Im happy Starfield won a Steam award. It clearly illustrates how useless these awards are.

I think my favorite was the winner of the 2023 Labor of Love award: Red Dead Redemption 2, which hasn't had a major content update since 2022.

I finally played through the RDR2 campaign a few months ago. The game is kinda a masterpiece and I wanted to vote for it when I saw it as an option. Then I remembered it came out 5 years ago and as far as I've heard from friends there's nothing special about the online play.

Bit confused as to how it was even a candidate for the award lol
- It became a candidate because nominations (and the votes) are all community based. Steam has the final say, but yeah, it's the users who are driving this.
- I played half of RDR2 a few months ago and as a game it is boring af. I don’t know how a game with such a bad quest design can get so much praise.
  
  The world is gorgeous and I guess as a sandbox game there’s lot to do and even the story is alright but the quests are so boring and 80% the same. Couldn’t get myself to finish the game.

RDR2 took labor of love. I was hoping for DRG.

Hogwarts got an award (Best on Steam Deck). Hogwartz is not only politically odious but is just an open world with Potterverse assets, and takes place mostly in the swamp anyway.

Starfield got most innovative despite having the usual buggy-plus-banal that is the typical Bethesda formula. WTF?

So, okay, I'm a snob. And I'm disappointed with the Steam community.

How did rdr2 get labor of love? R* abandoned it. There was no new content for 3 years
- I believe that was the point. Starfield and RDR2 winning awards were ironic AFAIK.
- Honestly, this one bothers me WAY more than Starfield. Sure, SF might not actually be a GOTY candidate, but the shipbuilding alone really is innovative. RDR2 was my JAM for a few years, but Rock$tar abandoned it like a red-headed stepchild!
Innovative? Holy shit. It's the most rehashed game of this year. It's pretty much just FO4 in space with a ship builder and more load screens and procedurally generated planets.
I 100% completed hogwarts and loved the experience as a Harry Potter (not Rowling) fan. Gonna let it cook a bit and then come back when some more content comes out as it was a great chill game to play after work.

Also absolutely agree that DRG deserved labor of love. ROCK AND STONE!
- God I miss the days when liking a work of art wasn't automatically considered an endorsement of the person making it, even less so when the person in question is literally just the rights holder and had nothing to do with the product itself.
- It was a neat game and nothing more. It didn't do anything particularly well, and didn't do anything new. It certainly wasn't well optimized for the Steam Deck. It doesn't deserve all the hate it gets, but doesn't deserve the heaps of praise either.
The starfield and rdr2 ones are spite votes, obviously. Starfield is sitting at mostly negative for being shallow and repetitive and rdr2 was abandoned.

They're meme votes.
- Boaty McBoatface.
  
  I appreciate this hypotheses so much.
I've been voting for DRG for years now and am hoping it wins at some point. Great game that still gets sizable updates.
- Same, DRG has been getting better and raising their already high bar every year! They have regular content updates and you can just tell the developers give the game their best. Rdr2 while a great game, is undeserving of the labor of love award.
Rdr2 is a great game, but does NOT deserve labor of love.

I voted DRG as well, and I wholeheartedly believe it is more deserving of this award. Anyone who disagrees with me feel free to respond.

I firmly believe DRG didn't win because rdr2 has a bigger player base.

Valve should stop giving incentives for voting in the awards, it just leads to people voting for crap they know nothing about.

It won't solve the entire issue but at least it'd be a start.

It literally just needs a N/A, or Undecided button.
- Even if you didn't play any game that qualifies for a category it just tells you to vote from a selection of games you've never heard of.

It's a classic Boaty McBoatface situation. I fully expect at least one hentai game to win next year. 2024 being the US election year, trolls will have 12 months to practice.

boaty mcboatface was actually funny though. Internet polls being bad ideas isn't funny anymore
I was surprised i could only nominate one of my nsfw games. Apparently it was only games from last year that were eligible? But then how did RDR2 get nominated? So confusing. All I know is I would have absolutely nominated some of my nsfw games, had I been able.
- The Labour of Love is the only exception of the 2023 release rule, where older, still updated games should win.
  
  How did Rdr2 and gta 5 win when they are the most milked r* games? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think we can make that work.. Sex Chess anyone?

Most innovative game of the year.

That is honestly hilarious

It's not really funny though. Some group got their lulz, but that came at the cost of some actually deserving game not getting extra exposure it probably needed. It's not a victimless crime.
- I completely forgot that it was a user voted award. (Never a good idea imho) tbh I genuinely forgot all about said awards till this post

I'm just sad it wasn't Golum

That would have been great. The walking dead game too of Rick eating multiple shotgun blasts to his face deserved an award too.

I feel bad for Shadows of Doubt, the innovation award was the only one it was a candidate for and it got blocked by people poking fun at space Skyrim.

The horny robot game getting a style award over any of the amazing games that came out this year just crushes me.

Retrofuturism + consenticles fridge and dommy mummy robots beats most things to the sort of sad fucks that play games I guess?

I need a new hobby, unfortunately I too am a sad fuck.

I could never imagine being crushed by the results of a poll. Good luck to you
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole
Play Disco Elysium. It's a game for sad fucks.
Thanks for introducing the word "consenticles" to me.
- What have I done...
But the artstyle is the one thing everyone agreed it was great at, after seeing some reviews I played it with an ammunition multiplier mod and it was much better, who thought that an action fps should be stingy with ammo was mad.
I played this on release when I had game pass. I didn't really make it past the tutorial. It got so boring so quick. But the intro was interesting. If it had released that as a demo and then just never released it'd probably be better.

Permanently Deleted

Almost no VR gamer has ever even heard of the game that won best VR game.

I think most people voted for it as a joke.

It's literally a People's Choice Award. Of course it's useless.

What is there to take seriously? It's a community vote on what games people liked across various categories. If the outcome of the vote isn't to your liking, accept that your opinion differs from them and move on. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

So you are upset that the majority of the Steam users voted for a game you don't like? Isn't this the whole idea of democracy?

I also don't agree with some of the winners, but since I took part in the vote, I don't blame anyone for the outcome, I gave my vote, the rest is outside my control.

The point is Starfield won "most innovative game" when it's the same rehashed Bethesda RPG we have had since Morrowind. The only reason it could've won that, was ironically. Same for Red Dead 2 and "labor of love" with it famously being crunched through, with 100hr a week of work for people, etc. It's not "we don't like this game".
- Again, these awards are chosen by the community, not you or me.
They're opinions are objectively wrong.

Starfiled is a copy paste of fallout and skyrim, but this time in space.

RDR2 hasn't been updated in years, and still wins labor of love?

You can't look at me with a straight face and say these games received a well earned award. There are so many smaller titles that are more deserving of the award, but they don't have the same name power as these bigger games.
I really think people are just mad that we got Skyrim in space instead of just another Skyrim. Medival sword rpg games have been done to death. Yawn. I agree that they dropped the ball on the modding situation and fucking suck for it but that's not why people dislike Starfield. If we instead got elder scrolls 6, it would have been of exactly the same quality and have all the same issues yet people would be pissing their pants in excitement just because it's elder scrolls. Downvote me, idgaf
- If you truly believe Starfield deserves the "most innovative" award, you either have not played Starfield or don't know what the word "innovation" means.
- Actually it's daggerfall in space, which was what I was expecting só I had a good time.