Copyright Variety
The New York Game Awards will shift into a two-day event for the first time in 2026, marking the 15th anniversary of the New York Videogame Critics Circle’s (NYVGCC) awards show. Held at the SVA Theater in Manhattan Jan. 17-18, the 2026 New York Game Awards will consist of “GG Fest” (industry panels and a “Supergiant Games: Unplugged” concert) on Day 1, and the actual awards ceremony, hosted by NYVGCC’s Harold Goldberg and former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fil-Aimé, on Day 2. Additional details on the GG Fest panel lineup, the 2026 NY Game Awards’ Legend winner and more will be announced by NYVGCC at a later date. Tickets for the GG Fest and NY Game Awards went on sale Tuesday, priced at $80 each or combined in a bundle for $140. “I can’t believe that it’s been 15 years — and most of those years have been about giving back to underserved students and sometimes unhoused communities as well,” NYVGCC co-founder and president Goldberg told Variety. “The last two or three New York Game Award shows were sold out. And then last year online, we had over 500,000 viewers for the show, and then also billions of impressions. So we thought, let’s add another day that’s kind of more like a fan festival, because our community really likes what we do.” NYVGCC executive director Ryan Callaghan explains the “GG Fest” name is a nod to online gamer shorthand, where typing “GG” stands for “good game,” and supporting camaraderie in gamer culture. “You just type a quick GG, just to be polite, and that was one thing that really stood out to me about becoming part of this community,” Callaghan said. “I started out as a teacher and fell into this by working with Harold at my school. And just the enormous amount of positivity that I saw within our community was really great to see, because we would hear stories in the classroom of students playing games online, who were being harassed and all these negative things are happening. But when you see people face to face and when you actually are being positive with them, it really fosters a strong community. So we wanted to represent that in just the naming convention of the festival itself.” GG Fest will join the annual NY Game Awards show in supporting NYVGCC’s nonprofit writing program, Playing with Purpose, which brings comprehensive classes and workshops in journalism and game narrative writing to schools and shelters across New York City. “All proceeds from the New York Game Awards and GG Fest go directly toward continuing our classes at NYC schools,” Goldberg said. “And they help to continue our internship program, which is quite successful. Our interns have gotten jobs at great companies. Most recently, our awesome Kimari Rennis became a producer at LucasFilm Games. She’s helping to make ‘Star Wars’ games.”
