A social media post from The Game Awards has gained traction online for its shoddy attempt at editing out the infamous Bill Clinton crasher from a frame taken from this year's awards show. The incident has become a notorious moment from the latest iteration of The Game Awards, particularly for happening right after the award for Game of the Year was presented.The winner of Game of the Year was Elden Ring by developer FromSoftware who previously won the award in 2019 for the game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The acceptance speech given by Elden Ring's director Hidetaka Miyazaki was immediately followed by the appearance of the aforementioned prankster who joked about Bill Clinton on stage just as the award show was wrapping up. The incident became a meme right away and was a lasting news story as many continued to learn more about the show's unwanted guest.Organizers of The Game Awards such as host Geoff Keighley seemed to be unhappy with the occurrence and appear to be trying to distance themselves from the prankster. This is exemplified in a tweet from The Game Awards' official account showing Miyazaki's acceptance of the Game of the Year award, but with the Bill Clinton crasher shoddily edited out. In the space between Miyazaki and his interpreter, small bits of the prankster can be seen from where he was standing moments before he approached the microphone.
The post has been poked fun at online since it went up. Many were quick to notice the failed attempt at photo editing such as online creator Lance McDonald who suggested that they use the "Content Aware Fill" tool. As expected, Bill Clinton memes ran wild in the replies alongside other famous examples of edited photos such as one posted earlier this year by Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka in which he similarly tried to edit out his former colleague Naoto Ohshima.
This latest presentation of The Game Awards broke viewership records, reaching over 100 million viewers across multiple streaming services. This means that millions of people witnessed the incident live. While it became a controversy of its own and raised concerns about the event's security, it got the attention of those who did not view the event live and wanted to see what people were talking about. Regardless of how Geoff Keighley and company plan to handle this incident and future awards shows, the broader gaming community is unlikely to forget it anytime soon.