Live this April 24, Yet Another Game Awards is an awards ceremony celebrating video games across the board. We interviewed its creator to learn more about it.
Video game award events have become ubiquitous within the gaming industry. How else will we recognize the massive talent on display year in and year out? The conversation about whether video games are art is one that pops up like clockwork every few months in social media “discourse.” Every one of these doubts can be laid to rest when a well-thought-out awards event rewards ingenuity and expertise in various technical fields. But what happens when these awards simply become marketing machines for the highest bidder or the most popular game of the year? Enter Yet Another Game Awards.
Being the most popular does not mean it is the best—as elusive as “best” can be defined—which is the reason Bri Moore, a passionate content creator and talented voice actor, came to the conclusion to create this event. Going live this April 24, YAGA will be streamed on YouTube and Twitch to celebrate games equally, regardless of their popularity. This goal to honor outstanding games and developers is one I can wholeheartedly support, moving me to interview the founder of these independent game awards.
In this abridged conversation, we learn about her ideals, goals, and hopes for the upcoming event:
In a gaming industry where even game showcases have been heavily corporatized, Yet Another Game Awards (YAGA) dares to give an equal voice to all games. Where did the idea come from?
I was just getting so frustrated by the games I played and enjoyed being snubbed at other awards shows. It’s a selfish beginning, I suppose. As I thought more about it and started to work on the show for 2024, I started to think about all the people who feel the same way. About all the other people who must be frustrated when the games that meant so much to them aren’t being celebrated. I started to take it more seriously and think about it as an event that could actually mean something not just to the gaming industry as a whole but to the gamers and developers that make the whole thing run.
There are a lot of awards shows and gaming showcases in this industry, like you mentioned, but a lot of them have a good amount of money surrounding them. Even if it isn’t money, there’s red tape everywhere you look, be it panels of judges making the calls, restrictions excluding specific games, developers needing to sign up to be nominated, and it goes on and on. We just wanted an awards show that was simple, one that listened to the people without some sort of asterisk next to it. These awards shows act like they’re some big, important thing, but in reality, it’s the games that are important; the awards show is just a vehicle to recognize them.
Red tape has its place, but to me, gaming is and always will be counterculture. Growing up, playing video games wasn’t about all this corporate nonsense; it was about having fun and connecting with one another, and we honestly want to bring back some of that energy.
In this second edition, what did you learn from the first event, and what is changing?
The first year we did this, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Like, “Okay, I’m furious about this, and I’m putting my foot down NOW.” Haha, maybe you could even call it a bit of a tantrum. I do live gaming streams as part of my job, so at first it was mostly for my community. I wanted to finally give recognition to the games we as a stream community loved that year. We never expected how positively developers and gamers alike would respond to the awards show, though, and that has been a major motivating factor in making this year’s show so much better than the last.
We contacted nominees right away to let them know about our show to ensure everyone was comfortable being nominated, and everyone’s reception was so heartwarming. Even though we’re a small show, we never realized just how far a bit of appreciation would go. It makes us strive for a bigger and better show each year.
We’re actually already thinking about next year’s show, if you can believe it! We are looking into getting an official Steam landing page for all our nominees, winners, and trailers, which would be phenomenal for engagement, I think. Likewise, we also want to branch out into contacting content creators to co-stream the 2026 event. Plans are already in the works for next year. We really have started to dream big with this show.
Oh, but to be more specific, we’ve worked really hard to make everything look and run much smoother this year. The aesthetic of this year’s show is stronger than last year’s. We worked really hard to make sure all the graphics, the website, and the awards all matched a theme. Nominees were collected through a Google Form last year, while this year it was all on our own website, YetAnotherGameAwards.com. We also received feedback last year from the community about laurels. We actually didn’t have them for our winners last year, so this year we’re making those to send out to everyone, including nominees.
Putting on this show with just the two of us is a huge learning opportunity, which means we do make some mistakes, but it mostly means we can make every year something better for our audience to look forward to!
What sort of positive influence would you like to see with YAGA moving forward?
