Expedition 33 coronation as expected.
Thing that surprised me the most was Wuthering Waves for Players Choice Award over Expedition 33, Dispatch, Silksong, Death Stranding, Ghost of Yotei, and KCD2. Literal complete stable of awesome games across genres lost out to a gatcha game. Are there just more gooner gamers than I thought? 🤔
Mega-hyped for Total War: Warhammer 40k
Flute guy killed it as usual!
What are your thoughts on the awards and show overall?
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The Players Voice award always goes to some gacha trash, cause they incentivise their players to go vote. “If we win, we’ll give everyone free shit”.
Sad to see that so many FANTASTIC games ended up with nil, because E33 stole the show so hard, but it’s tough to argue that they didn’t deserve each one. Myself, I probably would’ve put Silksong over E33 for art direction, it’s ASTOUNDING to me how much of a step up the artwork in that game was, compared to Hollow Knight.
I do wish that they would adjust their criteria for “indie” game. E33 really shouldn’t have been counted as one, IMO. Hundreds of people worked on that game, as many as some AAA games, and yet games like Blue Prince, from a solo developer (or very close to it?) had to compete against that? That really defies the spirit of the indie category, for me. Even if we count JUST the core team of (supposedly) 33, that puts it squarely in AA territory, for me.
Hundreds of people worked on that game, as many as some AAA games, and yet games like Blue Prince, from a solo developer (or very close to it?) had to compete against that?
Moby Games lists 121 people in the credits for Blue Prince and 416 for Clair Obscur. At some point, the number of people who worked on a game is nearly arbitrary once your publisher enlists a QA contractor or starts localizing to more languages. I don’t think it’s ever been murkier territory to try to classify a game as indie.
The original meaning of indie was independently published. I would think having a publisher would pretty squarely put you in the not indie category.
What we think of as the rise of indie gaming was when they started getting publishers to promote them. You needed one in order to be listed on XBLA back in the day.
When I think of the rise of indie gaming I think about the early 2000s when people could put their game on their own website and things like Steam were coming out. The Xbox doesn’t even cross my mind. Consoles were very much not the realm of indie games until like the Wii U.
Xbox 360 and Summer of Arcade are major pillars in bringing indie games into the spotlight around exactly that era. There may have been Darwinia and Ragdoll Kung Fu on Steam at the time, but it was the likes of Braid, Super Meat Boy, Bastion and such that really came up within the XBLA promotions.
You clearly missed out on a whole era of shit like Pocket Tanks and Zuma.
I played quite a bit of Pocket Tanks, but there’s a huge gulf between that and the public consciousness that came up around indie games in the summers of arcade.
I heard that Blue Prince was going to be on the nominee list, but the lack of accessibility features ruined it for them.
Which list? It WAS a nominee for Best Indie.
Oh it was? Then sorry and nevermind!
I thought Blue Prince was one of the most innovative games of the year for sure and the story of it while subtle was very engaging.
It would have been nice to see it recognized somewhere! The Dev will just have to make do with the adoration of the legions of fans it has gathered for making an objectively awesome game :o
It’s not ruining my day or anything, but the gacha game basically bribing their players to vote for them feels pretty lame.
And I mentioned it in another TGA thread, but for a 4.5 hour runtime, presenting roughly 10 out of 30 awards on stage with the rest being rapid fire announcements between walls of ads/trailers doesn’t feel great for an awards show.
Those two gripes aside, I did enjoy it overall. All the winners’ speeches were very sweet and nice to see, though clearly a rough year for most games not named Clair Obscur.
*Oh, also, that Divinity trailer was GNARLY. Like, holy shit.
Yeah, the Divinity trailer was the huge highlight for me.
I enjoyed E33 a lot and there were some very gracious moments, like Broche thanking Sakaguchi. I do wish the love had been spread around a bit more - Hades, Blue Prince, Silksong, The Alters were all fantastic. I also haven’t played it yet, but I hear nothing but good things about KCD2.
