The Nominees for the 2022 Game Awards dropped November 14, creating an annual water cooler moment for gaming fans — for better or worse. Whenever the list is announced, you can be sure to hear the word “snub” reverberate across social media as fans question why games they like didn’t get into certain categories. The reality is that every year there are many new games and very few spots for them all. Only the cream of the crop are going to get in, and that’s always going to result in some sore feelings.
This year’s nominations especially sting, though. Scroll through the list of nominees and you’ll feel like you’ll see a select few games repeated over and over. God of War RagnarokIt received 10 nominations in almost any category it was eligible, Elden Ring predictably grabbed seven, even netting an unexpected nomination for Best Narrative. Other big budget titans include Horizon Forbidden WestAndModern Warfare II – Call of DutyThey had strong showings and were nominated multiple times.
The nominations weren’t quite as kind to independent games. Though a handful made the cut, some of the year’s best-reviewed titles struggled to earn recognition outside of indie-focused categories. Fair questions are raised about how games are played and what types of games merit recognition. It seems like the only games that have the highest budgets are truly able to compete.
Scale wins
Since its inception, independent games have never been able to win The Game Awards. Last year’s ceremony marked the first time an indie won Game of the Year Many thanks toIt takes two, but that stands as the show’s biggest outlier. Scrub back to 2020 and you’ll be hard pressed to find too many indie games even nominated in major categories aside from Hades. Instead, titles likePart II: The Last of Us, Doom Eternal?,Ghost of TsushimaThe ballot was filled.
This year’s show is similar, though with some encouraging exceptions. StraySix nominations were received, which is quite impressive. ImmortalitySome high-profile nominations were given to her in the categories of Best Narrative and Best Performance as well as Best Game Direction. Smaller, but equally acclaimed titles, didn’t quite get the same recognition. Neon White, one of the year’s Top-reviewed titlesOnly one nomination for Best Action was received by a film other than its placement in the indie category. Vampire SurvivorsAnd Cult of the Lamb picked up one nomination each, while games like The Case of the Golden IdolAnd Signalis were overlooked entirely.
Even when indies win big the recognition of bigger games tends to be the same. It takes twoEA has backed this project, which plays like a Nintendo platformer. Story inspired by Hollywood animation. A Plague Tale: RequiemA AA game, called, was nominated for Game of the Year this year. The Last of UsYou can still afford it. Even StrayIt is not as flashy as something like Strange HorticultureBuilding on 3D adventure game tropes.
The reality of the show is that it’s currently impossible to imagine an acclaimed title like Citizen SleeperIt is making its way into categories such as Game of the Year and Best Narrative. It can leave gaming’s big night feeling like a contest of scale designed for companies like Sony to excel in.
Mass appeal
To be clear, The Game Awards isn’t at fault here. Although it could be criticized for favoring action genres and leaving less space for smaller games trying to think outside the box than those in popular genres, the category selections allow for a broad range of games to shine. Ultimately the awards are determined through a democratic process, with nominations picked by a massive jury of publications (Digital Trends sits on this year’s jury and submitted our own nomination ballot).
That’s where the topic gets complicated.
There’s a logistical problem here that’s difficult to work around. Countless excellent games are released every year and each voter realistically can’t play them all. It isn’t like the Oscars where someone could feasibly knock out five movies in a day and still have time to get a full night’s sleep. Massive games like God of War RagnarokAnd Elden RingVoters may have to devote a lot of time and attention in order to be able to follow the social conversations surrounding games. It is the reason why an indie like StrayIt might be able to find its place at the top of its class. cute cat premise.
Time management tends to favor what’s hot, and that leaves limited space for someone to choose between compelling, but less popular, games like NorcoOder The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. The more you scale up a voting base — not just for The Game Awards, but for year-end discussions generally — you tend to see the conversation shift toward games that have some level of mass appeal. AAA titles can be guaranteed to be on the list but AAA titles will need to raise twice as much. Indie titles must campaign twice as hard.
Any event like The Game Awards is less like The Oscars, and more like MTV Movie Awards. It’s like seeing a Best Picture field dominated by Top Gun Maverick, Wakanda for Ever: Black Panther, The Batman, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of MadnessAnd Sonic the Hedgehog 2,This movie actually won a nomination as Best Adaptation. The biggest marketing draws reign supreme while groundbreaking indies are left fighting for a few spots that they’ll likely lose to whatever PlayStation’s biggest release is that year.
There’s no easy solution here, because any problem that The Game Awards has is simply a social one. Until then, the larger gaming industry doesn’t value smaller games as much as it does money-makers like. God of War RagnarokAny large-scale, democratic attempt to determine which games are the best in any given year will be biased.
It doesn’t matter if a favorite game is snubbed. The best thing to do is shout it out on every platform you have. It’s a good idea to share it with your friends so that it can gain the social recognition it deserves. You can always game back a system that has been gamed.
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