Type of site | Comedy |
---|---|
Headquarters | Victoria, BC |
Created by | Graham Stark, Paul Saunders |
URL | www |
Launched | 13 October 2003 |
LoadingReadyRun | |
---|---|
Twitch information | |
Channel | |
Years active | 2011–present |
Genre | Gaming |
Followers | 109 thousand |
YouTube information | |
Channel | |
Years active | 2006–present |
Genre | Comedy |
Subscribers | 153 thousand [1] |
Total views | 137 million [1] |
Last updated: 7 April 2024 |
LoadingReadyRun, often abbreviated to LRR, is a Canadian entertainment group that produces video and audio comedy. It often covers video games, internet trends, and popular culture.
Founded in October 2003 by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders and based in Victoria, British Columbia, the group's output has included sketch comedy, video game streams, panel shows, game shows, podcasts, and reality TV shows. LoadingReadyRun have also run the fundraiser Desert Bus For Hope since 2007. LoadingReadyRun produces videos and podcasts independently, and has also worked under contract with other companies, under the legal name Bionic Trousers Media.
LoadingReadyRun was founded by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders in October 2003. It began producing a weekly sketch video which it uploaded onto its own website. LRR never missed that weekly deadline, even while traveling.[ citation needed ] LRR's name and graphic design for its title cards, credits and website was based on the Commodore 64. [2]
In 2007, LoadingReadyRun broadcast Desert Bus For Hope, a fundraiser to raise money for the charity Child's Play. LRR have repeated this event every year since.
In December 2008 Graham and Paul tied for first place in The Escapist's Second Annual Film Festival with Unskippable, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style take of the introduction cinematic to the video game Lost Planet . [3] [4] For winning the contest they were rewarded with a contract to produce a weekly video for The Escapist . Unskippable was LRR's second series after the sketches, and would be followed by further series produced for The Escapist including Escapist News Network, Feed Dump, and Daily Drop. The sketches were also hosted on The Escapist during this time.
Some of LRR's videos have been featured in film festivals such as the Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival [5] in San Diego, and shown on major television networks, including G4 Canada [6] and CNN. [2] [7]
In 2013, LoadingReadyRun announced that the sketches were becoming too labor- and time-intensive to produce on a weekly basis without impacting other projects. It ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund one final year before retiring the videos in 2015. The Kickstarter also provided funding to start live streaming.
On 25 March 2015, Stark announced on their blog that they would be leaving The Escapist and subsequently ending Unskippable. [8] Unskippable could not be continued as The Escapist owned the property. Feed Dump was continued by LoadingReadyRun independently. On 13 July 2022, LoadingReadyRun announced the acquiring of Unskippable from The Escapist and started republishing it under their own brand on the channel LoadingReadyRun Video Games, with new episodes to come after the archive is uploaded. [9]
LoadingReadyRun has produced paid video content for other companies. LRR produces Friday Nights, a scripted comedy about Magic: The Gathering. It was produced under contract from Wizards of the Coast from 2012 through 2019, but is now produced in-house by LRR. LRR also produced content for Penny Arcade's PATV, including the reality TV show Strip Search, and made Tabletop Deathmatch for Cards Against Humanity. LRR has also produced Fairway Solitaire commercials for Big Fish Games [10] and Pocket Planes commercials for NimbleBit. [11] Today, LRR's income comes primarily from direct donations,[ citation needed ] which it receives from viewers through Patreon, Twitch, and YouTube. A number of its members work full-time for LoadingReadyRun, and they have said that they plan to bring more of their contract workers on full-time as funding and interest increase.[ citation needed ]
On 28 June 2022, Graham Stark announced that he was suffering from an aggressive form of lymphoma, for which he was receiving chemotherapy. [12] It was announced on November 14 during Desert Bus 2022 that he was in full remission, with no expectation of recurrence. [13]
The main crew of LoadingReadyRun consists of members who have regular shows on their Twitch channel, and/or are frequently involved with production. Some former crew members will still occasionally appear in videos, streams, or podcasts. [2]
Main crew
Former crew
Supporting contributors and frequent guests
LoadingReadyRun began as a series of short one- to two-minute short films, posted to the LRR website each week. The sketch series ran from 2003 to 2015. Sketches with notable success included:
In 2013, LoadingReadyRun announced that the Weekly Videos were becoming too labor- and time-intensive to produce on a weekly basis without impacting other projects, and began a Kickstarter campaign to fund one final year before retiring the videos in 2015. Instead of the weekly comedy sketches, LRR produces shorter sketch videos called Crapshots [20] as well as Magic: The Gathering-themed short sketches called Sick Rips.
