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[CJY]

In fairness, I like the Dorito King. He's a decent host, quite impartial and very inoffensive. The fact he pulled the show together off his own back is admirable and it has remained consistent and grown exponentially in viewership on a yearly basis since its inception in 2014.

With a mix of hardware manufacturers, platform holders, publications and industry figures making up the process and people involved in the nominations and voting, the general system they have in place for choosing the winners seems quite fair and balanced too.

Year	Winner	Viewers
2014	Dragon Age: Inquisition	1.9
2015	The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	2.3
2016	Overwatch	3.8
2017	The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild	11.5
2018	God of War	26.2

source: Wikipedia

The show itself is not bad and reasonably lacking in cringe because Geoff realised that it needed some exclusive new content combined with the award ceremony, as opposed to being a pure awards show. Judging by the viewership, it seems to be a format that is working. You might even call it uber-successful if the figures are true, especially if it continues to grow over the next few years.

As in film, everyone has their own opinion about whether that year's Academy Award for Best Picture should or shouldn't have won, but I think in gaming, the divide between the gamers and those voting isn't as wide as it is in film. It may become an issue in the future, but so far, the winners of each category seems largely unbiased and fair to my eyes.

Personally, I believe the industry as a whole needs an awards show such as this to reward and recognise the creators of our beloved games. Clearly the industry cares, my question in whether we - as gamers on GAF - should care and respect these awards, and whether or not you personally recognise these awards as an authority.

 

[ZeroGravity]

I'm not sure how you can argue there isn't a huge divide between gamers and those who give out Game of the Year awards when you're using one that gave Dragon Age GOTY as your example.

 

[CJY]

I'm not sure how you can argue there isn't a huge divide between gamers and those who give out Game of the Year awards when you're using one that gave Dragon Age GOTY as your example.

What would you have gone for instead?

The nominations were:
Bayo 2
Dark Souls 2
Hearthstone
Shadow of Mordor
DA: Inquisition

Not a super strong year in fairness.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

These awards are pure garbage, dont reflex the real quality of the games.

Its like MTV Video Music awards in quality... Mediocre presentation with a awful selection

Only Ignorant journalist gamers and Beggars Youtubers give importance to this mediocre event.

 

[CJY]

These awards are pure garbage, dont reflex the real quality of the games.

Its like MTV Video Music awards in quality...

Only Ignorant journalist gamers and Beggars Youtubers give importance to this mediocre event.

Is there a better event or more respectable awards in gaming? are you saying there shouldn't be any awards of this kind at all?

 

[Mistershine.]

No, for the same reasons I don't accept the Oscars as an official source for movie of the year: They aren't me, and as such their opinions are worthless trash.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Is there a better event or more respectable awards in gaming? are you saying there shouldn't be any awards of this kind at all?

My answer is to select as it is due to quality games, not what is popular.

Please, select Fornite as the most influential game, it is to laugh out loud. Without going any further, Select Zelda Breath of the wild as a game of the year and I bet you were only selected for the influence of the fans and for the fact of having the name, rather than for having played or completed 100%.

No, for the same reasons I don't accept the Oscars as an official source for movie of the year: They aren't me, and as such their opinions are worthless trash.

Always win Pixar in the oscars... even if they show mediocre films, and the talent of japanese art is a second place, thats why i hate the oscars now

 

[BlackOlivesMatter]

Fuck no

TGA are pure garbage

 

[prag16]

What would you have gone for instead?

The nominations were:
Bayo 2
Dark Souls 2
Hearthstone
Shadow of Mordor
DA: Inquisition

Not a super strong year in fairness.

Personally Bayonetta 2 out of that crop. But yeah not the strongest year if those were the top 5.

 

[Birdo]

No. The Game Awards is a marketing event and Geoff Keighley is a crooked fuck.

GOTY should be chosen by general consensus. Not by the industry.

 

[CJY]

No. The Game Awards is a marketing event and Geoff Keighley is a crooked fuck.

GOTY should be chosen by general consensus. Not by the industry.

I hear you, but it seems like even open voting is vulnerable to manipulation. George W. Bush was the President of United States of America. There is no perfect solution.

I know you said "consensus" and not "vote", but how do you gain a consensus without a vote?

 

[Bonfires Down]

What would you have gone for instead?

