The Game Awards 2023: List of Winners

Mago · 11 months ago

The Game Awards 2023: List of Winners

@Why9 · 11 months ago

It honestly made my night to see Neil Newbon win the best performance for Baldurs Gate 3. With him talking about how he pretty much gave up on acting and went through some pretty rough times and discrimination before getting into voice acting, it’s amazing to see him finally be seen.

And let’s be clear, he wasn’t just a voice actor in BG3! He had to mocap as well as read his lines. His likeness was captured in Astarion perfectly. He was a full actor here and did an incredible job. Best performance was well deserved.

@Oatsinator · 11 months ago

Ben Starr was my personal pick, as he poured his everything into the role and has continued to do so on social media. He’s so incredibly proud to represent such a character. All of the nominated performances this year were spectacular and it was a very hard choice

@[email protected] · edit-2 11 months ago

I just wish they have the man enough time to give a proper speech!! He was barely half a minute through his thank yous before they were shooing him off stage. It was so disrespectful. Let him have his moment, this is a huge deal. It’s not like he was rambling on.

All that just to make room for more fortnite ads. Disgraceful.

@thedirtyknapkin · 11 months ago

i mean, least year they had the opposite problem. this was likely just over-compensation

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

I hope you’re right.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

I didn’t know who he is out which character he voiced, but my immediate thought upon reading was “he’s gotta be Astarion”. Phenomenal performance.

@9cpluss · 11 months ago

Cyberpunk winning best ongoing game is such a joke. Yes, I enjoyed the DLC but if any game with DLC and updates can be part of that category then that category has no meaning at all.

Coelacanth · 11 months ago

I’m convinced they had Cyberpunk win it because they don’t have a “Best DLC/Expansion” category (yet) and felt like Cyberpunk deserved to win something for the way 2.0 and Phantom Liberty revitalised it.

@9cpluss · 11 months ago

That’s fair. Might actually be a good category.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

It has nothing to do with DLC. I think it deserved the award. Instead of just letting the game die that it shouldn’t have released in the first place. They fixed it.

@9cpluss · 11 months ago

I think we might have different expectations here. I think if a company sells a broken game, they should fix it without praise. The consumers paid for it. Specially should they not get an award for that. There should be a category for “most stable release” instead.

@OscarRobin · 11 months ago

Exactly. I can’t believe how much praise people are giving Cyberpunk for not being broken anymore. Like bro that ain’t an achievement.

@loki_d20 · edit-2 11 months ago

I think the reason it gets praised is because it’s very rare that poor games get as much time and investment into fixing in this day and age. Most companies will just move on to the next game or even use AI to write their apology letters and then abandon the game entirely.

EntirelyUnlovable · 11 months ago

Yeah I feel that, Rage 2 still has a game breaking bug that will lock you out of your perma-death run on the final mission with just never got fixed.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Yeah, what actually happened here is they put out a broken, unfinished game 3 years ago, have spent the last 3 years on damage control and fixing it (which means it never changed overall price on the store like a 3 year old game should) and now they want you to buy an Xpac and the ultimate edition so they can sell it again, still for full price. It’s not worth an award, it’s scummy.

@Cexcells · 11 months ago

It’s not a live service game though.

@NOT_RICK · edit-2 11 months ago

Awarded to a game for outstanding development of ongoing content that evolves the player experience over time.

Its best ongoing game, not best live service game. I think things like Stardew Valley or No Man’s Sky fit into this just like Cyberpunk did because devs should be praised for when they go above and beyond. I’d argue CDPR owed that to their fans but still, they mostly pulled it off.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Didn’t they announce that they weren’t going to do anymore updates besides bug changes like…last week? Am I hallucinating that?

@NOT_RICK · 11 months ago

Cyberpunk? Think that’s right but I’d argue that would put them out of the running of this category in 2024 rather than this year’s.

@[email protected] · edit-2 11 months ago

Yes, Cyberpunk, sorry I didn’t clarify. And I agree with the 2024 take too.

As someone who is industry adjacent and has worked with people who work on games that are actively updated and improved for years…idk the Cyberpunk win doesn’t sit right with me. I have all the sympathy for the devs at CDPR and what they went through during the initial launch of the game, but this win just shows upper management at dev companies that they can get rewarded for releasing unfinished projects and finishing them later.

It’s also funny that they won against FFXIV, an actual good example of a game that was nuked to the ground and rebuilt with continuous support because of it’s initial failure.

@NOT_RICK · 11 months ago

That’s a reasonable take. I think the win speaks to how much of a marketing even this show is.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Wait, FFXIV do deserve it much more how tf Cyberpunk wins. Still, isn’t their best updates one or two years ago? Did they win last year?

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

There’s a huge indie scene with loads of ongoing games that would be far more deserving of the award than Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk literally stopped major developments with 2.0, the rest you’re going to get are easy to include content and QoL. Compare that to Dwarf Fortress that has 20+ years of development and is only 50% done with the final vision. You could probably also stick Terraria there because despite the devs saying multiple times that they’re done they’re still updating the game. I’m sure there’s more but those two were just at the top of my head.

The only merit CP77 has to be on that list is fixing a broken game. Do you think CP77 would’ve won the award if it had release in the 2.0 state and gotten 3 years of additional development? Would it even make it into the nominees list? I don’t think so.

@LucidNightmare · 11 months ago

Shit, if that’s the case, I would rather Stardew or No Man’s get it because THOSE games actually added and improved the whole game with each update!

And this is coming from someone who was able to play Cyberpunk at launch with minimal bugs and actually enjoyed it and still do!