LRR also produces commodoreHUSTLE, a plotted series dramatizing the personal lives of the crew, officially described as "A web series about the creators of a web series". [21] The crew play exaggerated versions of themselves – Paul Saunders is often portrayed as a technical genius without common sense, Graham Stark is abusive to his roommate Matt Wiggins, and Morgan VanHumbeck is an egotistical buffoon – and a running theme in the series is the group's dysfunctional nature and infighting. commodoreHUSTLE is now produced as part of LRR's Loading Ready Live shows.
LRR was commissioned by Wizards of the Coast to produce a four-episode commodoreHUSTLE spin-off miniseries called Friday Nights, detailing the crew's growing obsession with Magic: The Gathering . [22] [23] [24] The series then became an ongoing commission to produce Friday Nights about once a month for the Wizards of the Coast YouTube channel.
LRR also produces Qwerpline, a podcast that parodies a typical 'morning radio' show, recorded by Graham, Alex, Beej, Ian, and Kathleen. Set in the fictional town of Nsburg, Qwerpline is mostly improvised and then edited; similar in concept to shows such as Reno 911 , each episode is written with only a rough outline, recorded live and then edited for broadcast. Each episode opens and closes with a promotional spot for that week's 'Qwerpline sponsor', which is conceived and performed by Beej.
LoadingReadyRun streams mainly Let's Play-style shows on Twitch, where hosts play through a video game and comment on it. Other streams have included playing through board games or running role-playing games, or streams of crafts and construction.
LRR's streaming includes LoadingReadyLIVE, a monthly[ citation needed ] live variety show. Described initially as a hybrid comedy/talent/panel show, LoadingReadyLIVE's structure has varied but can include short game-show segments, prerecorded events filmed on the day of broadcast, highlights from other streamed shows, an "AskLRR" viewer-mail panel, and an episode of commodoreHUSTLE. LoadingReadyLIVE's tagline is 'This is/it's live, so something's gonna happen!'.
LoadingReadyRun is contracted by Wizards of the Coast to run Magic Pre-PreReleases (PPRs), day-long streams where members of LRR along with special guests play the latest set before it is released publicly.
LoadingReadyRun have had a variety of shows riffing on news. The Whatever Thing was followed by Phailhaüs, then by Feed Dump, each featuring jokes about comical news stories.
LoadingReadyRun have also had multiple shows riffing specifically on video game news. Escapist News Network was created specifically for The Escapist. When LRR left The Escapist, it created a similar show called CheckPoint which it produced for Penny Arcade TV. In December 2013, Penny Arcade announced that due to some restructuring they would no longer host 3rd party content on their PATV site. [25] LRR later began to produce CheckPoint independently, streaming CheckPoint Plus, a live stream of CheckPoint and its creation.
In 2018 LRR began The Panalysts, a panel show where panelists are presented with hypothetical situations and reason how to get the best out of them. For the first season, the show was primarily hosted by Kathleen De Vere. Since the second season premiered in May 2019 the show has been hosted by Molly Lewis.
LRR produced Strip Search for PATV. Strip Search was a reality TV show where cartoonists competed for an internship at Penny Arcade. It ran for one season. Similarly, LoadingReadyRun produced Tabletop Deathmatch, a show hosted by Cards Against Humanity whose goal was to find exceptional unpublished boardgames who could win funding for a first printing. Two seasons were produced.
LoadingReadyRun have a number of current and completed podcasts. These include podcasts on Magic: the Gathering (Tap Tap Concede, North 100), reviews of media (SideWalk Slam, AnoAni, Countdown to Infinity, Magnum Rewatch, Fight the Future, From Rewatch with Love), plays of role-playing games (Temple of the Lava Bears, Dice Friends) and talking about the video creation process (LRRCast) among others. Some videos are also released as podcasts, such as Qwerpline.
