In this week’s gaming news breakdown, Geoff Keighley announced he will be absent from E3 2020, Untitled Goose Game came out on top at the 2020 DICE Awards, and gaming has spiked in China following the coronavirus outbreak.

Geoff Keighley skipping E3 2020
This week, gaming journalist and known personality Geoff Keighley took to Twitter to announce he will not be attending E3 2020. Keighley produced E3 Coliseum, a 3-day event that brought fans and video game developers together through panels and special events during E3 for the past 3 years, but has since turned his focus to growing and producing The Game Awards. In statements to The Washington Post and The Hollywood Reporter, Keighley said he is supportive of the developers who will be showcasing their work at the expo, but feels as though it needs to “evolve” moving forward. Following the news, The Verge wrote that as E3 steadily declines, The Game Awards are gaining momentum, especially following the “bombshell” announcements that were made during the 2019 award show that historically have happened during E3.

Indie games win big at the 2020 DICE Awards
Despite multiple wins for Remedy Entertainment’s Control and Sony Interactive’s Death Stranding, Untitled Goose Game, the popular indie hit of 2019, turned the most heads after beating out the competition and taking home Game of the Year during the 2020 DICE Awards. Polygon called the win a “remarkable feat” for small developer, House House, saying, “For such a small, self-published title to earn this honor from one of the industry’s biggest bodies — from a group of its peers, as the AIAS membership consists of game developers and other people in the industry — is quite an anomaly.” Indie titles Disco Elysium, Baba Is You, and Pistol Whip also took the gold in the Story, Game Design, and Immersive Reality Game of the Year categories. The Washington Post, IGN, and Kotaku recapped the top winners of the year.

Gaming on the rise in China as the public hunkers down amidst coronavirus outbreak
In lieu of meeting in person, many people in China are turning to video games to socialize while waiting out the coronavirus, reports Game Rant and Daily Esports. Tencent’s multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), Honor of Kings, hit an all time high in daily average users in January following the shut-ins, reports CNN, alongside other popular mobile titles Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and League of Legends. In a series of statements to CNN, gamers said they plan to use the mobile titles as an escape and for a sense of camaraderie to help pass the time.