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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes home an absurd 9 wins at The Game Awards, more than Baldur's Gate 3 in 2023
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The only award I think it didn't deserve was Best RPG. But, on the other hand, it should have gotten Best Sound Design over BF6; so it still would have gotten 9 awards. Truly a masterpiece of a game. To those haters saying "But not even BG3 got that many awards!" it's not a fair comparison. BG3 is a slightly better game IMO, but Expedition 33 is a work of art on top of being an amazing game and appeals to a much wider audience. Which isn't to say games like BG3 aren't beautiful, but I think anyone would agree that E33 is on a whole other level.
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"We've picked one game and we're giving every award to that game because it's the best game at everything and have you played the game yet? You should it's so good it's just the best at everything." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Interactive > Kepler Interactive was founded in September 2021 at the initiative of former Ubisoft employee and French entrepreneur Alexis Garavayan, who had previously co-founded the video game investment fund Kowloon Nights. Self-described as a "super developer" publishing group, Kepler was born out of an alliance between seven independent studios to “pool their resources and knowledge”: Hedge Fund ass publisher. Come on, guys. The Gaming Awards have always just been sponsored content and you're getting hoodwinked because you don't recognize the sponsor this time around.Are you trying to say that any game that gets funding of any kind is automatically not worthy of winning? I'm perfectly fine with people making money in exchange for an excellent product, and Expedition 33 is a fucking masterpiece.
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> I don’t think e33 is unreasonable. For any individual award, sure. It's an arbitrary decision of taste and people can agree to disagree. When you're stacking up all the awards on a single game, you're effectively ignoring the rest of the releases for the year. > The only issue I have is sandfall shouldn’t count as an independent game I'm more disgusted with giving "Best Indie" and "Best Debut Indie" to the same title. Why even have two categories at this point? It isn't even the studio's debut title. Similarly, three "Best Performance" nominees to the same title. You know what you're doing and it's not evaluation or recognition, it's just promotion. But then these awards gave Pretty Derby the Best Mobile Game and FFT: Ivalice Chronicles (a thirty year old remaster!) Best Strategy, so whatchagonna do? Game awards have always been glorified ads.I have no issue with the Best Debut Indie and Best Indie being the same game. If Silksong had been the voter's best Indie, it couldn't have won best debut because it wasn't Team Cherry's first game. But if they're going to give the best Indie award to E33, they kinda *have* to give it best debut. Otherwise they'd have to give one of the awards to a game that was not the best in the category.
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Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 I love E33 but the RPG mechanics are pretty barebones.
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That's one area where you can see it is indie despite the large development cost. They were published by Kepler Interactive and for some markets Bandai Namco. Neither of which have Ubisoft or EA's marketing budget which normally makes up something like half of the development budget of a game. They did have *some* marketing. I know a lot of French streamers were paid to play the game on launch. But yeah not "in your face for 6 months in front of every YouTube video and inside every happy meal box" like a new assassin's creed or something.Like I had heard whispers of it, but that's abojt it. It wasn't the only game to have that problem. I was barely aware Death Stranding 2 existed let alone that it was out. I had heard of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (because the fans wouldn't shut up about how right leaning and "non-woke" the game was) but did not think it deserved a mention. To be honest the only game even nominated I had played was Donkey Kong Banaza.... (I was obviously VERY aware Hades 2 and Silksong existed. I just haven't had time to play them. Though I would have been offended if they weren't nominated. Especially Silksong)
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> I don’t think e33 is unreasonable. For any individual award, sure. It's an arbitrary decision of taste and people can agree to disagree. When you're stacking up all the awards on a single game, you're effectively ignoring the rest of the releases for the year. > The only issue I have is sandfall shouldn’t count as an independent game I'm more disgusted with giving "Best Indie" and "Best Debut Indie" to the same title. Why even have two categories at this point? It isn't even the studio's debut title. Similarly, three "Best Performance" nominees to the same title. You know what you're doing and it's not evaluation or recognition, it's just promotion. But then these awards gave Pretty Derby the Best Mobile Game and FFT: Ivalice Chronicles (a thirty year old remaster!) Best Strategy, so whatchagonna do? Game awards have always been glorified ads.> When you're stacking up all the awards on a single game, you're effectively ignoring the rest of the releases for the year. If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game? Imo that's what nominations are for, saying these 6 games did outstanding jobs in this area, the award should still go to whichever one did the best. > I'm more disgusted with giving "Best Indie" and "Best Debut Indie" to the same title. Why even have two categories at this point? Because they can go to different games. If an indie studio's first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game? Should it be excluded from winning best indie game just because it's their first game and they won best debut indie? > It isn't even the studio's debut title. What other games has sandfall developed? > Similarly, three "Best Performance" nominees to the same title. You know what you're doing and it's not evaluation or recognition, it's just promotion. This isn't just recognizing the game, it's recognizing the actors. Which 2 would you replace and who do you think did a better job? > Game awards have always been glorified ads. Agreed
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If we could just keep this trend of having the game awards completely snuff the big studios, that'd be great.
