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Windows Central: 'The Game Awards' snub of Forza Horizon 5 discredits the entire game industry

Do you agree?

  • Yes, Forza Horizon 5's snub is an outrage

    Votes: 347 35.6%

  • No, the voting system is fine and this was the outcome

    Votes: 173 17.7%

  • Who cares

    Votes: 456 46.7%
  • Total voters
    976
Status
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Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
10,257
Lake Titicaca
The Game Awards errs bias towards cinematic action games, snubbing sports games, mobile games, and well, practically anything that doesn't fit into a very specific Hollywood-shaped hole. There are rare occasions where titles rise up that can break free of this close-minded thinking, such as Overwatch, but it's unusual to see a game nominated, let alone awarded, when there isn't a big-budget cinematic story interwoven with the gameplay. This mentality betrays the diversity that gaming represents.
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I often wonder if journalists motion bias towards cinematic games out of some misplaced desire for their profession to be seen as respectable as movie critic might be. That's not going to be the case until the establishment generation is replaced with gamers. No amount of playing to their rules and pandering to the Oscar-shaped box will change how gaming is viewed from a respectability perspective. Games are supposed to be fun, above all else.
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For The Game Awards to give such a heavy 90% voting weight to games journalists and media outlets is, in my view, laughable, and isn't reflective of the industry at large. Even if I'm wrong in my assumption that the jury panel is pandering to a specific subset of games, more diversity and actual expertise in the vote tallying certainly couldn't hurt the award's credibility. Game developers should be allowed to be involved in the nomination process somehow too, as they peer-review their colleague's work with more expertise than the vast majority of game journalists on the jury panel. Gamers should also have at least an equal voting weight with journalists since it is ultimately gamers who vote with their wallets on this stuff.
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Geoff Keighley put out a tweet this week which asked viewers to give feedback on the nominations with a conciliatory "we also have the Player's Choice award to vote on coming up!" "Player's Choice" should be the voice that matters more than establishment journalists who struggle to celebrate a video game if it isn't trying hard enough to be a movie.
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www.windowscentral.com

'The Game Awards' snub of Forza Horizon 5 is a disservice to the entire game industry (Update)

A marketing event, and nothing more.
www.windowscentral.com www.windowscentral.com

Quite a damning indictment of Keighley's award ceremony. It's true that the racing genre (and others) never seem to fare too well at these shindigs, but is that a problem that needs to be addressed? Does the voting system of the VGAs need to be re-evaluated or are the list of nominees simply a fair representation of what the gaming press feel as a whole?
 
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ClassAndFear

ClassAndFear

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,551
Personally, I think this gives entirely too much weight to the game awards as something that anybody really takes any notice of.
 
Vinc

Vinc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,387
I figured people just hadn't had enough time to play it to nominate it? The cutoff is just early, but they have to put it somewhere since they want to do it in December.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,945
The game came out a week ago. That's the core issue, if you release that close to when nominees are announced (let alone when they have to be submitted) games are going to be snubbed.
 
Dest

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
Coward
Jun 4, 2018
14,057
Work
Dyle said:
The game came out a week ago. That's the core issue, if you release that close to when nominees are announced (let alone when they have to be submitted) games are going to be snubbed.
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SMTV is up there tho and that just came out last week.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,164
Too early really.

However, I do agree with the obsession with cinematic AAA tripe. Been like since PS3 days, unfortunately.
 
Paper Cheese

Paper Cheese

Member
Oct 9, 2019
553
Wait, I thought Forza Horizon 5 didn't qualify for The Game Awards because of its release date? Nothing to do with being snubbed right?

Edit: Ignore this, apparently it did release in time. Ah well, still think Returnal should have been in the GOTY category too.
 
jroc74

jroc74

Member
Oct 27, 2017
28,997
lol, I voted who cares.

Dyle said:
The game came out a week ago. That's the core issue, if you release that close to when nominees are announced (let alone when they have to be submitted) games are going to be snubbed.
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Even then, it was nominated for other awards....jut not GotY.

Main thing is the last part of your post...games are gonna get snubbed regardless, happens damn near every year.
 
Imran

Imran

Member
Oct 24, 2017
6,587
It seems like he probably could have just emailed Keighley and asked when the eligibility was up. Presumably it didn't get nominated because nominations were in during the game's review period, when code access was at a minimum.

That's a separate problem, but not the one he's writing about.
 
jph139

jph139

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,384
The same thing happens in literally every industry. There's a certain "type" of show/movie/game/book/album that gets awards, and there's certain "types" that don't get the same level of appreciation.

Sucks, but that's how it goes. That's why there's category awards.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,945
Dest said:
SMTV is up there tho and that just came out last week.
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Forza and SMTV are both in their respective genre categories but a narrow release to nomination window makes it harder for games to pass the higher bar for general categories that cover much broader swathes of the industry.
 
