It was just a few years ago that Twitch became the first sponsor of the New York Game Awards. At that time Twitch was growing, but it was not yet the household word it is today.

From Day One, the affable Chase at Twitch understood what we were trying to do with The New York Game Awards. We wanted to put on a show that was different from the rest, full of good-natured satire — and a lot of heart. So we asked the people at Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help with humor. As for the heart, well, that was there from the beginning with all of our members.

We also set out to do our Awards show by ourselves, partially because it was a statement about the Circle’s atmosphere of camaraderie, partially because we didn’t have the money to put on a giant Awards show. And we certainly did not want our Awards show to be funded by game publishers and developers. In fact, we don’t accept money for the Awards show from game developers and publishers.

So all the work you see on Awards night at Villain — the preparation, the camerawork, the directing, the showrunning, many of the Awards’ presenters — that’s us. We might have a celebrity or two stop by. We’re so happy to welcome Wyclef Jean this year. But mainly, it’s a night for our critics to gather together and appreciate the art form about which they so often write.

Chase and Twitch took a chance on us when no one else would. Now, Twitch has been acquired by Amazon and is a much bigger company. It is in many ways responsible for the rise of eSports throughout the world. It’s gotten so ubiquitous, it has its own convention. Even though Twitch has grown, we’re still glad they care about the New York Game Awards.

This year, Twitch is also a proud sponsor of our college scholarship initiative. That scholarship is another indication of how the Circle has grown to support part of the multicultural community that is New York City. While our Awards show ballooned to nearly 135,000 viewers on Twitch last year, we feel we’ll always retain the indie-minded spirit of the close-knit group of writers known as the New York Videogame Critics Circle.

Just a few tickets remain for the New York Game Awards. Or, you can watch them on our Twitch channel beginning with the Pre-Show at 7:30 pm East Coast Time on February 9th.