1/24/2024 0 Comments It takes two nominations![]() Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (which actually did score a nomination for Best Adaptation). It’s like seeing a Best Picture field dominated by Top Gun Maverick, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Batman, Dr. Indie titles need to campaign twice as hard to make it on the list, while AAA titles are a foregone conclusion.Īll of that leaves anything like The Game Awards feeling less like the Oscars and more like the MTV Movie Awards. The more you scale up a voting base - not just for The Game Awards, but for year-end discussions generally - you tend to see the conversation shift toward games that have some level of mass appeal. Time management tends to favor what’s hot, and that leaves limited space for someone to choose between compelling, but less popular, games like Norco or The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. It explains why an indie like Stray might find its way at the top of the class, as its launch generated a massive social moment thanks to its cute cat premise. Massive games like God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring demand a tremendous amount of time and attention from voters who may feel like they have to prioritize them to stay up to date with the wider social conversations around games. It isn’t like the Oscars where someone could feasibly knock out five movies in a day and still have time to get a full night’s sleep. Countless excellent games are released every year and each voter realistically can’t play them all. There’s a logistical problem here that’s difficult to work around. Ultimately the awards are determined through a democratic process, with nominations picked by a massive jury of publications (Digital Trends sits on this year’s jury and submitted our own nomination ballot). One could lobby criticism at its category choices, which favor popular genres like action while leaving less space for smaller games that think outside the box, but it offers a lot of space for a wide array of games to break through. To be clear, The Game Awards isn’t at fault here. It can leave gaming’s big night feeling like a contest of scale designed for companies like Sony to excel in. The reality of the show is that it’s currently impossible to imagine an acclaimed title like Citizen Sleeper making its way into categories like Game of the Year or Best Narrative, no matter its quality. Even Stray is flashy compared to something like Strange Horticulture, building on 3D adventure game tropes. A Plague Tale: Requiem, a AA game that received a Game of the Year nomination this year, is essentially The Last of Us on a lower budget. It Takes Two is an EA-backed project that plays like a high-end Nintendo platformer, complete with a story influenced by Hollywood animation. Vampire Survivors and Cult of the Lamb picked up one nomination each, while games like The Case of the Golden Idol and Signalis were overlooked entirely.Įven when indies do win big, the games that get recognition tend to walk in the footsteps of larger games. Neon White, one of the year’s top-reviewed titles, only nabbed a Best Action nomination outside of its indie category placement. Smaller, but equally acclaimed titles, didn’t quite get the same recognition. Stray picked up an impressive six nominations, while Immortality nabbed some high-profile nods in Best Narrative, Best Performance, and Best Game Direction. This year’s show is similar, though with some encouraging exceptions. Instead, titles like The Last of Us Part II, Doom Eternal, and Ghost of Tsushima filled the ballot. Scrub back to 2020 and you’ll be hard pressed to find too many indie games even nominated in major categories aside from Hades. Last year’s ceremony marked the first time an indie won Game of the Year thanks to It Takes Two, but that stands as the show’s biggest outlier. ![]() Indie games have always struggled to make headway at The Game Awards since its inception. The best trailers from The Game Awards 2022: Judas, Death Stranding 2, and more Vampire Survivors changed the way I think about games in 2022 This charming indie turns storytelling into a clever puzzle game
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