That’s super lame, considering the award is titled “Game of the Year” and a DLC clearly isn’t a game.
The Game Awards aims to recognize the best creative and technical work each year, irrespective of the format of that content’s release. Expansion packs, new game seasons, DLCs, remakes and remasters are eligible in all categories, if the jury deems the new creative and technical work to be worthy of a nomination. Factors such as the newness of the content and its price/value should be taken into consideration.
Its a bit weird but I can understand their starting argument that they are reviewing works on their creative and technical merits (the actual format is incidental) but then they shoot it all down by saying price/value is taken into consideration.
Why wouldn’t it be taken into consideration?
Bad monetization and excessively high pricing change the experience for gamers. There’s not a lot of chance they’re willing to say “microtransactions make a game ineligible” like they should, but cash grubbing microtransactions change what a game is, and they can’t just not acknowledge that at all.
Last year the nominations for Best Narrative were:
- Alan Wake 2
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
- Final Fantasy XVI
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
On my local digital shop front Phantom Liberty was au$45 while Spider-Man was au$125. Should Phantom Liberty be given an advantage because it is priced at only 36% of its competition? I feel like those commercial value considerations might be appropriate for a review but for an annual Best Narrative award I want it to go the the Narrative that is actually Best.
That said if they added a best value in gaming award I would would be happy for them to consider games or hardware that offer significantly more value than their price would imply their.