Award shows are kind of a silly format in general. It was a wildly strong year for games, and picking a single winner in any category is subjective and arbitrary when there are so many great works.
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More people still watch it for the trailers than they do for the ceremony itself. I think trailers are fine, but if they want to be the “Oscars of gaming”, they should just do it like the Oscars themselves and keep all new trailers relegated to simple ad buys that play during a commercial break between segments.
The trailers are the only reason the show exists. It is not about celebrating games or anything, it’s about making as much cash as possible.
Wuthering Waves
I have nothing against a beautiful animesque art style, but… does it have to be rail-thin women in schoolgirl skirts and stockings? Is this game the exception?
EDIT:
Watches Steam trailer.
Literally magic schoolgirl skirts and stockings. Complete with winking in action.
I’m a sucker for Zenless Zone Zero. I recognize it’s often catering to male gaze, but I appreciate there’s some uniqueness and interesting themes to the designs.
Basic example, “Corin” being on first blush just a cute maid cut, but also following a Frankenstein design theme with the bolts/chainsaw and hair color.
They’ve also had a “bunny-girl”, Alice, who much like real bunnies is skittish and easily frightened (and is thankfully not nearly as sexualized as the theme often carries)
Worst “one more thing” reveal…ever. completely tone deaf devs
I hope that game dies. We don’t want f2p live service hero shooters anymore. After it shuts down Then we can go back to single player experiences and never mention the word hero shooter for a long time
How dare they name drop Titanfall.
Wuthering Waves should not be surprising. It’s a game that’s popular in China. If you’re polling people from all over the world to determine a winner, the one that wins is the most popular game in China.
Clair Obscur is a good game, but I definitely like it far less than everyone else, and if I were god of video game awards, it would have gone to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II this year.
Fatal Fury winning best fighting game was the objectively correct choice when faced against an early access game and several collections.
The Alters losing out to a port of a PS1 game, even a spruced up one, for the strategy category is pretty stupid. The Alters also should have shown up in narrative and performance.
As for reveals, there’s lots to be excited for. My most anticipated game for next year is probably Invincible Vs; I have not seen Ella Mental at where I’m at in the show, and maybe she won’t show up until later seasons, but she looks like a great Storm archetype for that game.
Plus the developers promised 50 free pulls if they got the award.
… So bots were definitely used
She is a unique creation for the game. Not in the comic or show, unless they somehow decide to add her to the show later.
But it follows the comics so tightly that would be kind of odd.
I have now caught up to where the show left off, and I’ll probably pick up the comics during an imminent sale somewhere. I did hear that this game would have an original story, and given all the deconstruction of its genre that that show does, it gets me excited that they’re doing something similar for tag fighting games. A riff on Storm from Marvel vs Capcom 2 would be perfect for that.
I don’t think I have ever watched the game awards, but I do look at the results and trailers the day after. I am glad Claire pulled through! I was following that game the year before it released and it looked incredible. For me it was a day one purchase and glad I was right! It was definitely an experience. It’s also the only game I have purchased this year outside of black friday where I used a gift card to buy 3 cheap games.
I despise the Hollywood-ification of the videogame industry, but the show was decent enough, with good pacing and not too many reveals so that everything had its spotlight. The awards went as expected.
Sad my GOTY Death Stranding 2 didn’t win anything. But oh well. I hadn’t played Clair yet so I started it today. It’s good so far. Don’t know if it’ll top my Norman Reedus with a Fetus* yet though.
I actually think it’s time to retire flute guy. I think flute guy has jumped the shark, bringing in pvc pipe whatever instruments that you can’t even hear. You had your time in the sun flute guy.
Overall, I thought the show was OK. They need better pacing on when they are actually giving out awards. It seemed like there was a stretch of an hour where no awards were announced.
And I agree with the whole of the internet that the last trailer was a fat lot of nothing. Sorry to that team for working on a “dead” genre for years. I only say “dead” because by this point everyone has picked their game they like in that genre, and trying to add a new one right now is a terrible idea.
*toddler
