The Game Awards reach 2 million classy viewers

The Game Awards were a downright classy affair (seriously, we handed out Classy Points during the show) – especially compared with last year's Spike-sponsored VGX show, which we can summarize with a line from our liveblog: "Thank you guys so much for joining us. Misery truly loves company." This year, longtime industry journalist and presenter Geoff Keighley produced The Game Awards himself, separately from Spike, and it was a finely dressed, musical night. Watch along with us in our live commentary stream.

The Game Awards reached 1.93 million viewers, up from the VGX's 1.1 million last year.

"I am absolutely stunned by the results," Keighley told Polygon. "We didn't have any marketing budget or TV spots for the show. I'm used to having a lot of support resources – a promotional team, a digital media team, a PR team. All we had was the support of the game publishers and fans to spread the word and on social media. It's empowering that we as a community can get the word out virally about a show like this. I always knew the show would get a better critical response from the community, but in many ways I was making a more serious show that risked not having as much mainstream appeal."

Keighley is planning for the future of The Game Awards – this round was an "investment" and he didn't make any money on it, he said. The Game Awards didn't sell out the venue in Las Vegas: Of 4,000 seats, 3,000 were filled, and only half of those were paid, $45 tickets, the site reports.

"If I'm going to invest in anything, it's going to be to support the industry which has given me my whole career," Keighley said, classy as always.