Every year, the Game Awards also let the players themselves vote on which title will be chosen as the game of the year. The list of nominees is a curious mix of popular but also controversial games.
What are the Game Awards? This is an annual awards ceremony that honors the best games of the year in various categories. This includes the main prize “Game of the Year”, but also specific genre categories such as “Best Action Game”.
You can find a list of all nominees in the regular categories on MeinMMO. The announcement of this caused quite a stir. Many players miss certain titles on the list, while others raise eyebrows.
The community now has the opportunity to correct the omissions and “mistakes” of the official jury. A separate voting lets the players decide for themselves which was really the best game of the year.
Will Dragon Age: The Veilguard be the community game of the year? Here you can see the trailer:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard unleashes the dragon in the official launch trailer
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You can choose from 30 games
Which titles are available? While only 6 games were nominated in the jury voting, the community selected a total of 30 titles in advance. You can now vote for one of them, with the community voting taking place over three rounds.
If you look at the list, a few games particularly stand out. In addition to the critics’ favorite Astro Bot, popular games such as Black Myth: Wukong, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Dragon’s Dogma 2 are nominated. Helldivers 2 and fan favorites like Fortnite or League of Legends are also on the list.
But there are a few nominations that particularly stand out.
Which games are particularly interesting? On the one hand, Palworld is nominated, while it was not selected by the official jury in any category. This is despite the fact that it was a very popular game this year and continues to receive updates.
At the same time, Palworld’s developers, Pocket Pair, are in a legal dispute with Nintendo. It is also noteworthy that no Pokémon game has ever won a Game Award for Best Game of the Year. If Palworld triumphs in the community voting, it would be ahead here.
The much-discussed Dragon Age: The Veilguard also appears among the nominees. The jury voting was only enough for one nomination in the “Innovation in Accessibility” category. This is about new features that make gaming easier for a wider range of players.
Now a large part of the community has voted to nominate the game. This shows that a significant portion of the negative feedback came from a loud minority and that the masses actually enjoyed the game. The agitation that has greeted the title probably doesn’t represent the entire gaming community.
What else stands out? It’s a bit surprising that the DLC from Elden Ring and the remakes of Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy VII are even put up for election by the community. Not because the games can’t keep up with others in terms of quality, but because the players complained about the jury’s nomination of these exact titles just a few weeks before.
No matter how the election turns out in the end, not all players will be happy with the result. There are some controversial candidates this year, but that makes the race all the more exciting.
Whether an expansion like Shadow of the Erdtree really deserves to be voted Game of the Year has been a point of contention among players. The fact that the DLC now appears in the list shows a certain degree of unity in the end. At first they thought the Game Awards were cheating: Players believe that the Gaming Oscars changed their rules specifically so that Elden Ring could win again