Game of the Year Award - Baldur’s Gate 3
VR Game of the Year Award - Labyrinthine
Labor of Love Award - Red Dead Redemption 2
Best Game on Steam Deck Award - Hogwarts Legacy
Better With Friends Award - Lethal Company
Outstanding Visual Style Award - Atomic Heart
Most Innovative Gameplay Award - Starfield
Best Game You Suck At Award - SIFU
Best Soundtrack Award - The Last of Us Part I
Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award - Baldur’s Gate 3
Sit Back and Relax Award - Dave the Diver
When Starfield wins most innovative, that’s when you can disregard the rest.
Sifu, TLOU and RDR2 aren’t even from 2023 as well…
What a load of shite.
TLOU Part 1 was a 2023 release, even though it’s just a remake but at least I can let that slide. Even SIFU was a 2023 Steam release so I can let that slide. RDR2 is in a category that specifically built for games before 2023. What I can’t let slide is giving it the labor of love award. It hasn’t been touched since launch and the online component is a gong-show because of it’s bugs and cheaters. Even the singleplayer mode had a huge audio bug that affected many people (including myself) and the only work around was getting some guys script that you have to run before launching the game.
It’s completely abandoned by Rockstar and does not deserve to come anywhere close to the “Labor of Love” award.
Fair enough about RDR2 being in the right category, even though that’s still wrong 😆
I’m less willing to let TLOU and SIFU slide though, it’s “technically” correct but in reality it’s just stupid for these games to be in 2023 awards.
Remakes in particular boil my piss. They’re lazy, “play it safe” games instead of companies taking risks making new games, so I don’t think they should be eligible for awards imo.
I think there’s a right way and a wrong way to do a remake/remaster. If a game doesn’t run well on modern hardware and/or its online features are long gone, a remake can be justified. But to be a truly great remaster, it should also improve upon the original without messing with what made it great.
For example, the Age of Empires remasters were phenomenal, and the AoE2 remaster in particular basically revived the entire series. Not only did it add a fresh coat of paint visually, proper HD/widescreen support, stability updates, and such, there’s been a pretty solid stream of new content and extended support. And it wasn’t even sold as a full-price title to begin with.
But remakes of games that still run fine on modern hardware, don’t really add much of anything new, and are priced at or near full-price? Yeah, cheap cash grab. There’s no reason to remake a game less than 10 years old.
The TLOU and SIFU remakes shouldn’t get as much scrutiny as you’re giving them, before the remakes released they were console exclusive, the reason these types of remakes are bad is because some of them are lazy and unplayable at launch (like the TLOU remake). But you’re right, they shouldn’t have been in the steam awards even if they technically did release on steam in 2023.
What audio problem? because I had issues with my surround sound in which the channels where jumping all over the place. Support wasn’t much help and if that was the same problem then I wish I had found that sooner
This is why children don’t get to vote when it really matters.
It’s the reason why I don’t ever pay attention to gamers’ choice awards etc. For all the shit that critics get, usually I agree with their consensus
Some viewpoints would prefer it if you wrote off bg3 that way.
Some viewpoints are actually wrong that way.
Starfield is the one of the least innovative games I’ve ever played. How the fuck did it win that?
Probably ironically, just as Red Dead winning it despite the shennanigans behind it.
Steam Awards, like any publicly-voted award, is a name recognition contest.
The innovations in menu UI is out of this world!
Ah, but you did play it. That’s the point.
Starfield for most innovative gameplsy? Am I missing something or do people on Steam ride that Bethesda cock hard?
At the time I’m writing this, recent reviews reached mostly negative (29%), and all-time reviews are mixed (64%). Which is honestly a lot more than it deserves, but I would hardly call that “riding Bethesda’s cock”.
It’s probably just a matter of big games getting more votes, because of name recognition. This is just a popularity contest, after all.
Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if most people chose it as a joke.
Best guess is people voted it because they didn’t know any of the other games and didn’t bother to check.
I just came here to ask the same question. It’s not innovative one bit, it’s a clone of No Man’s Sky, and a shitty one at that.
They copied shouts from Skyrim, except worse, that’s how un-innovative it was.
Wow, didn’t know that one. At this point I am convinced Todd will count this game as success. Earned money and they didn’t have to try.
The steam awards were never anything but a contest about which game is the most known. I really dislike them due to that, but at least one title (BG3 deserved it this year)
Yeah that’s pretty awful
As any proper award ceremenoy, useless popularity garbage. Rdr2 a labor of love? After they abandoned the multiplayer cause they coudnt give it money printing shark cards?
And starfield is innovative? In what? Being the laziest pile of poo that people still bought?
What a bunch of drivel
After they abandoned the multiplayer cause they coudnt give it money printing shark cards?
At least the multiplayer got attention, the single-player game never got anything after the initial release.
GTA V, RDR2, and soon to be GTA 6
Last of us winning soundtrack award is LOL too
Darktide would have been better.
