The title sums it up. I'm disappointed in this community for putting down a game that is clearly a work of insane passion, dedication, and creativity. E33 took the lion's share of awards at TGA, yes. That doesn't mean that Silksong is bad. In fact, it's clearly pretty damn great. If it released last year, Skong would have picked up several awards, maybe even GOTY. But it didn't. It released in the same year E33, which is just a tough break.
Both are amazing. Both deserve every award that came to them. If you haven't played E33 yet and think it doesn't deserve its accolades, play it. It is worth your money, worth your time, and will in all likelihood prove that it is actually that good. I'm only 10ish hours in and have numerous times found myself standing still and looking around dumbfounded at the gorgeous world design and visuals. E33, Silksong, and Hades 2 could have all won Art Direction and I would have been happy with any of them.
I'm also sad that Silksong didn't win more awards. It's an amazing game. But don't play fanboy and start putting down other developers, other games, and other pieces of art because this one didn't get all the cookies. It's still beautiful, it's still amazing, it still made a Silkskillion dollars, and TC is still just as great and just as passionate. We should all be glad that there is another independent dev out there that is capable of creating something so fantastic.
E33 deserved the goty from all the good things I heard from it tho the game awards was just so bad for putting it in 10 categories and no matter how good the game is it is not an indie game and shouldn't be in that category
It is by definition an indie game, as Sandfall as a company is not under any larger publisher. However, I do think that the term "indie" has become increasingly blurry and flexible over the years, and that E33 doesn't really fit the casual definition of "indie," or really the spirit of the term. It's a muddy category. Like, BG3 could technically be considered an indie game. They definitely need to revamp the qualifications for the category.
With the current rules and guidelines, E33 should win that category. But I do agree that it feels wrong.
They need to revamp a lot of their rules
I also dislike their fighting game catagories and nominations
Yeah the definition of indie games need to be updated, or else it's gonna be like HL3 Won indie games of the year
E33 was published by Kepler Interactive, and much of its work was outsourced to others. So no, by definition it is not an indie game. And it by no means fits the spirit of an indie game with its humongous budget.
By your definition, games like Balatro or Animal Well also wouldn't be considered indie. An indie game isn't necessarily a self-published game. It's a game from an independent studio, which Sandfall is.
I agree that it doesn't fit the spirit though. Which is why I think the requirements/definition of the category should change, at least for TGA.
Also, if we're splitting hairs, TC also outsourced some work done on Silksong. If they hadn't, the credits would be 3 or 4 people long, plus VAs and musicians and such. And they had as much money as they wanted for development because of Hollow Knight's resounding success. Should this disqualify Silksong from the running as well?
Like I said in my other comment, it's messy. Indie is more of a vibes thing than anything else at this point. Which makes an awards category difficult to hammer out in a way that satisfies everyone
Fair point. For every definition of "indie" there is an indie game that won't fit the bill---as you said, Balatro and Animal Well have external publishers, Silksong probably has lots of money to work with, and almost all games outsource when it comes to VA or localization.
The problem is, E33 fits absolutely none of these definitions of "indie". It's a fairly medium-sized studio with 30+ devs, a very large budget that is probably in the millions, backed by Kepler Interactive and the literal French government, and outsourced work to hundreds of people. You can harp on about how each individual definition of "indie" excludes certain indie titles, but E33 doesn't fit any definition of indie.
I’m pretty sure they aren’t “backed” by the government lol . Yeah Macron voiced support and praised it but it’s not like they funded them at all. Unless they did and I just never saw or heard anything about it
Kepler is an indie publisher lol
Kepler is made of a conglomerate of many indie studios, at which point it stops being indie.
No Annapurna game should have ever won indie goty then
It was published by a non-indie company, backed by the French government, and most of the work done on the game was outsourced. Yeah, no, that’s not indie.
You basically agreed with them and got downvoted for it lol
i du nthink 33 should have gotten Indie everything esle was fine
all i have to say is...at least it wasn't The Last of Us AGAIN lol
But how would it be the best indie?
Like if another indie game was better (like Silksong) wouldn’t that mean it would need also be GOTY?
Edit: nevermind just read more about the team. I agre now, there should be a like studio cap size to be indie
its a pretty common belief that it shouldnt have even been in contention for best indie because its more of a AA game with lots of funding
The game was made with less than 10m, which while still way more than some indies, is still way less than many other games. In addition to that it was made with a bunch of first time amateur game devs that they found & reached out to online who learned by watching youtube tutorials & was self published.
