The Game Awards' Big Popularity Contest Is Underway

Hogwarts legacy purely because it was snubbed in every category for reasons not to with gaming

I vote whatever way results in Geoff experiencing rapid unscheduled disassembly.

@trev666 I'm with you on this, while it's not my GOTY (BG3 is), the complete snub irks me a lot as it's a great game with a lot to like.

I hope genshin or honkai win for that free juicy currency. None of the other games get me anything for winning a popularity contest

@trev666 Hogwarts Legacy is an 84 on OpenCritic which is good but not even in the top 20 games of the year. Other games with higher scores got zero or very few nominations too, Armoured Core, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Starfield, Octopth Traveller 2, Dead Space, Pikmin 4, Final Fantasy XVI, Sea of Stars etc.

The game just wasn’t impressive enough at anything for awards, it was a very safe by the numbers open world game.

No matter who wins, in 2019 Fire Emblem: Three Houses won this award and that's all that matters

No elden ring? What's wrong with the world?

Please stop taking this show serious as awards show. It's a huge mainstream advertisement show with game trailers. Which is all that is needed

@trev666 I agree 100% with you. Instead of being judged upon the actual game which is a brilliant game it was used to further an agenda which was disturbing to say the least.

@Northern_munkey As great as Elden Ring is it unfortunately isn't good enough to qualify for two years in a row

@trev666 Eh, I enjoyed my time with Hogwarts Legacy but its not a game I think about unless it gets brought up. For a game about wizards and magic it was pretty bogstandard when it came to its actual game design. In my opinion Hogwarts would have absolutely been snubbed had it came out in a weaker year like last year but in 2023 with just how competitive it is it simply doesn't make the cut

@PegasusActual93 eh?

I can’t believe there’s still people whining that the mid wizard game deserves more praise. Look at the games that came out this year. Sonic fans show less delusion about the quality of games.

It's going to be Zelda vs BG3 in the final, calling it now.

On the topic of Hogwarts legacy I have mixed feelings, when I played it at the start of the year I was blown away and was dead sure it was my game of the year, yet 9 months later and so many top tier releases that have been better than hogwarts, I've changed my mind. Like people have said, any other year and it would get a nomination. But I dare say some review outlets jumped on the hate train and gave a lower score.

you can like or hate any game, it does not matter if your preferred game wont win. I had such a great time in Hogwarts Legacy and found myself lost in BG3. Who cares

Ff16 for me all the way

@trev666 I do agree with you to a point. But "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" springs to mind. I got bored with this game remarkably quickly.

It's a testament to this year's quality of games when you got people claiming a certain game was snubbed from Game of the Year. Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy, and Final Fantasy XVI being the ones mentioned the most. As much as I enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy, I'd go with Alan Wake II.

Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail using the Turkish method of canvassing voters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVf1dv2M75I

@Northern_munkey It may be a solid game but not good enough to be the best. What agenda is there anyway because of the terrible lady. A 8/10 isnt special enough to win any prices. BG3 and Zelda are way more deserving.

@trev666 You realize by supporting the game for reasons that have nothing to do with its quality you’re literally doing the thing you’re imaging is happening. It wasn’t snubbed or dismissed by critics. It reviewed high and then literally dozens of games reviewed considerably higher and those games are the ones that got nominated. That games supporters have such a silly victim complex.

I'd wouldnt be surprised if honkai star rail wins considering how successful it was and how massive its community is , im voting for ff16 but I doubt it would win

I’ve been noticing this for a while, but human nature has this strange recency bias / nostalgia equation going on. The best I can estimate, the sweet spot is about 3-8 years during which time a piece of media is probably going to get a fair shake in judgement. If it’s more recent than 3 months it gets a boost from recency bias. If it’s older than 8 years it gets a boost from nostalgia. If it came out somewhere in the time between 3 months ago and 3 years ago it gets ironically more harshly critiqued, like a collective gaslighting where we question why we liked that thing and it really wasn’t as good as we remember. Eventually after about 3 years the piece of media gets appreciated again for what it was.

For example, although it’s not germane to this year’s current discussion, I see this with games like God of War: Ragnarok, which was a game many considered the greatest in recent years, was a November release and swept GOTY awards, and now I’m seeing a lot of online discourse about how it was ‘not that good’, ‘more of the same’, ‘underwhelming and overrated’, ‘uninspired’, and ‘not as good as the first game.’

So I think similar things happen with releases early in the year. I’m surprised even that TotK which was initially described as transcendent and a historically defining game of our time, is now being supplanted by the hot games of the moment (AW2 and BG3) in these GOTY discussions.

I’m not being critical of these opinions, by the way. BG3 and AW2 look brilliant. As does SM2 and several of the recent releases. But we forget how blown away we were by RE4, Hogwarts, Diablo 4, Dead Space R, Octopath 2, Jedi Survivor, Pikmin 4, Metroid Prime R, etc, etc.

I’m not saying any of those game necessarily deserve more credit. I’m just predicting that in about 3-6 months we’ll probably see a similar revisionist history where we’ll be disenchanted with AW2, BG3, Starfield, and most of the games that came out in the last few months. Not saying there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just human nature.

Gotta be my guy Hi Fi Rush.

I'll give my vote to Hogwarts Legacy. I don't think it's necessarily the GOTY, but it deserved some nominations at the very least (particularly in the Best RPG category). It's also my favourite out of the very few new 2023 releases that I actually played, though I haven't yet got around to some of the other big names.

My prediction for the 5 finalists in a normal setup will be something like:

• BG3
• Alan Wake 2
• TotK or SMB Wonder
• Spider-Man 2 or FFXVI
• Hi-Fi Rush or RE4

But if there's rigging like last year I think the 5 finalists will include Genshin/Honkai, Hogwarts and Starfield. Geoff should really have banned Hogwarts from being a nominee.

Wanted Dead, Pikmin 4, Disgaea 7's demo (get the full game eventually same with Bayonetta Origins), Clive n Wrench and retro/2022 games are all I experienced this year. Not the big games (haven't Hi Fi Rush yet or some others probably forgetting) as don't care for them.

No Midnight Suns? Wack.

Up there as one of the best games I've played all year.