What is an indie game? It’s pretty obvious after 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Game Awards nominations that we don’t really have a clue. The five nominees for Best Independent Game are Cocoon, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dave the Diver, Dredge, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sea of Stars, and Viewfinder. Dave the Diver has been the most controversial - not because it’s not good, but because it&rsquo🦋;s owned by Nexon, a billion dollar corp. Hardly the typical definition of ‘indie’.
Why is Dave the Diver nominated for Best Indie at The Game Awards?
The simple answer is Dave the Diver is nominated because enough of the jury voted for it. We’ve seen games in categories that don’t quite fit before (Sifu was a hotly-debated ‘Best Fighting’ option, while no one seems sure what a ‘Family Game’ is), and a similar thing has happened here. Various members of the jury tha♉t nominated Dave the Diver either didn’t know it was published by a huge corp like N♏exon, or didn’t care. But there’s more to it than that.
Prior to The Game Awards, we did a full breakdown of how Dave the Diver is, and isn&rsquo♏;t, an indie gﷺame.
However, Dave the Diver is the first game Mintrocket (the subsidiary who developed the title) has made on its own, having been established by Nexon in 2022. Though the game’s budget has not been released, it will not have had Nexon’s bottomless resources to call upon. But in promoting the game, vice president of Nexon America Taehwan Kim said the game "may look like an indie, but it's not necessarily the case". The tune may be changed now it’s up for Best Indie at The Game Awards.
In music, ‘indie rock’ doesn’t mean ‘independent’ but describes a specific sound and aesthetic. Dave the Diver certainly fits that. But then, so would 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hi-Fi Rush, which would surely be nominated if the jury felt it qualified. Understandably, given it’s funded directly by Xbox under the roof of Bethesda while helmed by experienced triple-A studio Tango Gameworks, the jury thought this was a brid🌱gಌe too far.
Why isn’t Baldur’s Gate 3 nominated for Best Indie at The Game Awards?
Speaking of bridges too far, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3 is technically an entirely independent game, one made, funded, and published by Larian. But given the studio’s huge team and the use of a pre-existing IP, it didn’t feel in the ‘spirit’ of the rules. by Tencent, a company that dwarfs even Nexon in terms of size and resources. Michael Douse, director of publishing at Larian, even quote tweeted The Game Awards last month to remind voters B⭕G3 was an independent game, only to immediately walk it back and say𝔍 they were highlighting the difference between ‘indie’ and ‘independent’.
The Game Awards doesn’t help itself here. The official category titles are Best Independent Game and Beಌst Debut Indie. It conflates two words that, in a world where BG3 is deemed de facto ineligible but Dave the Diver gets nominated, appear to have very malleable meanings.
What are the other indie categories at The Game Awards?
This is where it gets complicated, as there are three indie categories in tot꧂al. Indies can be nominated in the various genres and GOTY too, but both Best Independent and Best Debut Indie are reඣserved for indie games (by whatever definition) alone. There’s also Games For Impact, which don’t specifically need to be indie but almost always are.
Cocoon, Dredge, and Viewfinder are up in both Best Indie and Best Debut, joined by Pizza Tower and Venba in the latter. There’s yet more controversy here: Dave the Diver is a debut by a greater technicality than it is an indie - it’s Mintrocket’s first ꦜgame but not Nexon’s - while Pizza Tower’s presence only highlights that it was overlooked for the main indie award.
Venba also reappears in Games for Impact, alongside 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:A Space for the Unbound, Chants of Sennaar, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Goodbye Volcano High, Tchia, and Terra Nil. Venba is an oddity in that it also appears elsewhere, with this category often being for great games that are siphoned o﷽ff from the populist categories of the rest of the awards.
Two of these games are set to make my GOTY list (AS🎐FTU and GVH), and I often prefer the titles nominated here, but it’s always a little odd that “thought-provoking 🌺game[s] with a pro-social meaning or message”, in TGA’s words, aren’t often considered good enough for other awards, even those specifically designed for smaller games. Best Sim/Strategy Game is attracting criticism for just being the most basic and biggest titles released, with the absence of Terra Nil in its own genre another way of highlighting that indie games don’t always get a fair shake.
Have non-indies been nominated for Best Independent Game at The Game Awards previously?
This depends on your definition of indie which, as we’ve seen, is tricky to nail down. Stray won last year, but was controversial thanks to its hyper-realistic graphics and the fact it was heavily promoted by PlayStation as a prestige exclusive (though its development itself was not officially funded by Sony, but indie powerhouse Annapurna). 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Vampire Survivors, made by a solo dev, only landed Best Debut and felt like an oversight that highlighte🌠d the vast difference in fortunes between games under thဣe indie umbrella.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Kena: Bridge of Spirits, also partnered with Sony, won the year previously too. However, the three year streak leading to that point saw Celeste, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disco Elysium, and Hades each win - all true indies however you slice it, and also GOTY contenders in their own right. Despite the controversy elsewhere, Cocoon and Sea of Stꦺars are the two front runners for Best Independent Game, and both would be fitting and crowd-pleasing winners.
