The Game Awards host and producer Geoff Keighley is "looking into" claims that bots and bribery have taken over the Players' Voice category at the show, although he doesn't personally believe this is the case. This comes after some accuse Genshin Impact developer miHoYo of using the promise of free in-game currency to secure votes after it celebrated its previous TGA win with a giveaway.
At the time of writing, Sonic Frontiers has only just taken back the lead from Genshin, securing 17 percent of the vote. This unexpected battle between Sonic and Genshin has left favourites such as God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring fighting for third place, with Horizon Forbidden West and Sifu set to be knocked out entirely.
As spotted by Kotaku, Geoff Keighley was asked about the theory that bot accounts are being used to boost votes for certain games.
"What are you and your team going to do about the obvious vote bribery and botting that is currently occurring in the Players' Voice award?", asks PapaNomura, prompting a response from Keighley.
"I don't know [if it's] bots," says Keighley. "I think it's fan bases activating to support a game, or a game promoting its nomination to its fan base."
He continues, explaining an issue he has noticed with the vote. "This is part of the reason we don't have 100 percent fan voting in the main categories. It tends to be which companies promote their nominations and which fan bases activate the drive the voting. But [we're] looking into this now!"
It's possible that this is all there is to it. After all, the Sonic and Genshin communities are very online and perfectly capable of mobilizing on their own. Neither brand account seems to be encouraging its fans to do this, but it's possible that both sides will be hoping they are rewarded with in-game goodies if their game wins, especially since Genshin Impact did just that last year. But as for now, the race continues.