Like the influence YAGA can have on the industry? Wow, I’ve never really thought about it that big before. That’s quite a tough answer to give, because honestly I would love for YAGA to influence so much change, if it could. The relationship between developers and gamers is something I would especially love to see mended as we go forward, be it YAGA’s influence or not.
You know, this is a huge reason we don’t have a panel of judges or any sort of restrictions. It’s not that judges or restrictions are bad, but they remove the gamer from the equation, even if just slightly. Isn’t the divide big enough? The online culture war between developers of games and the people that play them is larger than ever, and it breaks my heart. Shouldn’t we love one another? Without the developer, there is no game for the gamer to play. Without the gamer, there is no one to design the game for.
Personally, I think you can see this divide in every facet of our entire industry, from how gamers write reviews all the way down to how developers design games to interface with the gamer. It’s toxic, and we pretend like it isn’t bleeding into the art we make, but it is. It turns the art into something mean-spirited. I just want us all to enjoy gaming together again. I want the joy of gaming to be at the forefront of the industry, and I truly hope that’s something YAGA can help achieve over time by helping gamers use their voice to celebrate developers.
How does the game nomination process work?
The nomination process is completely open. No panels, no judges, no unnecessary restrictions. The game being nominated must have been released within the calendar year the show covers (this year covers 2025), and as long as it generally fits the category it’s nominated in, we allow it. So, when someone comes to our website to nominate games, they have a blank text field under each category where they can type whatever they want.
This does mean that some games get nominated quite a bit, which we do recognize is something other shows limit. We have wrangled with that idea as well, but at the end of the day, we find it vital to have a truly free and unbiased nomination and voting process. It also means we have a pretty long vetting process post-nominee submission because we need to go through and extensively research each developer as well as each game, its release date, history, genre, and so on. It takes a while, but I find it to be highly worth it at the end of the day.
And why is that? Honestly, it’s because I find a lot of these games and their developers never see a lick of industry appreciation. They sit here, carving a piece of their soul into a digital space for months, sometimes years on end, and for what? Occasionally for mounds of appreciation and love, yes. But more often than not it’s a small bit of appreciation from gamers that found their game through word-of-mouth or pure happenstance.
If gamers were cut out of the nomination process, then who would ever show appreciation for the majority of games that release in a given year? Certainly not the bigwigs, because money rules the Earth we stand upon and the digital spaces we escape into. Or, at least, a lot of them. YAGA is one of the many modern initiatives trying to put the power back into the right hands, which we personally think are the gamer and developer.
What can the audience look forward to regarding the new game trailers and raffles beyond the awards announcements?
We are still a small show, only in our second year and run by two people, so I would rather not set expectations too high. I think we have some really phenomenal indie games coming out soon to show off at our awards show. Without spoiling too much, I can say we have a trailer for a brand-new game, hot off the presses, from the winner of our last year’s Game of the Year category.
We also have a wide mix of games from a variety of genres to show off throughout the entire show, including cozy, horror, retro, simulation, and more. All of our voters and nominators who participated in this year’s show by submitting their favorite games and developers also had the opportunity to enter into an official YAGA raffle.
During the show we will be giving away exclusive YAGA 2025 merch as well as games and soundtracks featured in this year’s awards show. If someone didn’t get the chance to enter when voting, entry will be available during the live-streamed event for viewers. We will be doing drawings for both participants and live viewers, so everyone still has a chance to win! And again, we’ll be giving away some game keys, some soundtracks, and some rare physical YAGA test merch that we got made in small batches this year.
Many of the games and soundtracks we give out during the show tend to be winners of categories that night, so we don’t want to give away too much. Rest assured there are some pretty neat games and soundtracks up for grabs.
It is clear that YAGA has its heart in the right place, giving a voice to the underdogs that need it the most. At the same time, it is a great way to learn about new games that you might have missed last year. With the chance to win prizes the day of the event, it is shaping up to be an event for the ages.
Yet Another Game Awards will be livestreamed on YouTube and Twitch on April 24th at 2PM PST, and you can follow them on Bluesky for more information.