Unskippable was LoadingReadyRun's second series other than its original sketch series, and its first work produced under contract for another website.[ citation needed ]Unskippable played opening cutscenes to video games and mocked them in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000 . In December 2008 Graham and Paul tied for first place in The Escapist's Second Annual Film with a pilot episode of Unskippable, mocking the game Lost Planet . [3] [4] For winning the contest they were rewarded with a contract to produce a weekly video for The Escapist . The series aired every Monday and satirized cinematics to games like Eternal Sonata, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII and The Darkness. It received heavy promotion on the site, including crossovers with Zero Punctuation where Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw joined the Star Ocean: The Last Hope episode and Graham produced a ZP-style review of X-Blades , which soon switched over to Yahtzee's review of Halo Wars . [26] They also broadcast a one-off live special of Unskippable on The Escapist where they did a "Let's Play" of Legaia 2 in the humorous and critical style of the show. The two also appeared in episode 21 of Arcade as themselves. On 25 March 2015, Stark announced on their blog that they would be leaving The Escapist and subsequently ending Unskippable. Unskippable, with a tenure of six years, could not be continued as The Escapist owns 'Unskippable' property. Their second show on The Escapist, Feed Dump, continued on LoadingReadyRun's own YouTube channel.
LoadingReadyRun's Loading Time series documents the creative and production processes undergone by LoadingReadyRun. In the past, these Loading Time videos would feature behind the scenes footage for the creation of a specific sketch. After the launch of its Patreon in 2014, Loading Time videos shifted focus from specific sketches or types of content to a summarization of the work the team does on a monthly basis.[ citation needed ]
Iron Stomach Challenge was a cooking show in which the crew would blend together random ingredients (usually suggested by their viewers), and attempt to eat or drink the usually-putrid concoction. Viewer suggestions were governed by several rules: it had to be safe to eat (i.e., it couldn't be poisonous or otherwise inedible), it had to be a genuine food item (i.e., not something that is safe to eat but otherwise not considered 'food'), and it had to be relatively easy to obtain in a typical North American city. LoadingReadyLIVE has also featured eating challenges.[ citation needed ]
Daily Drop was a feature on The Escapist, made by LoadingReadyRun. It was filmed in the basement of the Victoria Event Centre. [27] It consists of approximately 2-minute-long clips of objects falling in, as recorded by a high-speed camera, and impacting the test area floor. A new installment was released every weekday between 7 October 2010 and 25 May 2011. [28]
In addition to their frequent collaborations with Wizards of the Coast on set releases and video content, on 29 November 2021 Magic: the Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater announced that Graham, Kathleen, and Cameron had been hired as part of the "creative text team" for the upcoming Unfinity set. [29] On 29 September 2022, Kathleen revealed that she had also been hired to work on the creative text team for the 2022 Magic: the Gathering set, "The Brothers' War." [30]
LoadingReadyRun is perhaps best known for its annual Desert Bus For Hope fundraiser. On 23 November 2007, the group started a marathon game session of Desert Bus (a minigame from Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors ) called Desert Bus for Hope to raise money for the charity Child's Play. The four-man team took turns playing the game continuously, with more hours added as more donations were made. The event was broadcast live via webcam, and garnered attention both from the media, and Penn & Teller, who called in, sent pizza, and made donations. By the end of the event, $22,805 [31] had been raised, including donations from Penn and Teller themselves. [32] [33] [34]
On 18 November 2008, LoadingReadyRun officially announced that it planned a second marathon run of Desert Bus which began on 28 November. [35] The second Desert Bus lasted slightly more than five days and raised over $70,000. [36] The crew later produced a music video entitled "Desert Bus Killed the Internet Star" (a parody of "Video Killed the Radio Star") describing the events of the marathon. [37]
On 25 August 2009, the third marathon run was announced, set to start on 20 November 2009. [38] At 18:42 GMT-0 on 26 November 2009 the marathon completed, raising over $140,000 [31] (after all e-cheques had cleared) for Child's Play. [39] One notable donor, going by the alias "Octopimp", donated nearly $10,000 alone across several of that year's auctions, which he referred to as 'Christmas shopping'. This made him a mascot of sorts in the event's live chatroom and in turn inspired many other high-number donations and auction bids.[ citation needed ]
The fourth marathon run was announced on 4 May 2010, and began on 19 November 2010 at 6:00 p.m. PST. [40] Penn & Teller auctioned off an "Ultimate Desert Bus Experience Pack" which included a bus ticket and sand from the Las Vegas desert, signed by Penn & Teller themselves. The fourth run concluded after 5 days and 21 hours, with $209,482 [31] raised.