This id by definition an indie game through & through
Wasn't it published by Kepler?
Could've sworn Keighly said something tonight about it being self published but either way Kepler isn't a major publisher either.
It was published and funded by Kepler, making it by definition not independent
That's not at all how game development is quantified & if you believe it is you have no room to be speaking in this discussion.
There are plenty of indie game publishers out there, Devolver Digital being one such notable example.
Recieving support from a small publisher does not at all mean a game isn't an indie game.
Having a shoestring budget also does not make a game an indie game.
Even on a budget of less than 10mil that's still a pretty small budget for the game that was made with it.
To compared to actual AA games where the budgets are in the dozens of millions & AAA games with budgets in the ballpark of several hundred million.
And again, these are amateur first time game developers with little to no experience putting out their first release.
Please make an effort to educate yourself on games development if you're going to interject into discussions because you're well out of your depth
These are not "amateur first time" game devs. There are only 4 or 5 people at Sandfall who did not have prior experience in game development. The three founders are all ex-Ubisoft devs, who then hired about four amateurs to aid in development. After receiving several millions of dollars in funding (most indie games are made on thousands - even those with publishers like Devolver or Annapurna) from Kepler, a company founded by Sandfall's ex-Ubisoft friends, they hired over 20 employees from within the industry, as well as the independent QA testers and animators they outsourced their work to.
And you're right that 10 million is a small budget for what they made, because what they made is not an indie game! It would be a completely ludicrous amount for games like Hades II or Silksong, because they actually are indie titles!
Hades 2 and Silksong also have insane amounts of money from their previous gigantic hit that others would dream of having though
It wasn't really initially. It only grew further into the development with publisher deal. Afaik they worked without pay for a while when the project started.
But the final product is not an indie game. At some point in development, it stopped being independent and should have stopped qualifying for the best indie award
I think it’s kind of a dumb category to have for this reason and others. Like it’s not like Best RPG where, in theory, one could argue E33 is the better overall package while another game is a better at being an RPG specifically
But the way it stands being indie is kind of a binary “is it an indie or not” so if something is in both categories it would be weird if it won game of the year but not best indie game. Unless there was a weird interpretation where, like, being indie is a sliding scale and something is better “at being an indie game” or whatever. IDK it’s silly. I think Silksong has a bit of an unfair advantage compared to other indies as well, I can see an argument for excluding it as well.
I think silksong has higher quality per person in team. That doesn't mean e33 is bad, I mean look at it a game of 33+ devs vs a game of 3-5 devs.
Oh for sure. Short of Stardew or Undertale and a couple others, very few games are going to beat HK or Silksong on a per person basis.
At this point seeing ya’ll post stuff like this too is also annoying. It’s ok for ppl to have feelings and opinions and that doesn’t equal hate. (Barring those few outliers ofc) Most opinions I’ve seen on here have been pretty balanced and fair, just expressing their thoughts and opinions. It’s typical of Reddit to blow things out of proportion tho.
The problem isn’t that e33 won goty. It’s that it won every single category it was nominated in when those awards should have gone to the games that actually deserved it. I beat e33 months ago and loved every minute of it, but it was not the best rpg that came out this year, it’s asset creation was outsourced, and it’s by definition not a true indie game.
I still dont know how it beat KCD2 for RPG of the year
Yea kdc2 is one of the best RPGs ever like you can dislike the combat or the story or even the mideval period focus of the game but the core RPG systems are second to none it’s so immersive it’s almost to its own detriment
It didn't win every category it was nommed.
It lost three categories.
it only actually lost one category, the other two were just the other two actors nominated for best performance.
Why are you mad about a goofy award show?
The only thing that's weird to me is that it's considered an indie game when it's clearly not.
I 100% all achievements E33 in 80 hours,its a great game, but I'll shit on it if I want tyvm. Also I don't consider them indie devs by any stretch of the imagination.
You clearly aren't the type of person I'm talking about
Yep, nothing to add. Even tho, I am not really dissapointed in the community, since those kind of posts were predictable to pop up from someone. I think, that those kind of posts doesn't really matter, just like hating posts from skong sub, kcd sub, or glazing posts in exp33(which were kind of banned). Because they are for the most part a minority of much larger group, who doesn't really care all that much
The amount of attention Reddit gives The Geoff Keighley Show is exhausting.
Y’all know nobody within the industry actually cares about any of this beyond marketing/PR, right? The awards are meaningless.
