As usual, this year’s The Game Awards nominees were mostly made of triple-A games that made a ton of money. There was, of course, one big Balatro-sized exception, but apart from that, as usual, we only really saw indie games featured in the Games For Impact category, Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game categories (obviously), and a couple of singular entries in other genre categories.
If, like me, you prefer indie games and think they deserve to be recognised on big stages (1000xRESIST had one of the best narratives of the year and I’ll die on this hill), you’re likely disappointed that they’ve been once again ignored. Thankfully, all the games you loved have been recognised elsewhere: the Indie Game Awards.
Related
Balatro Isn’t Just A ‘Card Game’ And It Deserves Its GOTY Nomination
Much more than just a card game.
The Indie Game Awards Showcase The Best Of The Best
For an awards show ostensibly geared towards recognising the achievements of those in the industry, The Game Awards has a pretty severe blind spot in how it constantly overlooks indies. That’s particularly egregious when you consider that triple-A games are still fighting to break out of formulaic gameplay while indies are usually more successful at being mechanically and narratively innovative.
Despite being more interesting, indie games are smaller, don’t make as much money, and don’t appeal to the mainstream as much as triple-A games do, so they fall to the wayside. I understand this is how award shows work. It still sucks.
But over at the Indie Game Awards, all the games that I’m bitter about not seeing represented at The Game Awards are getting their time to shine. Clickholding, a game that I did not enjoy at all on an emotional level but was excellently executed all the same, is nominated under Bite-Sized Game, as is Thank Goodness You’re Here. The woefully overlooked Cryptmaster is nominated under Innovation, as is Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (which received my first ever five-star score) and UFO 50.
I think
Phoenix Springs
deserved a nomination for Visual Design, but I really don’t have much else to complain about here.
1000xRESIST is finally done justice under the Narrative category, and Animal Well and Children of the Sun are nominated under the Solo Development category. And the Game of the Year category is full of hits – if you played every game listed there, you’d experience a broad range of genres and mechanics, with totally different art styles and entirely different purposes. Hell, you’d get all that just from playing UFO 50.
No Sweeps Here
Another reason The Indie Game Awards deserves its flowers is that it has a rule about only nominating a game in one general category. That means there’s much more diversity among its 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 keeps games from being recognised for all their achievements, but it’s better for the health of the indie industry that every game be given its time to shine. Otherwise, you end up with the TGAs, where the same couple of games are showing up in multiple categories and bumping out other games (that were, again, better, just smaller!)
The Indie Game Awards will be streaming on December 19, and you should definitely watch them, even – especially – if you haven’t played any of the games. Lots of people use The Game Awards to decide what games they’ll be playing next year, and you can do the same with The Indie Game Awards. 2024 was an excellent year for smaller developers, so you’ll be spoilt for choice.
The Game Awards
Founded by Geoff Keighley, The Game Awards is a video games event centered on celebrating the best of the year’s titles, with emphasis on reveals and promos for upcoming launches.