It’s almost as if all this was only a marketing ploy with no deeper significance…
I’m shocked Pizza Tower lost soundtrack though.
Most Innovative Gameplay Award - Starfield
ahahahahahahahahahaahah 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂🤣🤣😹🤣🤣😹no fucking way
Hi Fi Rush was a great contender for sound track, I would have liked either of those winning it. Last of Us winning is fucking wonky though.
I’m hoping it was just a bunch of kids trolling bc they thought it was funny
I think at some point you have to accept that they aren’t pretending anymore, or being ‘ironic.’ This is how people really are.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Hey, starfield isn’t my favorite by far, but I don’t think it’s that serious lol. It’s just a silly game award that everyone’s gonna forget about in a few weeks
Starfield, innovative? They took fallout 4 mixed it with no man’s sky and made it bad.
It’s just as innovative as fellow Most Innovative award laureate Stray’s automatically- jump-to-a-highlighted-platform style of platforming with crappy stealth sections.
I’m upset that HiFi Rush didn’t win anything at all
Maybe it should have had an amazing soundtrack like The last of Us
TLOU does have an amazing soundtrack but come on it was released eons ago. Justice for Chai
BG3 winning GOTY and LC winning BWF awards make sense. what doesn’t make sense is Starfield being innovative, RDR2 having constant dev support and Pizza Tower being robbed for the second time.
This is… A weird spread of awards…
Like BG3 winning GOTY and story rich makes total sense.
But RDR2 won labor of love? What? Lol. Have they been putting out massive updates lately or something?
Atomic heart won visual style… Sure? I mean I guess it’s atmospheric but I wouldn’t call it particularly stylized.
Lethal company getting better with friends is a solid pick
Hogwarts Legacy is best on deck? The fuck? Lol I suppose i haven’t played this one but I was under the impression the game was like… Fine? Kinda boring after a while but still playable? It’s not horribly offensive but how does a game like that win an award for being the most beloved steam deck game lol
STARFIELD WON FUCKING WHAT??? Okay, I was not as big a starfield hater as some. I thought it was boring as shit for sure but I don’t think it’s completely without merit on the whole… But Innovative? Fucking LOL! Starfield innovated exactly 0 things, hell it retroactively made things from 2011 seem new by comparison. I don’t think theres a single fresh idea in that entire game. Starfield winning most innovative game paints a very uncomfortable picture of the steam awards. There is CLEAR tampering going on here, either by bots vote spamming, or just a behind the curtain dealings with Bethesda. To be honest every single other award here feels tenuous at best just by Starfield winning that specific award. If that boring ass rehash of 2007 gameplay can be called the most innovative game on steam then I’m not sure I can trust any of these games actually got nominated by real players for any of their respective awards. What a fucking joke
Such nonsensical results. It really is a popularity contest.
At this point, I think it’s clear that voting restrictions of some sort are necessary. My first thought: players can only vote in a category if they’ve got at least 5 hours of total gameplay distributed amongst at least 25% of the games in that category, with a minimum of 30 minutes of gameplay per game.
Don’t be so upset, these awards are decided by the gamers. Every Steam user can take part in the selection and voting.
I was forced to vote in some categories because they promised me a chat emoji.
I did, however, not vote by popularity, but I imagine many did.
I literally only voted on one thing by accident because the button made it look like I was going to go to another page to choose my vote in that category. Turns out I was just voting for the game I was looking at immediately and irrevocably.
Did RDR2 get an update that freshens the game up? I thought Labor of Love was for things like Terraria where the devs keep updating the game over time. I would think that NMS of all titles would be more deserving, unless they have a rags-to-riches sort of award
Starfield continuing the tradition of Stray’s “Really? You’re Calling THAT Innovative?” award.
The Last of Us is a goddamn masterpiece I will never shut up about, but I don’t even remember the soundtrack. If it deserves as award in 2023 (a questionable premise to begin with), it should be for the story, acting, or gameplay.
I prefer the soundtrack from TLoU2 (same composer), but TLOU1 has a stellar soundtrack as well. It’s a bit more nuanced and background though.
I’d recommend checking out the OST to jog your memory. It’s still quite good, and strangely well matched for the game.
Huh I was expecting butthurt in here over hogwarts legacy
jk rowling sucks
Really good game tho
Neat Hogwarts and environs sandbox-ish, which is a thing I have personally always wanted, garbage story and some half-baked gameplay.
Starfield winning Most Innovative, while the game was somehow the opposite of innovation, overshadowed the bigot-of-the-day hate.
Well I would say steam users genuinely liked Hogwarts. Nobody realistically boycotted the game it was just a reddit and twitter thing
I didn’t think I would enjoy Hogwartz Legacy as much I have. I’m not sure what I was expecting but being a demigod who just absolutely wrecks anything in my path with pure violence wasn’t it