The nominations were:
Bayo 2
Dark Souls 2
Hearthstone
Shadow of Mordor
DA: Inquisition

Not a super strong year in fairness.

The Evil Within.

Wolfenstein: The New Order would have been a good compromise though.

 

[Katsura]

I'd never trust anyone working as a game journalist selecting a GOTY. In fact, i'd only trust myself when it comes to those. Even if you disregard how gaming sites today is pretty much just rage bait and extended advertising, taste is wildly subjective. RDR2 has almost universal acclaim with one of the highest metascores ever but to me, that game is so incredibly dull. My GOTY for 2018 was Dead Cells by a huge margin. I didn't see that winning a lot of GOTY from gaming sites

 

[CJY]

The Evil Within.

Wolfenstein: The New Order would have been a good compromise though.

Good shouts also.

Alien: Isolation also came out October of 2014.

Would have been Wolfenstein for me personally. That's a really great game.

 

[CJY]

I'd never trust anyone working as a game journalist selecting a GOTY. In fact, i'd only trust myself when it comes to those. Even if you disregard how gaming sites today is pretty much just rage bait and extended advertising, taste is wildly subjective. RDR2 has almost universal acclaim with one of the highest metascores ever but to me, that game is so incredibly dull. My GOTY for 2018 was Dead Cells by a huge margin. I didn't see that winning a lot of GOTY from gaming sites

The Game Awards have many other categories as well, such as "Best Art Direction", "Best Narrative", "Best Indie Game".

Dead Cells was nominated in the Indie Game category, and missed out to Celeste.

 

[Ballthyrm]

I think if you want awards at least we should have different types.
Awards that really reflect the voters.

One from the industry itself: developers, publishers, (what we have with GDC and IGF awards right now is very American centric and a small jury decide that behind close doors.)
one by the gaming press: not the regular press, the people who know games and review them for a living (right now everybody does their own thing maybe they should all tune together)
one by the general public: ie everyone else, the version of the GOTY right now (critical consensus)

The awards shows we have have no legitimacy as sales really don't represent the quality of a game.
The general public will tend to vote for big AAA that barely innovate anything and reward flash and sparkles over anything else.
Even if their pick end up being decent they will rarely pick the game with the most impact (Minecraft wasn't a GOTY for example)

 

[Katsura]

The Game Awards have many other categories as well, such as "Best Art Direction", "Best Narrative", "Best Indie Game".

Dead Cells was nominated in the Indie Game category, and missed out to Celeste.

Which is exactly why i wouldn't trust someone else when it comes to taste. Celeste is highly overrated in my opinion. It's basically what i'd label review bait. Dead Cells, on the other hand, ticks every box for me. I've put over 300 hours into it. For me, it's not the best indie of 2018. It's the best game period. Besides, anyone who works of off sponsor money cannot be trusted. I assume TGA has sponsors?

 

[Birdo]

how do you gain a consensus without a vote?

Basically take an average from both customer and professional reviews.

I know neither of those are the most reliable. But you can usually tell which games people love the most from them.

 

[brian0057]

Any organization that awards Dragon Age: Inquisition the Game of the Year title automatically looses any credibility they once had.

 

[Se_7_eN]

It doesn't matter who wins "GAME OF THE YEAR"... Because 8 other games will launch a "GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION" along with it.

Free speech allows websites to give their own opinion on "Game of the Year" so we will always have 12 different winners.

 

[xool]

I assume TGA has sponsors?

Please

Geoff Keighley is a crooked fuck.

He come across as a little bit sleaze sometimes, but this is hyperbole right ?

 

[TheGreatYosh]

Only 3 out of 5 of those are acceptable as GOTY. So idk. It is by far the biggest one though.

 

[iconmaster]

No, for the same reasons I don't accept the Oscars as an official source for movie of the year

That's how I view the Game Awards -- and good on Geoff for getting the show to that point.

The Oscars get Best Picture wrong sometimes, too. It's just how it goes.

 

[synchronicity]

There is only one GOTY source I care about - my own brain.

 

[Spaceman292]

No because they always get it wrong and everyone takes them as a joke.

 

[Plague Doctor]

The Game Awards is just as much an informercial as E3. It's just dressed up a different way.

 

[Danjin44]

Meh, my personal GOTY last year was DQXI and VC4 and thats all that matter to me.

