Last weekend's inaugural The Game Awards 2014 drew 1.93 million viewers, a dramatic increase of 75 percent compared to viewership numbers for last year's Spike-produced VGX. The show's producer, games media veteran Geoff Keighley, says the response to the show has been surprisingly impressive.

"I am absolutely stunned by the results," Keighley told Polygon. "We didn't have any marketing budget or TV spots for the show. 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."

"I didn't make money on the show, but I always knew it would be an investment" -- Keighley

The Game Awards ran for about three hours--which was about one hour too long, Keighley admitted. Viewers watched for an average of 28 minutes. Keighley added that he would have liked for more awards to be presented on stage instead on the sidelines as many were.

Though the viewership numbers suggest the show was a success, Keighley--who backed the event out of his own pocket--did not come out ahead on the endeavor. Of the 4,000 available seats in the Las Vegas venue, only 3,000 were filled. Making matters worse, only half of those were paid-for tickets, while the rest were taken by industry personalities.

"I didn't make money on the show, but I always knew it would be an investment," Keighley said. "If I'm going to invest in anything it's going to be to support the industry which has given me my whole career."

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

So will there be a show in 2015?

"I'd definitely like to see it continue on if publishers and fans want to keep it going," Keighley explained. "But yeah, no idea what shape it will take."

For more on The Game Awards 2014, you can read our news roundup and watch all the trailers. BioWare's Dragon Age: Inquisition won overall Game of the Year. Of course, that was just one category-- click through to see the full list of Game Awards winners.

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