@andy_wijaya_med · 11 months ago

True. Lol. Offline single player RPG isnt an ongoing game.

Stern · 11 months ago

Could make a category of, “Why? I ask again, why?” and include Dave the Diver being nominated as an indie game along with it.

@9cpluss · edit-2 11 months ago

Friends Per Second podcast had an interesting discussion around it. The term Indie isn’t well defined. Maybe never was. Most people probably see DtD as indie even though it had a publisher. A new category could be “independent” which actually has games that were published independently.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Indie literally means independent.

@9cpluss · 11 months ago

Yes, indie is short for independent but the meaning of “indie” game isn’t as clear cut anymore (was it ever?). As you can see with Dave the Diver.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

I can see that but I’d argue most people agree that being funded by Nexon is neither independent nor indie.

@Phegan · 11 months ago

Also, fixing your fucked it game isn’t ongoing either. CP2077 in this category is a disgrace. They shipped a buggy game, released DLC and actually finished the game and then won an award for it. Bullshit.

Coelacanth · 11 months ago

BG3 winning the GotY was something we all could see coming I think and even though it’s not my personal pick I’m hard pressed to argue. It’s a great game, it opened up many in the mainstream to a new genre and Larian is a great company with consumer-friendly policies. It’s hard to be mad.

I’m very glad Alan Wake 2 got a couple of awards, though. Hopefully this recognition means Remedy keeps pushing the boundaries and keeps going with their crazy mixed media and weirdness. We need someone doing innovation in the AAA space.

I am a little pissed they lost out on best music to FFXVI though.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

FFXVI’s soundtrack is pretty great tho, especially the tracks for the Eikon fights. NGL I would have honestly gone insane playing that game if not for the soundtrack and (less so) the combat. The story makes no fucking sense.

I’m more salty that people are saying AW2 didn’t deserve Best Game Direction, because I think it absolutely did. Alan Wake’s plot and the vision they went for would have been absolute nonsense in the hands of any other studio.

Coelacanth · 11 months ago

I just love what Remedy did for the music, and I’m not just talking about Poets of the Fall. Having a bunch of established artists write original music based on a bunch of story related poems written by Sam Lake was such a cool idea and makes the end-of-chapter songs land so well. But the competition was tough, for sure.

I haven’t heard those comments about Game Direction but I can’t understand that at all. The direction is absolutely first class, from the tension-release work to the cinematic shots and framings to the double-exposure overlaps and the reality rewriting and dream logic of the Dark Place. It was a masterpiece in my opinion.

@BetaDoggo_ · 11 months ago

I can’t believe best audio design was won by the only rhythm game nominated.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Re4 had quite good audio design, the shots sounded incredible

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

The Dead Space remake had some of the best sound design in any game. I was convinced it would win, but it makes sense to give it to Hi-Fi Rush.

@CopernicusQwark · 11 months ago

Congratulations to all the winners - they’re all very well deserved! No surprises here (though very pleased) to see BG3 clean house.

It’s very unfortunate for Insomniac that SM2 didn’t get any wins, but it goes to show how crazy good this year has been for gamers!

Hal-5700X · 11 months ago

Armored Core VI won Best Action Game, and Ironmouse won. So all is good in the world.

Baldur’s Gate 3 won Game of the Year and Player’s Voice. We all saw that one coming.

slowd0wn · 11 months ago

I haven’t played many of the indie games on the list, but I’m glad to see Sea of Stars get some love. It’s probably the best game I’ve played in the last year

🖖USS-Ethernet · 11 months ago

That’s really all I was glad to see. I mainly watched hoping they’d win something. It was a great game.

@caseofthematts · 11 months ago

Unfortunately because of poor time management (again), they weren’t allowed to give a speech.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Honestly disappointed with the combination of batch awards and probably the shortest acceptance speech timer I’ve seen. This game awards felt solely for producers and publishers, not for the people who actually made these games. I get not wanting another 8 min speech, but it left a bad taste in my mouth

@ieightpi · 11 months ago

With E3 dead, this is the new outlet form showing off new games I guess

deweydecibel · 11 months ago

The true winners are of course all the marketing departments out there that are just ecstatic about the fact this stupid award shit is normalized now.

How fun to know you can brute force an award show into being “legitimate” by spending a lot of money and being cozy with studios.

@NOT_RICK · 11 months ago

You just described every award show ever.

I’m just glad there’s a big event that can act as a surrogate to what E3 once was.

@Archer · 11 months ago

I suppose that was the Oscars at one point as well, but yeah this organization just appeared out of nowhere a few years ago

stopthatgirl7 · 11 months ago

Absolutely no arguments with any of these. This really was a great year for gaming.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Really happy that Alan Wake 2 got the awards it did. Especially in the Narrative and Game Direction fields.

That said, it’s tragic that Lies of P was nominated for best RPG instead of action game. I really believe it earned best action game this year.

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

No way it beats AC6 for me, but I wish it could have gotten something, it’s a really remarkable first-entry into the field.

They had a “best first game by a new studio” or something category last year, didn’t they? Isn’t that what Stray won?

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

Ah I was hoping Dredge would have won one of the indie categories. Such a good game!

@GutsBerserk · 11 months ago

So glad BG3 won deserving goty 2023.

Oh and “Don’t touch me!” Iykyk 😈

@Restaldt · 11 months ago

Why the fuck was Lies of p in the rpg category and not the action categeory with Ac6?

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

i honestly cant believe starfield wasnt even nominated for best soundtrack/score. it is breathtakingly beautiful

@omfgnuts · 11 months ago

pfffttt hahahaa

@[email protected] · 11 months ago

i take it you never heard the sountrack