GOTY Shower thought
- Thread starter Noxia
- Start date
Well unlike you, I played both games, so I can make that comparison.
I don't quite understand - KCD2 is a big open world RPG with around 100+ hours playtime, four of which are cutscenes. It is not like interactive movie or something.
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KCD2 may be a great game - I skipped it as the first one wasn't my thing - but it doesn't have the "vibe" of a game that wins at The Game Awards.
To use a movie comparison, the critical consensus on Alien: Romulus was pretty damned good. Reviewers liked the movie. Audiences liked the movie. It performed well at the box office and it wasn't bottom-tier Marvel trash. But nobody expected it to storm the Oscars.
To get wins at the big panel-voted awards shows, you don't just need to be a "good game". You need to have some kind of "artsy" side that means that members of the panel can vote for you and then explain their vote to their peer group. That tends to push the voting towards games that are more "high concept" or which, as with Astro Bot, deliver particular, idealised versions of "fun".
I'm still of the view that Clair Obscur, Silksong, It Takes Two and Death Stranding 2 are the real contenders. Maybe Ghost of Yotei if it isn't the boring, derivative sequel I expect it to be.
But as good as the likes of KCD2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Borderlands 4 and, I expect, Silent Hill F might be, they don't have the aura of award winners. Peer pressure is a scary thing.
To use a movie comparison, the critical consensus on Alien: Romulus was pretty damned good. Reviewers liked the movie. Audiences liked the movie. It performed well at the box office and it wasn't bottom-tier Marvel trash. But nobody expected it to storm the Oscars.
To get wins at the big panel-voted awards shows, you don't just need to be a "good game". You need to have some kind of "artsy" side that means that members of the panel can vote for you and then explain their vote to their peer group. That tends to push the voting towards games that are more "high concept" or which, as with Astro Bot, deliver particular, idealised versions of "fun".
I'm still of the view that Clair Obscur, Silksong, It Takes Two and Death Stranding 2 are the real contenders. Maybe Ghost of Yotei if it isn't the boring, derivative sequel I expect it to be.
But as good as the likes of KCD2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Borderlands 4 and, I expect, Silent Hill F might be, they don't have the aura of award winners. Peer pressure is a scary thing.
KCD2 for me is a GOTY, hand down. However I haven't played that many games but I think it's a phenomenal game.
The problem is GOTY is largely meaningless, has been for many years. The award is largely pointless. Sales are what count and player reviews, everything else including awards are mute.
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It's mostly just subjective opinion, and to make that worse most games are also making known accepted trade offs. More of a focus on one thing necessarily means less of a focus elsewhere. GOTY is basically just an opinion unless you look at something objective like sales numbers, even then games that sell well don't always deliver, and vice versa.