The Game Awards 2014 drew 75% more viewers than Spike VGX 2013

Geoff Keighley's rebellious new annual celebration of games improved on Spike's past efforts in leasp and bounds.

The Game Awards 2014 certainly weren't perfect, but to me personally they seemed significantly less embarrassing than Spike VGX. There were fewer awkward celebrities; less masturbatory self congratulation; and a decent selection of new reveals and footage to enjoy.

It looks like the decision to ditch Spike worked out for Keighley, too. The show attracted 1.93 million viewers, which according to Polygon is a 75% increase on Spike VGX 2013.

On average viewers watched 28 minutes of the three hour show, which is actually very good for web video, and over 350,000 comments were posted across Twitch, YouTUbe and MLGTV.

Keighley said he was "stunned" by the result, since there was no marketing budget or TV spots.

"I'm used to having a lot of support resources — a promotional team, a digital media team, a PR team. All we had was the support of the game publishers and fans to spread the word and on social media," he said.

The host said he was very happy with the show, but that if he had to do it again, he'd probably have more awards and fewer premieres, cutting the format from three to two hours.

The show was put together in three months, and didn't make any money for Keighley, who financed it out of his own pocket.

"This year was about earning the respect of the audience and proving that this 'open source' distribution model can work," he said of the investment.

Still no noise out of Spike with regards to the future of the VGX.

You can watch the full TGA 2014 below; skip forward to 13:52 for best results. Polygon's full interview is worth a read, too.