I’ve seen a few people mention E3 (& its demise) as one of the reasons the GOTY awards are so big now, i.e. due to the void it has filled.
For me the big difference is E3 was self-aware of its own objective: marketing & hype within a yearly video game convention. We knew what to expect & enjoyed the show for what it was.
The game awards by comparison aren’t fun. It’s about a bunch of snotty self-absorbed journalists deciding what’s best. I might as well go & watch the Academy Awards ceremony because it’s the same underlying nonsense.
Games basically cannot be compared when there are so many different genres.
I will say that Geoff deserves credit in how he’s managed to convince so many people that his show is so prestigious when literally nobody would give a rats ass about this show if it wasn’t for the trailers
It’s one thing questioning the awards, to me it’s how much they’re negatively involved in the discourse around individual works. I think gamers take the awards more seriously and involve them in the discourse in a much more petty way. Oscars and Emmys while huge and prestigious I don’t think they ruin the discourse that much.
I mean, I can’t see any category where this game could fit in. Definitely not Goty.
Maybe it could be nominated for best RPG, but Starfield, BG3, FFXVI, Sea of Stars and Lies of P were all better games IMO. Though you could argue that Final Fantasy was more of an adventure game than an rpg.
Saying that Baldur’s Gate is independent is the same thing as saying that Cyberpunk 2077 is an indie game. Sure, technically it is true, but it’s budget is 1000x bigger than every other indie game.
The Oscars are a bad joke in & of themselves, i.e. the golden era of movie award ceremonies is well & truly done. It’s finished.
But, the Academy Awards have one huge advantage: movies can be great & perceived as great irrespective of the budget. So many legendary film classics have had a shoestring budget & have been recognized for their achievement.
Meanwhile look at the video game GOTY award nominees: nothing but big budget blockbusters & exclusive system sellers. It’s like the MTV movie awards, i.e. imagine a show where the biggest blockbusters like Marvel get the awards? That’s what these video game awards are.
You have to use a little bit of good faith here. Dave the diver definitely shouldn’t be in this category, but neither should be games from massive independent studios like CDPR, Larian, IO Interactive and so on
They should just be separate categories, like small indies in one and big ones in another, better that than simply throwing in whatever they want when it’s literally wrong
So many of these awards are just a shitshow in how they are handled
I don’t see a reason for big independent games category. Like, who would BG3 be competing against in this category? There’s few independent studios capable of making massive games with 100+ million dollars budget. Just keep this one and exclude Dave the Diver.