Like the Oscars or Grammys, an awards show picking some of the best the year had to offer, in this case, video games, was hosted in Los Angeles on Dec. 11.
The Game Awards streamed at 4:30 p.m. and was held at the Peacock Theater to celebrate some of the greatest in the video game industry for 2025.
The ceremony presented awards in 30 separate categories, including sound design, direction, voice acting, and of course, Game of the Year.
California is home to some of the biggest game studios in the world, including Electronic Arts in Redwood City, Activision Blizzard in Santa Monica, and Sony Interactive Entertainment in San Mateo.
With so many big and small studios in the Golden State, at least one studio is bound to bring home an award, and this year was no different, with three California-based studios bringing home awards.
Electronic Arts, also known as EA, won Best Audio Design for Battlefield 6, Supergiant Games, based in San Francisco, brought home Best Action Game for their title Hades II and Sony Interactive Entertainment and HBO won Best Adaptation for the live-action The Last of Us series.
What are the Game Awards?
The Game Awards is hosted and produced by retired video game journalist Geoff Keighley.
Keighley started the awards show in 2014, touting it as “the Oscars of video games.” The awards show has grown over the years and now includes industry partners such as live streamers and e-sports teams.
The awards show is streamed on a variety of online platforms, including Twitch, YouTube, Prime Video, and the show’s own website.
The website even has archived streams of the previous shows as far back as 2018.
Who won Game of the Year (GOTY)?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, by French studio Sandfall Interactive and English studio Keplar Interactive, won the coveted Game of the Year category.
Not satisfied with just Game of the Year, the title brought home nine of the 30 awards, including Best Independent Game, Best Narrative, and Best Game Direction.
The Game Awards, like other awards shows, has a jury of people across the industry choosing which games were the best in each category, according to the Game Awards website. A mix of public fan voting and jury votes then determines the winners of each category.
Fan voting opens on The Game Awards’ site and accounts for 10% of the vote, while the jury accounts for the other 90%, except in one category, the Player’s Voice category, which is 100% fan-voted.
Award winners:
Ernesto Centeno Araujo covers breaking news for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached at ecentenoaraujo@vcstar.com, 805-437-0224 or @ecentenoaraujo on Instagram and X.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Game Awards 2025, which California video game studios won
Reporting by Ernesto Centeno Araujo, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
