As usual, this year's nominations for The Game Awards consisted mostly of triple-A games that made a lot of money. Of course, there was one big exception the size of Balatro, but other than that we only saw indie games featured in the Games For Impact, Best Indie and Best Debut Indie categories (of course) and a few odd entries in other genre categories.
If, like me, you prefer indie games and think they deserve recognition on the big stages (1000xRESIST had one of the best stories of the year and I'm going to die on this hill), you'll probably be disappointed that they've been ignored yet again. Luckily, all the games you loved have been honored elsewhere: the Indie Game Awards.
Related
Balatro is not just a “card game” and deserves a GOTY nomination
Much more than just a card game.
Indie Game Awards The Best of the Best
For an awards show that ostensibly aims to recognize the achievements of people in the industry, The Game Awards has a pretty serious blind spot in how it consistently overlooks indies. This is especially egregious when you consider that triple-A games still struggle to break out of the mold, while indies are usually more successful at being mechanically and narratively innovative.
Although indie games are more interesting, they are smaller, don't make as much money, and don't appeal to the mainstream as much as triple-A games, so they decline. I understand that's how the awards show works. It still pisses me off.
But at the Indie Game Awards, all the games I'm bitter about not seeing represented at The Game Awards get their time to shine. Clickholding, a game that I didn't enjoy at all on an emotional level, but was still brilliantly crafted, is nominated in the Bite-Sized Game category, as is Thank Goodness You're Here. Under Innovation, the woefully overlooked Cryptmaster is nominated, as are Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (which earned my first ever five-star rating) and UFO 50.
I think Phoenix Springs deserved a Visual Design nomination, but I really have nothing to complain about here.
1000xRESIST has finally seen justice in the Narrative category, and Animal Well and Children of the Sun are nominated in the Solo Development category. And the Game of the Year category is full of hits – if you played every game featured in it, you'd experience a wide variety of genres and mechanics with completely different art styles and completely different purposes. Heck, you'd get all of that just by playing UFO 50.
No sweeping here
Another reason why the Indie Game Awards deserves its flowers is that it has a rule of nominating a game in only one general category. This means that there's a lot more diversity among the nominees, and that indies of all kinds get their time to shine instead of being pushed out by one game.
You could argue that this unfairly prevents games from being recognized all their achievements, but it's better for the health of the indie industry that each game is given its time to shine. Otherwise you'll end up with TGA, where the same few games show up in multiple categories bumping into other games (which were again better, just smaller!)
The Indie Game Awards will air on December 19th, and you should definitely watch it, even – especially – if you haven't played any of the games. Lots of people use The Game Awards to decide what games to play next year, and you can do the same with The Indie Game Awards. 2024 has been an excellent year for smaller developers, so you'll be spoiled for choice.
The Game Awards
Founded by Geoff Keighley, The Game Awards is a video game event dedicated to celebrating the best titles of the year with an emphasis on reveals and promotions for upcoming releases.