SunBroDave

SunBroDave

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,162
The things that's wild is that Forza's 92 OpenCritic score is based on 129 reviews, so a large portion of the people voting on TGA nominees. How that kind of OpenCritic score could happen, and yet not translate to a GOTY nomination, is baffling.
 
Akai

Akai

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,046
Have no clue why people can't just form their own opinion about their GOTY, instead of taking the decision of a jury as definitive answer.

Just enjoy the things that you want to enjoy and let others enjoy what they want to enjoy.
 
Karateka

Karateka

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,940
I agree except players choice is equally meaningless imo. Can't imagine players choice award being the big award for the industry, may as well count sales numbers.
 
m23

m23

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,422
ClassAndFear said:
Personally, I think this gives entirely too much weight to the game awards as something that anybody really takes any notice of.
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I think the developers do take notice of the awards since it does help recognize the work they do.

In terms of Forza, I think it's a combination of things. One issue is definitely the fact that the game came out so close to the cut off date. At least it got recognized for other categories, I'm sure they'll win in some of those.
 
ThisThingIsUseful

ThisThingIsUseful

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,085
oni-link

oni-link

tag reference no one gets
Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,032
UK
I only care about The Game Awards at all because of the reveals

I don't care about the awards

I can't believe anyone cares about the awards to be honest, they're utterly meaningless
 

Deleted member 44122

Guest
well if WINDOWS central says so 🙄
no, the voting system is fine as it is and driving games just arent the usual goty material
 
Reckheim

Reckheim

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,381
its one thing to be disappointed that a game wasnt nominated, its another thing to write an entire article about it. Who cares that much.

Edit: heh, Jez Corden article.
 
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Macija

Macija

Member
Aug 14, 2018
2,231
"Gamers should also have at least an equal voting weight with journalists since it is ultimately gamers who vote with their wallets on this stuff."

There are games voted by the public, I don't think that there is something wrong with critics being the more important part for this awards.

I also agree that FH5 and Returnal (and even Demon's Souls) should have been nominated, but this article for me reads as "the game i like isnt in the awards so they are stupid". I mean: "should be the voice that matters more than establishment journalists who struggle to celebrate a video game if it isn't trying hard enough to be a movie." None of the nominations this years try to be a movie.
 
Gentlemen

Gentlemen

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,527
This is just 'bloodborne was robbed' but in a fancier suit. Gamers will echo this sentiment for every GOTY mention for the rest of the year. It doesn't matter.
 
cvbas

cvbas

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,167
Brazil
That's a very dramatic article for something that's not that big of a deal. Yeah, The Game Awards are a joke and the industry's obsession with big-budget cinematic games is bad, but Forza Horizon 5 not being nominated is not even in the top 3 worst things they did this year.

And Forza Horizon 4 was much better anyway
 
Bessy67

Bessy67

Member
Oct 29, 2017
11,584
Forza was snubbed but I don't think that's anything to get so upset about. It's an advertising show.
 
Duffking

Duffking

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,708
Honestly: who cares, it's the game awards. Nobody really cares if they win, and most people watching just want a mini e3 with trailers etc for new stuff.
 
Desodeset

Desodeset

Member
May 31, 2019
2,326
Sofia, Bulgaria
get2sammyb said:
That's probably a little too strong, no?
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Definitely.

I am not sure if the analogy is right, but racing games are like animated movies. No matter how good they are, somehow they don't fit to be the best game of the year. Like fighting games and simulators, they have limited design and features.

Modern games are medium and other things are way more important.
 
8bit

8bit

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,390

Windows Central ... discredits the entire game industry


There you go.


Isn't it like, the thirteenth Forza game anyway? If none of the predecessors have featured in these commericals^W awards, why start now?
 
kimbo99

kimbo99

Member
Feb 21, 2021
4,799
It just seems arbitrary to me. I think it's an outrage but I also believe that it's a pointless award show at the end of the day. All GOTY nominees this year deserve the award, regardless
 
Lkr

Lkr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,525
I mean it's not like this event has some kind of oscar or grammy status lol. it's always been a joke, this snub isn't the first or last

op do you have a link to a full article?
 

Yzec

Member
Dec 11, 2019
259
Belgium
Maybe cut-off should just be BEFORE (like a week?)the ballots go out? Problem solved, FH5 would be able to het nominated next year. It just doesn't feel like a hard problem to solve?
 
starblue

starblue

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,742
Why is so relevant the GOTY ? Who cares ?

Just give me the world premieres and trailers.


PD: Demons Souls Remake deserved some nomination, at least, even it's a remake, the work done on the game by bluepoint is superb.
 
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