Seriously, and the more people talk about it every year, the more they legitimize it as a true awards ceremony when it is not even juried properly. I wish people would just shut up about it.
Have I played both games? Yes
Did I enjoy both games? Yes
Did I think Silksong was better? Yes
Do I think e33 is very overrated? Also yes
Look, I think e33 is a good game, but the issue I personally have is that it isn't God's gift to gaming like so many people would try to tell you, and for me at least it's frustrating to see it get so much praise and attention when I can name 4 other games this year that I enjoyed far more than e33.
This sort of thing always happens with award shows, people get upset when their favorite doesn't win. Give it a couple of weeks and everyone will move on.
This is exactly my issue as well. I think Id enjoy it more but any time I start talking to my friends about things I dislike about the game they just start shitting on me like E33 is God's gift to gaming. Like, yeah its a good game. But I have issues with the combat, the gameplay, and the story. It has rough edges. I dont think it should've outperformed basically every other game ever.
These posts tut-tutting the community feel extremely forced and uncessary. A handful of people crying about game awards, half of which are likely rage baiters, is not worth all of these posts on the two HK subreddits. This is not a community-wide thing, it's a few idiots and shit stirrers.
I think the issue is how TGA just... Awards these things. Like, something is definitely off in the way they're structured, because it leads to situations like these where smaller games get eclipsed by one or two releases. And like, that happens every awards show, but it's still an issue. There's a reason why the Oscars now ask voters to watch all of the movies and all their duration (insane that it wasn't like that before)
I think best rpg was to KCDeli
But its fine, a good game its still a good game and this was a really nice year to players
Some people get overly salty when their favorite game doesn't win. Lots of gamers simply aren't objective when it comes to these things.
Winning Indie was strange but I think this sub is a little high on their own farts.
I loved Silksong but I wouldn’t exactly describe it as accessible lol. It’s hard as shit and that alone bars it from a lot of these categories especially for this award show which for the most part caters to casual gamers.
E33 is much more accessible for normies and is also a great game so why are we surprised
I agree but being hard didn't stop Sekiro and Elden Ring from winning a few years ago.
I agree with Sekiro but Elden Ring isn’t nearly as hard as SS.
You actually have to be good at SS to progress, ER you can just spam summons
Sekiro was a weird one. My friends call it the "sekiro phenomenon" where a game wins that likely wasn't number 1 on any if the judges lists but consistently got like the number 2 spot and won it. Elden ring is just a whole different beast. You can have broken builds, overlevel, co op, mimic ash, its got a lot of outs to get by. Not to mention its considered a generation defining game on par with botw.
Dude what a dumb argument. Elden ring and Sekiro have won GOTY (and deservedly so). I think accessibility should be definitely a criteria but not so much so that a "difficult" game should never be able to win GOTY regardless how good it does everything else
This is what I mean by high off your own farts. This sub not gunna like this but Silksong still has flaws outside of its difficulty and that’s not the only thing making it less accessible.
It’s a 2d platformer with a quirky art style which will also turn a lot of people away as opposed to a much safer game like E33.
Not exactly rocket science
I honestly think people were definitely overreacting with the hate. I do think it's kind of crazy that E33 took the best indie award, and I agree that E33 sweeping most of the awards at TGA was a bit underwhelming and that games like Silksong and Hades II should have absolutely won more, but people are acting like a title and fancy trophy being awarded to a game that they didn't vote for somehow impacts the overall experience they had with the game they did vote for. Just because Silksong didn't win GoTY and only won a single award doesn't all of a sudden invalidate or negatively impact the experience and joy you and I had with Silksong. It's still a game that tons of us enjoyed and love regardless of whether or not it has some trophies. E33 and Silksong are both great games, and the trophy doesn't affect or change the experience you had and the way you felt and enjoyment you had playing one or both.
Writing that much about it even more so 🤷🏻♂️
I'm writing about the community and the fit they're throwing, not the award show itself. I walked away happy and content from TGA. I got upset by the community of one of my favorite game series acting like children whose dad didn't win "coolest parent" at career day or something
I don’t understand these types of holier-than-thou, content-policing posts, they’re worse than the posts you’re complaining about. Generalizing the community because of a handful of comments from humans ill-equipped to deal with counter-opinion is weird. Just leave them be or report them and move on.
There have been numerous memes and discussions about how E33 shouldn't have won something or other because Silksong better. I'm not saying the entire community is doing it, just a subsection that needs to take a chill pill because it's not that serious.
