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Kid crashes The Game Awards stage during GOTY presentation

An unidentified person appeared to follow Elden Ring developers on stage

At The Game Awards 2022, a man crashed the stage while FromSoftware devs accepted the game of the year award for Elden Ring Image: The Game Awards
Nicole Carpenter is a senior reporter specializing in investigative features about labor issues in the game industry, as well as the business and culture of games.

A teenager crashed The Game Awards stage Thursday night to interrupt Elden Ring developers celebrating the night’s game of the year award. Los Angeles Police Department public information officer Matthew Cruz told Polygon that a person was detained at the 700 block of Chick Hearn Court for “theatrical exhibition.” The Microsoft Center, where the event was held, is located on that block.

The stage crasher told Polygon in an interview Friday that his name is Matan Even, and that he’s 15 years old. At the Microsoft Center, he was detained but not arrested, as host Geoff Keighley originally suggested. A report of the incident was taken at the scene. The report was not immediately available.

The stage-crasher appeared to follow Elden Ring game director Hidetaka Miyazaki and his translator up the aisle and to the stage of the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles after presenter Josef Fares announced the win. After entering the stage, he appeared to congratulate developers before standing behind Miyazaki, largely unnoticed, as the creative director accepted the award. After the Elden Ring developers were ushered off stage, the teenager approached the microphone and said: “I think I want to nominate this award to my reformed orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton,” he said.

He was quickly moved off stage as FromSoftware developers and presenter Fares realized he was not actually part of the group being honored. Security personnel appeared to cut the teen off and take him off stage. The intruder was taken backstage, questioned, and then taken from the Microsoft Center to a local police station, in an LAPD squad car.

Shortly after the incident, Keighley closed out the show, looking rattled. Minutes later, he tweeted that the “individual who interrupted our Game of the Year moment has been arrested.”

Polygon has reached out to Geoff Keighley for more information.

Update: This story has been updated throughout to include new information from the Los Angeles Police Department.

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