Its just a popularity contest.
It sounds so obvious, but it’s actually really profound and has left me contemplating!
Comment of the year! 🏆
Not sure what I expected. Every year I miss the mark on all but one or two categories. Not sure if it’s because I’m out of touch with the gaming community or the gaming community is high. Probably the first, but people seriously picked Elden Ring for labour of love? Farm Sim for sit back and relax? RDR for soundtrack? The community has spoken I suppose.
It’s definitively the latter. Steam awards are mostly considered to be a joke. The actual interesting and well-deserving games rarely ein anything,.usually because they’re more niche
I mean, hell, starfield won the innovation award last year. I think that’s the biggest joke award that has ever been lmao. That game is about as innovative as a french fry
Farm sim is a chill game. Elden ring has a pretty dedicated fanbase. There are definitely other games that I’d put up for labour of love though. Not sure how I feel about rdr soundtrack.
Well there is humour in having a digital version of a thousand(s) year old (bar/drinking) game win most innovative gameplay at least.
another bad year for microsoft spider solitaire windows xp edition
This is some absolute bullshit. Mouthwashing deserved something. People have no tastes.
Dix someone played Wukong ?
It had 2.4 million players at launch on Steam, so I guess a few people played it.
I’ve been curious to hear other people’s opinions too.
I watched some gameplay and it looked like a generic action game. It seemed like a toss up so I’m waiting for a sale or to see if anyone can convince me one way or the other.
I tried “My Time at Portia” recently and felt duped by that game. It was given a lot of praise and attention when it released (and similarly a game made by a Chinese studio), but felt like a single player MMO with half baked mechanics everywhere.
Wukong for best story? That game has more of a premise than a story. What are my Steam peeps smoking?
The rest is disappointing, but not surprising.
Action games with few linear cutscenes between hours of finger break wins those awards almost every year, simply because they are more popular. I was actually shocked last year when a game with actual story won that cathegory.
The Steam Awards are mostly just “what’s my favorite game” or “which game have I heard of” for all categories. It doesn’t matter if the game fits or not. For Wukong it’s additionally “where was the game made”, since it’s one of the few high profile Chinese games (outside of China) and Steam has a lot of Chinese users.
100% Agree. I’ll throw Elden Ring into the “I don’t get why these games are so popular with people” category.
Not sure how Elden Ring won Labour of Love either.
Didn’t you hear? Fromsoft nerfed consort radahn = labour of love. Never mind Larian Studios casually dropping new subclasses in a patch 1 year after release.
I am actually shocked that Baldur’s Gate didn’t get that award. total bullshit tbh.
Stardew deserved it more. Game is maintained for 9 years now and still gets updates.
Actually valid. Though I feel like concernedape genuinely needs to take a break. Stop giving us more!
Thank god it didn’t
What didn’t you like about Elden Ring? I thought it was awesome, and I’m hard to please when it comes to mainstream big studio games like that!
Yeah but why LOL? That’s for games getting long term patching and devs going to extra mile, like DRG, BG3, etc. Not From Software stuff.
Or Stardew Valley getting new content 9 years later.
Not my cup of tea. Haven’t been about to get into any of the souls like style of games. Not sure what it is.
Yeah but the Chinese market absolutely flooded it with votes.
It’s probably all because it didn’t win the GOTY in the games awards so all the fanboys went to make their game win something.
The game is not goty material, and for how shitty the devs are, they don’t deserve crap.
Who cares about the GOTY?
I’d say Chinese people don’t.
They didn’t care so much they review bombed the winner…
And also Baldurs Gate 3 for some reason
And the lead dev didn’t care so much that he wrote a goty acceptance speech in the middle of the development cycle, then cried about not winning.
It was a translation error though
Oh so I guess the review bombing of BG3 that it kicked off was just a translation error also?
neither Red Dead Redemption nor Elden Ring were released in 2024, what the hell?
I adore Elden Ring but DLC doesn’t count as a whole new game.
Labor of Love award is specifically for older games that are still seeing love from the devs. I’d argue with them releasing a DLC of such quality that many people wondered if a DLC could win game of the year it deserves the nomination too.
Stardew Valley and Terraria are way more deserving. Not even paid DLC, but free and substantial game updates.
Yeah, I agree. Labor of Love should be something like Terraria, Stardew Valley, the No Man’s Sky turnaround, the content released with the BG3 patches, CP2077 patches, etc.
Releasing paid DLC is just labor, not a labor of love.
Pretty sure they have also both won prior awards.
Huh. 2022 Terraria won labour of love. Stardew Valley has won other awards but not labour of love that I can see.
Wow that sucks, we need a new award thing that don’t suck
Just take one of the other gazillion GOTY awards. there’s bound to be one that’s just right for you.
Lawl God of War: Ragnarok suuuuuccked
Wow, 0 of my 11 picks won.
Oh well, I play games but I am pretty far removed from the “Gamer” crowd.
Same for me, I haven’t even played any of the winners. But I consider it quite healthy sign for gaming that I had a great time without even touching the most popular picks.
Webfishing not winning the the relaxing category is a scandal
I would have been ok with TCG Card Shop Simulator winning but Farming Simulator???
Webfishing was robbed.
Farming simulator is a nice relaxing game, I’m surprised it got as many votes but I don’t disagree with it winning
The Germans united to get the Simulator game to the top, so they can work in a game, after they get home from work.
Seriously what is up with the German love for sim games? I’ve tried the farming sim and truck driving sim and it just feels like having an extra job that I don’t get paid for.
well for people who enjoy those work itself, it’s essentially living a fantasy where you actually get rewards for doing a good job.
I can’t tell you exactly what it is, but simulation games are nearly always satisfying for me
Probably because it’s a sped up, consequence free, approximation of the real thing, without any of the entry cost but with a similar satisfaction for succeeding
And like, it’s not like other mechanically complex games are really that different. All a game is, aside from the story and art part of it, is problem solving and surpassing obstacles
Lmao at “most innovative gameplay” being Liar’s Bar. A game where the only gameplay is playing the card game cheat, which is so well trod that you could play it on Neopets. The only difference is that you can die, wow
It’s just a popularity contest, always has been. There’s never any critical thinking behind the choices made.
How Frostpunk 2 didn’t win the best music is a fucking mystery.
RDR won because of popularity.
Absolutely agree