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Like I had heard whispers of it, but that's abojt it. It wasn't the only game to have that problem. I was barely aware Death Stranding 2 existed let alone that it was out. I had heard of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (because the fans wouldn't shut up about how right leaning and "non-woke" the game was) but did not think it deserved a mention. To be honest the only game even nominated I had played was Donkey Kong Banaza.... (I was obviously VERY aware Hades 2 and Silksong existed. I just haven't had time to play them. Though I would have been offended if they weren't nominated. Especially Silksong)
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> When you're stacking up all the awards on a single game, you're effectively ignoring the rest of the releases for the year. If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game? Imo that's what nominations are for, saying these 6 games did outstanding jobs in this area, the award should still go to whichever one did the best. > I'm more disgusted with giving "Best Indie" and "Best Debut Indie" to the same title. Why even have two categories at this point? Because they can go to different games. If an indie studio's first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game? Should it be excluded from winning best indie game just because it's their first game and they won best debut indie? > It isn't even the studio's debut title. What other games has sandfall developed? > Similarly, three "Best Performance" nominees to the same title. You know what you're doing and it's not evaluation or recognition, it's just promotion. This isn't just recognizing the game, it's recognizing the actors. Which 2 would you replace and who do you think did a better job? > Game awards have always been glorified ads. Agreed> If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game? It's all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there's no objective way to evaluate "Best Game" between the two. You've got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes). Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn't signal quality, it signals bias. > If an indie studio’s first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game E33 wasn't the studio's first game. So it shouldn't be winning the "award for debut games" on the ground alone. But yes, if you're winning the "indie game" (which E33's budget shouldn't have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under "debut" even if you're predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then. > This isn’t just recognizing the game, it’s recognizing the actors. It's recognizing the budget more often than not.
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Are you trying to say that any game that gets funding of any kind is automatically not worthy of winning? I'm perfectly fine with people making money in exchange for an excellent product, and Expedition 33 is a fucking masterpiece.> Are you trying to say that any game that gets funding of any kind is automatically not worthy of winning? ??? How did you get here?
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That's pretty much where I'm at too. Though the "Indie Award" has always had similar problems before, such as the **Dave the Diver** debacle. But even though you could technically argue E33 is an indie it felt really wrong to have it up against something like **Blue Prince** in the indie categories. E33 had a huge budget with A-list actors ffs.It's roughly the same for BG3, technically an independent indie studio but also one of the most massive production teams on any game. IMO indie studios aren't studios without a publisher anymore, if anything a lot of studios with publishers are more indie than many studios without. Reminds me of decades ago and people calling Blizzard an indie studio before the Activision merger.