Also, it's not that serious. I just don't want people to go around shitting on other great devs because Skong didn't get more gold stars
If the issue is Silksong fans suggesting Silksong did something better in the Silksong subreddit, then I don’t know what acceptable behaviour is in your mind.
And you can’t call it “pathetic” in the OP’s title and then also say it’s not that serious. Again, just weird. The people you think you’re talking to aren’t going to read this.
It's not just the Hollow Knight community, I'm also part of the Death Stranding, Kingdom Come 2, Dispatch communities - all games that I played and loved this year in addition to Expedition 33; and overnight every single one of them have become overrun with pathetic cesspools of miserable hateful people (who in the same breath decry Geoff Keighley and The Game Awards; one wonders if they hate it so much why are they so invested, like some kind of unhealthy para-social relationship with their preferred game IP).
It's actually quite funny not gonna lie, that there's so many people more pathetic than me ;P
I'm not too informed about this awards thingo, who won each of the awards? Is there a website or something
Yes, there's a website. Just type TGA. But to summarize, E33 won nine awards, the most any game has won in The Game Awards. People are debating whether or not it truly qualifies as an indie game maybe because Skong would have 100% won that category had it not been there. It won Game of The Year, best music, indie game, game and art direction, independent studio debut (first game), narrative, RPG, AND actor performance. That's 9/27 (The rest aren't that interesting) whereas Skong and Hades 2 won one each Best Action/Adventure and Best Action, respectively. Out of the five nominated GOTYs, ONE got nine, TWO got one, the rest got NADA... Issa crazy day.
Hold on, isn't e33 like some massive AAA title? They should not be indie
E33 won most of the categories it was in when it only deserved like 3-4 of the awards it actually got, as well as being nominated in a category it damn well shouldn’t have been
Basically imo there was a HEAVY case of bias going on this year and it made the validity of everything feel moot
E33 is good, but it's not 10 wins out of 12 nominations good. That's all I say. Game's good, but not that good
I think the issue is it won EVERYTHING. People have the right to be a little sour. Its not an indie. (And personally I believe it should've won best art and best music) But people are allowed to be upset/not like the game :
bruh e33 is one of the most overrated gamer I've ever seen. maybe it's the most overrated game in the decade.
Nah. Tired of people sucking off that mediocre game.
I always feel like too many people have strong opinions without having played the game they’re mad at.
I can understand when the issue is like a shitty developer, or bad business model…but none of that applies here.
I haven’t played E33, so I can’t really say it’s better or worse. Silksong is my game of the year, and that’s all that really matters for me. But it would be weird to say Silksong is better without having played both.
(Now I have listened to both soundtracks and imo Silksong’s blows E33 out of the water. But both are still good)
The thing with soundtracks though is that listening without context isn't really the same thing, since they're not normal music albums but rather something meant to enforce specific moments in the game. I agree with what you're saying though.
E33 is NOT an indie game. Last time I checked indie games dont have 100s of people working on the game and 10 million dollar backing. It's just not an indie game and shouldn'tve been allowed in that category period.
Same with debut indie because its still not indie
And it completely robbed the art direction category. Like no dude, realistic graphics #743 is NOT the best art direction. It's just not.
Everything else I agree and I do think its a good game from what I heard. I wanted skong to win goty but I very much so understand e33 winning, thats fine.
Oh hey look you're the type of person I'm talking about
How can you possibly know what the art direction is like without seeing a lot of the game or playing it? E33 has amazing world design and is absolutely beautiful, surreal, and creative. Is the presence of high-fidelity 3d graphics enough to make it disqualified from having good art direction? I don't think so. It's what they do with it that counts. Same thing with drawn 2d graphics-it doesn't mean it's an auto-win.
Silksong, Hades 2, and E33 could have split that award 3 ways imo
I just think realistic graphics has no personality and shouldn't win art direction. Every "realistic graphics" game looks the same. Hand drawn games have better art direction and more personality to them than just slapping on HD stuff. I have watched some gameplay of it and that is the extent of my visual knowledge.
I simply just disagree, theres more direction and style in non-realistic games that I'd like to see win.
Indie arguement still stands.
And lastly, I agree. Splitting would've been perfectly fine for the art direction. They are all awesome.
Gotta say, while some criticism is valid, the game awards are perfectly showcasing the toxicity of the community.