 

[Virex]

There's a huge difference between what is popular and what is actually good. So I decide for myself what's game of the year instead of decisions made by sales, hype and "games journalist"

 

[Gargus]

The problem with any kind of awards is its all a farce, with the 2nd biggest problem being its all opinion based and you cant qualify an opinion. It doesnt matter if its music, movies, or video games.

Farce: The shows, the lighting, the hall rental, transportation, catering, staff, etc all has to be paid for. Even if its just an online only program it still requires time, energy, some kind of production, etc and that costs money. And all of it is paid with advertising and support of the companies that are having their products judged for said award. All awards shows are done to make money and promotional reasons, none of them actually care about judging the best products. No one would do an awards show unless they are getting something in return because awards benefit no one in anyway except the people getting money to do it, and promotion from the people paying for it. Now, who in their right mind would not vote or promote for products that are being made by the people who are paying you to have the awards? No one. Even reviews on websites and magazines exist because they are being paid advertising dollars by the people who make those products. take pc accelerator for example (I think that was the right name or maybe ultra game players I forget), they wrote honest reviews and went out of business because all of their advertising was pulled because if they didnt like a game then they said so and it pissed off a lot of pubs and devs. So its no wonder every year every game awards all mirror eachother with the biggest games from the biggest publishers, a decent amount of stuff just there because it was highly popular among gamers, and a couple no name indie games thrown in for good measure. But its always headlined by your big budget games with a lot of money behind them. Every year you know which games will win or be nominated by how much advertising they have or being in a franchise.

Opinion: You cant recreate opinion in a lab, so saying something is the best is dumb. Over watch has won game of the year and I dont like it, so it isnt game of the year to me and a lot of other people. Besides I dont need someone to tell me whats popular, if I like a game and no one else does I dont care, didnt change the fact I liked it. If I dont like a goty game that doesnt mean there is anything wrong with me or that I am somehow wrong like I said 1+1=43. Just because something wins or doesnt win an award doesnt change the fact a lot of people like it, a lot dont like it, and a lot dont even care. And award changes nothing because its all down to individual tastes of the players. I loved god of war and it won a lot of awards and I dont care, but a lot of people take it winning awards as some kind of really weird personal achievement they accomplished simply by playing the game when in reality they didnt do anything to win that award.

Side note: movie and music awards are by far the worst things ever though. Here are people who are famous allover the world, make millions of dollars, are always on tv being talked about and worshipped like gods, etc. But then we have to throw huge lavish award shows for them and praise them even more and tell them even more how awesome they are because they were paid to stand in front of a camera and act. They are just actors and singers, they are just employees is all. They still go home and sit on the toilet and shit while playing games on their phone and have to go to the dentist like everyone else.

Its just very odd how much importance the general public puts on awards, and how much they personally invest in seeing someone else win an award.

So no, I wont accept your goty awards thing because I do not care. All I care about is playing good games and no award or lack there of is going to take any part in it because it plays no part of what I like or dont like. And good god dragon age inquisition sucked, I beat it and all I can remember is running around a damn castle for side missions, destroying green portals and staring at a map assisgning actions to be played out by itself and thats it. Overwatch was fun for about a week then I got bored. BOTW was tiresome and uninteresting and felt like a chore to play. Witcher 3 was pretty fun and technically cool but also tiresome. But god of war, I liked that. So what do I care about goty when I mostly disagree with them?

 

[DarthBuzzer]

No. The Game Awards is simply a popularity contest. If you want more validity, use the consensus across all game journalists that year. At least that speaks more clearly though is still imperfect.

 

[Vader1]

I don’t care at all about the award. My opinion on the best game is usually much different. The only year there that I actually agree about is 2017.

 

[Vader1]

What would you have gone for instead?

The nominations were:
Bayo 2
Dark Souls 2
Hearthstone
Shadow of Mordor
DA: Inquisition

Not a super strong year in fairness.

I would have picked DKTF over all of those.

 

[Otterz4Life]

The Game Awards have many other categories as well, such as "Best Art Direction", "Best Narrative", "Best Indie Game".

Dead Cells was nominated in the Indie Game category, and missed out to Celeste.

Well, that’s that. Celeste is the better game.

/s

Wait, is this so that when TGA gives GotY to a SIE game the next couple years, Sony fans can use it to troll other games/consoles?