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> If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game? It's all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there's no objective way to evaluate "Best Game" between the two. You've got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes). Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn't signal quality, it signals bias. > If an indie studio’s first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game E33 wasn't the studio's first game. So it shouldn't be winning the "award for debut games" on the ground alone. But yes, if you're winning the "indie game" (which E33's budget shouldn't have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under "debut" even if you're predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then. > This isn’t just recognizing the game, it’s recognizing the actors. It's recognizing the budget more often than not.> It's all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there's no objective way to evaluate "Best Game" between the two. You've got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes). > > Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn't signal quality, it signals bias. It signals quality from the perspective of a poorly selected jury. I have massive issues with how the game awards runs itself, but the solution isn't to artificially restrict what a game can win. Bias from a jury's selection is inherent in all awards, e33 winning 9 awards isn't evidence of unfair bias or bribes, its evidence of 1) e33 genuinely doing an amazing job in a lot of different areas and 2) the jury being made up of professional journalists who all run in the same circles. Neither Sandfall or Kepler have the sort of connections you'd need to beat out Sony or Nintendo if all 3 were using shady tactics. > E33 wasn't the studio's first game. So it shouldn't be winning the "award for debut games" on the ground alone. What other game has sandfall interactive made? > But yes, if you're winning the "indie game" (which E33's budget shouldn't have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under "debut" even if you're predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then. I think we're just gonna have to disagree here, I don't think the point of rewards should be to spotlight a bunch of different games, that's what the nominations are for. > It's recognizing the budget more often than not. Yeah, that's fair, but it's not exclusively budget.
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> It's all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there's no objective way to evaluate "Best Game" between the two. You've got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes). > > Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn't signal quality, it signals bias. It signals quality from the perspective of a poorly selected jury. I have massive issues with how the game awards runs itself, but the solution isn't to artificially restrict what a game can win. Bias from a jury's selection is inherent in all awards, e33 winning 9 awards isn't evidence of unfair bias or bribes, its evidence of 1) e33 genuinely doing an amazing job in a lot of different areas and 2) the jury being made up of professional journalists who all run in the same circles. Neither Sandfall or Kepler have the sort of connections you'd need to beat out Sony or Nintendo if all 3 were using shady tactics. > E33 wasn't the studio's first game. So it shouldn't be winning the "award for debut games" on the ground alone. What other game has sandfall interactive made? > But yes, if you're winning the "indie game" (which E33's budget shouldn't have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under "debut" even if you're predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then. I think we're just gonna have to disagree here, I don't think the point of rewards should be to spotlight a bunch of different games, that's what the nominations are for. > It's recognizing the budget more often than not. Yeah, that's fair, but it's not exclusively budget.> I have massive issues with how the game awards runs itself, but the solution isn’t to artificially restrict what a game can win. It's an awards show. Everything about it is artificial
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Indie title should have honestly gone to Silksong, and the Making a Difference award probably had worthier games.Silk Song had x33 beat by almost triple the max player count. the fact that it didn't get the inde title and they gave it to X33 is criminal. Silk Song beat it on both price and player count and arguably story.
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Are you trying to say that any game that gets funding of any kind is automatically not worthy of winning? I'm perfectly fine with people making money in exchange for an excellent product, and Expedition 33 is a fucking masterpiece.I won't say E33 didn't deserve to win an award, it definitely did. But I will absolutely say with certainty it did not deserve to be nominated in so many categories and proceed to win basically every category. Having an award show give awards to only one nominee feels bad for everyone except the show runners, that one nominee, and their fans. Lots of games deserved to be there that simply weren't, and lots of nominees deserved to win but didn't simply because E33 won this year's popularity contest. For example, Best Performance should not have been allowed to have 50% of the nominees be from the same game (E33, in this case).
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I'm not saying E33 didn't deserve to win anything, but I don't believe it deserved to dominate like that. No single game should be allowed to do this, ever. I mean, of the 6 nominees for Best Performance, 3 of them (50%) were from E33. That shouldn't be allowed, IMO. Pick the single best performance from one game, then you can have more variety to pick from. Also, the winner of Best Indie Game should automatically be disqualified from also winning Best Indie Debut game. In my opinion: KCD2 snubbed for Best RPG, Silksong snubbed for best Action Adventure, and Half-Life 3 snubbed for Most Anticipated Game (is it disqualified -- no professionals allowed?).
