Here Are The Nominees For The Game Awards 2023 - Game Informer
Here Are The Nominees For The Game Awards 2023 - Game Informer
You can vote for your picks right now.
Starfield only getting one nomination--and in a category it has no chance of winning--is not at all what I would have expected going into this year.
I don't know if that speaks to how nuts this year has been for new releases or to how much Starfield fell short, in light of the fact that its player counts on Steam are starting to fall below Skyrim.
To be perfectly fair, Skyrim has a decade of sales and mods in its favor when it comes to Steam numbers, and whether or not Starfield has fallen short by any metric, the things that it does were more novel when Skyrim did a lot of the same stuff 12 years ago.
Starfield player counts will go way up once the modkit is released. Every single one of those people playing Skyrim on Steam have modded it out the wazoo.
They might go up but I'd be surprised it will rival Skyrim. I'm a Skyrim fan, yet I'm not enticed to play Starfield for reasons beyond me. It feels like it's lacking something and I can't put my finger on it. I don't believe mods would make much of a difference, but who knows, maybe I'm wrong.
I modded Skyrim (and Oblivion) because the vanilla game was exciting already, in spite of its flaws. I couldn't be bothered otherwise.
Frankly Starfield didn't even deserve the nomination. It didn't do anything unique or deserving of merit beyond just existing. I tried it, and while it has some interesting parts it's just shallow and bland. The lore had huge potential but got Swiss-cheesed by the game mechanics and wasn't developed at all - in what was supposed to be a Bethesda RPG. They need to yeet Todd and bring back the Obsidian folks.
If BG3 doesn't win the game of the year, someone paid someone off, lol
If tears of the kingdom doesn't win game of the year, then the show is rigged from the start, rofl.
Jk of course, I just like the conspiracy theories of these things.
Dave the Diver shouldn't be categorized as an indie game
Dave the Diver is developed by Mintrocket. Mintrocket is not an indie company, it is not acquired by Nexon, it's actually a sub-brand / division by Nexon. It is a sub-division of a giant company.
There are many indie devs that rely on being nominated to Indie category awards, for exposure, for the ability to stay afloat in business. What Dave the Diver is doing, is to take over a slot that might be the make / break event for smaller indie companies.
Think about the reason why there are specialized bundles for indie games, why people retweet / share info for indie exposure.
- If Ubisoft were to spin-off a sub division to make Child of Light, would we have labeled Child of Light as indie (not some weird AAA indie game)?
- If ALDI came into United States and spun off smaller mom-and-pop / bodega looking shops to compete with local mom-and-pop stores, do you still consider this spinoff as a local shop that need local support?
- If your government creates a grant to fund small local companies, and a giant MNC spun off its brand to compete for the grant, are we even still in this discussion?
Dave the Diver should be competing in other categories, just not in indies.
Also Nexon is scummy kinda like EA of Korea, shutting down games abruptly, fined for loot box exploitations, they have market cap of $17B.
Excerpt from an interview with the devs: https://www.gameple.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=207557
Q. '데이브 더 다이버'가 순수하게 개발로만 흥행한 것인지에 대해 의문이 있다. 한 인디 개발자들은 넥슨이 인디 시장까지 침범하는 것이 맞는가? 하는 목소리도 있다. 그에 대한 짧은 소감을 부탁한다.
Q. There are questions as to whether ‘Dave the Diver’ was a success purely due to development. One indie developer said, “Is it true that Nexon is invading the indie market?” There are also voices saying: Please give your brief thoughts about it.
황재호: 딱 잘라 말하면 우리 게임은 인디 게임이 아니다. 인디는 우리보다 더 적은 리소스에서 더 힘들게 개발하는 개발자들을 존경한다. 해외에서 GJA 인디게임 후보에 올라간 것이 있다. 해외에서 보는 정의가 조금 다른 것 같다. 넥슨의 압도적인 지원을 받는 것과는 다르게, 우리에게 자율권을 준 것이다.
Jaeho Hwang: To put it simply, our game is not an indie game. Indie respects developers who work harder and with fewer resources than we do. There is a GJA indie game candidate from overseas. It seems that the definition seen overseas is a little different. Unlike receiving overwhelming support from Nexon, they gave us autonomy.
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I'm shocked that RE4 got a GotY nomination. I thought there were rules against remakes or remasters getting Game Awards nominations; am I wrong, or did that change at some point?
Honestly, there should be weight classes for awards like this. Best game under $20 full price or over $50 for each category. Sure, BG3 is a masterpiece, but it also had $100 million investor cash up front. Comparing the score from BG3 to whatever Danny B is working on right now isn't a fair comparison, and my dude deserves more awards
Honestly, I had forgotten that some of these games had come out this year. It just feels like there's been so many in 2023. Also pleasantly surprised to see People Make Games get nominated for Content Creator of the Year. I don't think they'll win but it is nice to see their documentaries/ deep dive investigations receive some recognition.