Low key I think any anger should be aimed at TGA for letting one game in a stacked as fuck year win most of the awards. 3/6 VAs? Are you serious? What's next, its gonna win a Tony?
Great game, om happy the team's work paid off, but like... im not watching TGA after this. I didn't even come for the awards but there were maybe like 3 trailers I was interested in anyways. Last year had more diversity and a fucking DLC was on the table.
people take this shit too seriously. TGA has problems. some games got snubbed in some categories. get over it.
It’s not that I’m shitting on Expedition 33 because it beat out Silksong on reward amounts (that was gonna happen either way I only expected Silksong to win like 2/3) but holy FUCK does that game seem like there was a shit ton of bias towards it, to the point where even if it is actually a good game, I sure as hell ain’t gonna look up more about it or try to play it now
Winning every category that it’s in when most of them had better options that it was going against is one thing, sure, but they also counted it as a fucking indie game, which is absolutely bullshit
This year’s game awards proved to me the actual awards part of it is slop and the only worthwhile part of it is seeing what the stuff that’s coming out in the future that they show
I went in with expectations low, and they somehow managed to go even lower than I expected.
Yeah this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's a great game, but you don't want anything to do with it because you think people liked it too much
As much as i hate E33 glazers
I hate silksong glazers even more
So i am happy with the current result
I think the problem lies in people's understanding of things, I've played all the games for Game of the year except for donkey Kong and out of all of the ones I've played exp 33 deserved game of the year not to discredit the other nominees.
Now a lot of the issues I see people bringing up are its not an indie game and that it beat KCD2 for best RPG and I'm ngl most people are probably just salty because the game they like didnt win and are looking for reasons to shit on Exp 33.
So I'll add this not for argument just perspective.
Point 1: they were a group of 34 developers who had a budget of less than 10 million to make that game. Now to you and me 10 million is a lot of money but most AAA games are a 100 million + to develop, source: ( https://www.neogaf.com/threads/lets-track-the-budget-of-big-games-and-development-times.1667396/#google_vignette ) and they had 1/10th of their budgets and were able to develop a game that was imo better than any AAA game this year. Now if you look at what an indie game is, it's an independent video game made by a person or a small team without the backing of a large publisher. Now this is where it gets a bit iffy and understand some people saying it's not an indie game because the CEO of Sandfall Interactive is a Nepo Baby and it isn't confirmed but highly speculated that they received some funding from the CEOs father who is Richard Broche who runs 4 successful companies worth millions. However nothing is confirmed and this is highly speculative so I won't comment on that as fact but I will say that as it stands Sandfall Interactive are an independent company with no large publisher behind them.
Point 2: if Exp 33 is game of the year HOW CAN IT LOOSE RPG OF THE YEAR IF ITS A BETTER GAME? THINK KCD2 FANS USE YOUR BRAINS IF ITS AN RPG AND ITS GOTY HOW CAN IT NOT BE THE BEST RPG FFS. This one actually pisses me off because there's no logic because KCD2 fans are saying yeah Exp 33 is their GOTY but KCD2 was a better RPG and using this logic wouldn't KCD2 BE GAME OF THE YEAR
Re point 2: because the RPG category isn’t about which is the best game that happens to be an RPG. But the game that’s best at being an RPG. So in that respect compare its actual RPG elements. GOTY is about the best overall game considering all aspects of the game. I mean that’s why you have sub categories in the first place to reward games that even tho they weren’t the best overall, but they were the best in that sub category.
I don’t shit on it because it beat silksong but because it’s a boring game 4hrs red tree village and had very little fun the characters boring the world isn’t anything special. The combat generic turn based with a twist of real time that I didn’t like. The only thing I liked was the music, art and general idea. Obviously ain’t trashing on it for others but after playing 20+ turn based rpgs nothing feels special about this one. If u love it good on you I couldn’t get past the first bit because of how boring I found it. Heard act 2-3 is great or whatever but that first act is rough none of the characters are interesting so far after 4+ hr of time. I have not felt like this for any other game that came out this year only other game I felt like snoozing for in my gaming career was fed ex simulator that is death stranding
THE LION GOES IN
Can we not turn silksong sub into e33 sub? Please? Wtf
Wtf is e33 lol
I typed out it's full, god-given name in the title my guy
Honestly the whole selection was weak this year lol I stopped caring about GOTY a while ago, I especially felt like Astro boy winning last year was crazy af
I do think it deserved to be shit on to not volunteer to withdraw out of the Inide category... But i guess the French meme isnt that far off reality...