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

This awards are like:


ZELDA !!!!!

ZELDA !!! ZELDA!!!! I DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS AND I DIDNT PLAY IT ... BUT IS GAME OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!

ANY WORD OF ZELDA.... GAME OF THE YEAR!!!

 

[Fbh]

Sure why not?
It's fun enough and seems to have an increasingly large viewership, I'd personally like for it to be a bit more serious and take out some of the ususal gamer cringe, but it's not as bad as it was some years ago. It's just an award show, why does everyone get so salty about them? "OMG they chose a game I don't like, those assholes, how will I survive this!?!?!"

I can't really remember the last time a "best movie" winner at basically any awards show was my favorite movie of the year , same with all big music awards. But who cares?

 

[Helios]

What would you have gone for instead?

The nominations were:
Bayo 2
Dark Souls 2
Hearthstone
Shadow of Mordor
DA: Inquisition

Not a super strong year in fairness.

Maybe they should've nominated some better games. Alien Isolation for example. Heck, I'd nominate South Park The Stick of Truth as a better RPG than Dragon Age.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Maybe they should've nominated some better games. Alien Isolation for example. Heck, I'd nominate South Park The Stick of Truth as a better RPG than Dragon Age.

Alien Isolation for sure should have nabbed it.

For the OP:
And no, you do not go by one event, but the total accumulative from all issuers for the year. For those that find value in GOTY awards.

 

[Codes 208]

Maybe they should've nominated some better games. Alien Isolation for example. Heck, I'd nominate South Park The Stick of Truth as a better RPG than Dragon Age.

Seconded. Without hesitation.

 

[Vawn]

There's never an official GOTY - just a bunch of different people's and organizations opinions.

 

[cireza]

Why would anyone else but me decide which game is GOTY ? Even if this exists, I don't care about it.

Only my opinion counts.

 

[Daymos]

I can't stand to watch that show. So smothered in advertising and corporate BS.

There's rarely a year where you can't narrow 'GOTY' down to like 2-3 games anyways, the whole thing is kind of ridiculous. Obviously its going to be like Death Stranding or Borderlands3 or some popular game that cost too much money to make that I probably didn't even play.

 

[Paltheos]

Always win Pixar in the oscars... even if they show mediocre films, and the talent of japanese art is a second place, thats why i hate the oscars now

Zootopia's a fun movie but I'm still a bit stung that Your Name didn't even get a nomination. I've long been an opponent of Shinkai for being kind of a hack, one-note filmmaker, but this one won me over. It was a real fun time.

 

[Danjin44]

Always win Pixar in the oscars... even if they show mediocre films, and the talent of japanese art is a second place, thats why i hate the oscars now

Like many people said these awards for most part are nothing more than popularity contest and whats worst is Oscar generally don't give shit about animation, most judges gives to Pixar movies the award because thats all animation movies the they saw with their kids.

 

[stickkidsam]

lol no

 

[The Cartographer]

Process
The Game Awards has an advisory committee which includes representatives from hardware manufacturers Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and AMD, and software publishers Electronic Arts, Activision, Rockstar Games, Ubisoft, Valve, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. This committee selects around thirty influential video game news organizations that will be able to nominate and subsequently vote on the video games in several categories. The advisory committee otherwise does not participate in the nomination or voting process. During the nomination round, each of the news outlets provides a list of games in several categories; games for the esports-related categories are chosen by a specific subset of these outlets. The committee compiles the nominations and selects the most-nominated titles for voting by these same outlets.[15] Prior to 2017, there were 28 industry experts and representatives that selected the winners, while the awards from 2017 onwards have used over 50 such experts.[16]

Into the trash the TGA goes!

 

[spawn]

I agree with most of those except overwatch and legend of zelda. I just couldn't see what all the hype was about overwatch

 

[sublimit]

This is like saying McDonalds giving awards for best restaurants in the world should be accepted as the official source to find the best restaurants.

 

[jadefire66]

It's laughable that anyone would consider Dragon Age: Inquisition as a GOTY contender. It's one of the worst games of the year, a legit 4/10.

 

[EightBit Man]

"Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?"

 

[Grimmrobe]

1962-2019 GOTY Awards

Elite Video Player by _zac_

Elite Video Player

culture.vg

Y'all should be reading real critics, not industry shills. Just sayin'.