As usual, this year's nominees for The Game Awards are mostly made up of triple-A games that are making a ton of money. Of course, there was one big exception the size of Balatro, but other than that, as usual, we only saw indie games included in the Games For Impact category, Best Independent Game, and Best Debut Indie Game categories (obviously). A few singles from different genre categories.
If, like me, you prefer indie games and think they deserve recognition on the big stage (1000xRESIST was one of the best epics of the year and I'm dying on this hill), you'll be disappointed that they didn't. Once again ignored. Thankfully, all the games you love have been recognized elsewhere: the Indie Game Awards.
relevant
Balatro is more than just a 'card game' and deserves a GOTY nomination.
It's more than just a card game.
The Indie Game Awards showcases the best of the best.
For an awards show ostensibly designed to recognize industry achievements, The Game Awards has some pretty serious blind spots in the way it consistently overlooks indies. This is especially serious considering that while triple-A games still fight to break away from formulaic gameplay, indie games are usually more successful at innovating mechanically and narratively.
Indie games, although more interesting, fall by the wayside because they are smaller, don't make as much money, and don't have the same mainstream appeal as triple-A games. I understand this is how award ceremonies work. Still annoying.
But at the Indie Game Awards, all the games that aren't represented at The Game Awards get to shine. Clickholding, a game that I didn't enjoy at all emotionally but still performed well, was nominated in the Bite-Sized Game category, as was Thank Goodness You're Here. The woefully overlooked Cryptmaster was nominated in the Innovation category, as were Lorelei and Laser Eyes (which gave me a 5-star rating for the first time in my life) and UFO 50.
I think Phoenix Springs deserves a nomination in the visual design category, but there isn't much to complain about here.
1000xRESIST finally got justice in the Narrative category, while Animal Well and Children of the Sun were nominated in the Solo Development category. And the Game of the Year category is full of hits. If you've played every game listed here, you'll have experienced a wide range of genres and mechanics with completely different art styles and completely different objectives. Heck, you can get it all just by playing UFO 50.
There is no cleaning here
Another reason the Indie Game Awards deserve flowers is that they have a rule for nominating games in only one general category. This means there's a lot more diversity among the candidates and all kinds of indies get their time to shine, rather than being pushed out of one game.
It could be argued that this unfairly hinders the recognition of the game. every But it's better for the health of the indie industry to give every game its time to shine. Otherwise, you'll end up with TGA where the same two games will show up in multiple categories and bump into other games (again, better and smaller!).
The Indie Game Awards will be streaming on December 19th, and you should definitely watch it, especially if you haven't played any of the games. Many people use The Game Awards to decide which games they will play next year, and you can do the same with The Indie Game Awards. 2024 has been a good year for small developers, so there will be plenty of options.
The Game Awards
Founded by Geoff Keighley, The Game Awards is a video game event focused on celebrating the best titles of the year, as well as revealing and promoting upcoming releases.
