause? Unionizing game development works. The pins in question read “Labor Creates Games,” and at least one person was told to remove the pin before they entered the show. One of whom was from Santa Monica Studio, who had a big night thanks to all the awards they won.

The question was whether the directive for removing the pins came from Geoff Keighley or someone else at the awards show. TheGamer looked into it and got this message back saying it:

“was not aware that anyone was asked to remove pins” and were not involved in the case “in any capacity.”

That’s easy for them to say, but the fact remains that someone at the show, if not multiple people, were asked to remove the pins, and that would be an odd thing for a security guard to ask to happen if they weren’t given a statement from on high.

Many wouldn’t be surprised if The Game Awards would do this because they’ve done controversial things in the past that minimized the issues that game dev workers sometimes go through. For example, at the 2021 show, Keighley made a very brief statement about supporting workers and then, without hesitation, went to showcase a brand-new game trailer. Many took that the wrong way as it felt like he was trying to rush through it so they could get back to the “show’s purpose.”

The show was already under scrutiny for 2022 due to a young man somehow being allowed on stage during the Game of the Year segment and getting the ability to make a unique statement about Bill Clinton. That man was arrested right after the event.

Again, we can’t confirm that Geoff Keighley or someone else behind the scenes made the directive to security about the pin, but make no mistake, this is a big issue. “Crunch,” as it is known, is a problem in the industry, and many are trying to unionize to stop it. So any form of “resistance” to that wish is something that should be talked about.

Source: The Gamer