Desert Bus 6 began Friday, 16 November 2012, and breached one million US dollars in lifetime donations on 19 November at 6:46pm [41] [42] [43] Lifetime donations subsequently passed $5 million in 2018, and $10 million in 2023. Additionally, 2020 was the first individual year surpassing one million dollars in donations after including all money raised through merchandise, and 2021 was the first year surpassing one million dollars in donations logged during the event alone. The tenth year of Desert Bus was the subject of a documentary called "We Are Desert Bus", released in 2019.
Desert Bus for Hope 2020, the 14th year of the event, was held remotely across multiple locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is notable as the first year to, due to this restriction, not use actual Sega CD or JVC X'Eye hardware. Instead the event utilized a cloud-hosted emulator that could be passed between hosts using a web browser, a system they used again in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, Desert Bus was held in a 'hybrid' format, where half the event was in-person and half was held remotely. The event mostly returned to an in-person format for 2022, with the exception of the 12AM – 6AM 'Zeta shift', as well as all guests and some of the behind-the-scenes crew, before returning fully to an in-person format and original hardware in 2023. In 2024, the event transitioned away from original hardware to the MiSTER Pi, an at the time new-to-market low-cost variant of the open source FPGA-based MiSTer project, due to ongoing reliability and availability concerns.
The most recent event, Desert Bus for Hope 2024, was the first year to raise enough money to last for 168 hours, a full seven 24-hour days, after viewers rallied to raise the remaining approximately $120,000 needed to reach this goal within an hour and a half, making the milestone within 15 minutes of the deadline. The run ended within $100,000 of the $12 million lifetime milestone; as a result, unless this is surpassed once post-event 2024 donations are tabulated, Desert Bus 2025 is set to be the first single year to pass two lifetime million-dollar milestones.
Year | Name | Raised (USD) | Lifetime (USD) |
---|---|---|---|
2007 | Desert Bus for Hope | $22,805.00 [31] [44] | $22,805.00 |
2008 | Desert Bus for Hope 2: Bus Harder | $70,423.79 [31] [45] [46] | $93,228.79 |
2009 | Desert Bus 3: Desert Bus VI in Japan | $140,449.68 [31] | $233,678.47 |
2010 | Desert Bus for Hope 4: A New Hope | $209,482.00 [31] | $443,160.47 |
2011 | Desert Bus for Hope 5: De5ert Bus | $383,125.10 [31] [47] [48] | $826,285.57 |
2012 | Desert Bus for Hope 6: Desert Bus 3 in America | $443,630.00 [31] | $1,269,915.57 |
2013 | Desert Bus for Hope 007 | $523,520.00 [31] | $1,793,435.57 |
2014 | Desert Bus for Hope 8 | $643,242.58 [31] | $2,436,678.15 |
2015 | Desert Bus for Hope 9: The Joy of Bussing | $683,720.00 [31] | $3,120,398.15 |
2016 | Desert Bus X | $695,242.58 [31] | $3,815,640.72 |
2017 | Desert Bus for Hope 2017 | $655,402.56 [31] | $4,471,043.28 |
2018 | Desert Bus for Hope 2018 | $730,099.90 [31] | $5,201,143.18 |
2019 | Desert Bus 2019: Untitled Bus Fundraiser | $865,015.00 [31] | $6,066,158.18 |
2020 | Desert Bus for Hope 2020 | $1,052,902.40 [31] [49] | $7,119,060.58 |
2021 | Desert Bus for Hope 2021 | $1,223,108.83 [31] | $8,342,169.41 |
2022 | Desert Bus for Hope 2022 | $1,138,674.80 [31] | $9,480,844.21 |
2023 | Desert Bus for Hope 2023 | $1,193,560.00 [31] | $10,674,404.21 |
2024 | Desert Bus for Hope 2024 | $1,252,356.75 [50] | $11,926,760.96 [50] |
Running total | $11,926,760.96 [50] |
Video | Organisation | Award |
---|---|---|
The Pair | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2015 | People's choice [51] |
The Secret of the Sauce | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2010 | Best writing [52] |
Right to the Source | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2009 | Best writing |
Eyewitness Accounts | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2008 | Best writing |
How to Talk Like a Pirate | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2007 | Best writing |
