TGA is full-on monetization. This year's TGA spent more time on paid game previews and advertisements than it did on the awards. Hideo Kojima was given more time to preview his upcoming game than all of the winners' speeches combined.
The breakdown of the show:
1% announcing the nominees and winners
1% speeches by the winners
10% Hideo Kojima
10% other celebrities
78% ads and game previews
The award part is worst part of the game award and personally one of the reason I watch it is especially to see a Kojima premiere and I wasn't disappointed when he announced he was going to collaborate with Jordan Peele.
I mean, E3 was a business tradeshow. That's why people like me who never went have rose colored glasses, because we didn't see how dry it was, just the press show excitement leaked to us. It was retailers and publishers making shelf space deals and some annoucement press conferences. A lot of the industry cross pollenation was taken up by GDC for devs, and I'm not sure how it is these days but I went to Penny Arcade Expo in 2015 and it felt very much like the indies and fan conventions. Pandemic changed things, but I"m not sure how these expos are these days.