Suspend Your Disbelief | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2006 | Audience Choice [51] Best Male Performance (Andrew Cownden) |
University of Victoria Student Film 2005 | Audience Choice [53] | |
30 Minutes or Less | Vancouver Island Short Film Festival 2006 | Best writing |
Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette and Teller, are American magicians, entertainers, and scientific skeptics who have performed together since the late 1970s. They are noted for their ongoing act that combines elements of comedy with magic.
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is an American web series created by Burnie Burns with his production company Rooster Teeth. The show is based on the setting of the military science fiction first-person shooter series and media franchise Halo. It is distributed through Rooster Teeth's website, as well as on DVD, Blu-ray, and formerly on the El Rey Network and Netflix. The series initially centers on two opposite teams fighting in an ostensible civil war—shown to actually be a live fire exercise for elite soldiers—in the middle of Blood Gulch, a desolate box canyon, in a parody of first-person shooter video games, military life, and science fiction films.
Child's Play is a charitable organization that donates toys and games to children's hospitals worldwide. It was founded in 2003 by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, authors of the popular video games-related webcomic Penny Arcade. The charity is seen as a way to refute mainstream media's perception of gamers as violent and antisocial. As of 2022, Child's Play had processed over $55,147,529.24 in donations since its inception.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, colloquially known as Master Chief, is the protagonist of the Halo video game series and its spin-off media. The character first appeared in the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved, a science fiction first-person shooter that became a long-running franchise. The character also appears in spin-off Halo media such as the 2012 film Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, the 2022 Halo television series, and several graphic novels and books.
In the Halo universe, an Arbiter is a ceremonial, religious, and political rank bestowed upon Covenant Elites. In the 2004 video game Halo 2, the rank is given to a disgraced commander named Thel 'Vadam as a way to atone for his failures. Although the Arbiter is intended to die serving the Covenant leadership, the High Prophets, he survives his missions and the Prophets' subsequent betrayal of his kind. When he learns that the Prophets' plans would doom all sentient life in the galaxy, the Arbiter allies with the Covenant's enemies (humans) and stops the ringworld Halo from being activated. The Arbiter is a playable character in Halo 2 and its 2007 sequel Halo 3. The character also appears in Halo 5: Guardians and additional expanded universe material. A different Arbiter, Ripa 'Moramee appears in the 2009 real-time strategy game Halo Wars, which takes place 20 years before the events of the main trilogy.
The Escapist is an American video game website and online magazine. First published as a weekly online magazine by Themis Media on July 12, 2005, The Escapist eventually pivoted to a traditional web journalism format. In 2018, Escapist Magazine launched Volume Two, a rehauled website in conjunction with its purchase by Enthusiast Gaming. The site name reverted to The Escapist in April 2020. Gamurs Group acquired the site in September 2022. The company's entire video production team resigned to form Second Wind in November 2023 after editor-in-chief Nick Calandra was fired.
Ken Steacy is a Canadian comics artist and writer best known for his work on the NOW Comics comic book series of Astro Boy and of the Comico comic series of Jonny Quest, as well as his graphic novel collaborations with Harlan Ellison and Dean Motter. Steacy was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets 386 Comox Squadron.
Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors is a canceled minigame compilation developed by Absolute Entertainment and starring the magician duo Penn & Teller. It comprises six minigames used to play practical jokes on others: Two party tricks, two multiplayer "scams" in which one player can unfairly influence or interrupt the gameplay, the beat 'em up Smoke and Mirrors, and Desert Bus, in which the player must drive a bus over an empty, straight road for eight hours to score one point. Penn & Teller designed the game alongside Barry Marx, while Eddie Gorodetsky provided the concept for Desert Bus. The compilation was announced in 1994 for a release at the end of the year, which was later rescheduled for April Fools' Day 1995. Although the Sega CD version was finished on time and review copies were soon sent out, the financially stricken Absolute Entertainment could not afford to ship the game.
Machinima, Inc. was an American independent multiplatform online entertainment network owned by WarnerMedia. The company was founded in January 2000 by Hugh Hancock and was headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
"Caramelldansen" is the first track from Swedish music group Caramell's second and final album Supergott released on 16 November 2001. It became an Internet meme in the mid-2000s after a sped-up version of the song was attached to a video loop from the Japanese anime Popotan, which went viral. This version of the song was officially released in 2006 in Sweden and Japan as "U-u-uma uma", the latter of which charted on Oricon. A virtual group called Caramella Girls was launched to promote the song, renditions in other languages, and other cover songs and original songs.
X-Blades is an action-adventure game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The player assumes the role of Ayumi who wields two pistol-blades. The game was developed by Gaijin Entertainment and was published by SouthPeak Games and TopWare Interactive. It was later released for macOS and Linux on 20 January 2017. The game was originally released in November 2007 by 1C Company in the Russian language for Microsoft Windows, under the title Oniblade (Ониблэйд).
Lisa Renee Foiles Cloninger is an American actress, presenter, video game journalist, model and author, who first came to prominence as a cast member of the Nickelodeon series All That, later voicing Jocelyn the Intern in the web series Desk of Death Battle, Death Battle, and DBX.
"Halo" is a song recorded by American singer and songwriter Beyoncé for her third studio album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008). Included on the I Am... disc, it was intended to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Beyoncé's life, stripped of her make-up and celebrity trappings. Columbia Records released the song, the album's fourth single, to mainstream radio in the United States on January 20, 2009, and to international markets from February 20. Inspired by Ray LaMontagne's 2004 song "Shelter", "Halo" was written by Ryan Tedder and Evan Bogart, with the former producing it alongside Beyoncé, who handled the vocal production. It was originally conceived by Tedder and Bogart specifically for Beyoncé, although there was media speculation that it had been intended for Leona Lewis.
Halo: Reach is a 2010 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, originally for the Xbox 360. The sixth installment in the Halo series and a direct prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, Reach was released worldwide in September 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with an alien theocracy known as the Covenant, which seeks to exterminate humanity. Players play as Noble Six, a member of an elite squad of supersoldiers, known as Noble Team, attempting to stage a defense of the human world known as Reach, which falls under Covenant attack.
Monyreak "Monty" Oum was an American web-based animator and writer.
Extra Credits is a video lesson series currently run by Matthew Krol and Geoffrey Zatkin, narrated by Matthew Krol, with artists Scott DeWitt, Nick DeWitt, David "D" Hueso, and Ali R. Thome and Jordan Martin and writers Robert Rath, R. Kevin Doyle and other staff members. Social Media is run by Kat Rider. The series of videos discusses topics pertinent to video game development and game studies, addressing the legitimacy of video games as art, and creating intellectual discourse on important issues in gaming culture.
Strip Search is a 2013 online reality television game show created by Penny Arcade and produced by Bionic Trousers Media. The show featured twelve artists who competed over thirty-one episodes, with the series' winner receiving a cash prize and integration into the Penny Arcade offices in Seattle for one year.
Defy Media was an American digital media company that produced original online content for the 12–34 age group. Originally founded in 1996 as Alloy Online, the final company was formed in 2013 by its merger with Break Media.
The Game Awards 2016 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2016. It was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2016, and was live streamed across several platforms. At the event, Overwatch won Game of the Year, Blizzard Entertainment won Best Studio, and game designer Hideo Kojima was honored with the Industry Icon Award.