The 2010s are largely defined by social media. Memes and becoming viral/popular are part of that. Quality doesn't necessarily matter - just blow up on social media. Not saying I agree or disagree, but I think that is what he means.
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Untitled Goose Game wins the DICE Awards Game of the Year award
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The 2010s are largely defined by social media. Memes and becoming viral/popular are part of that. Quality doesn't necessarily matter - just blow up on social media. Not saying I agree or disagree, but I think that is what he means.
Cue the montage of 3rd person adventure gifs where the player rotates the camera slowly to unveil a beautiful vista.
Pretty much every popular game can fit into this description.
Is dark souls a meme game?
Is smash a meme game?
Is Undertale a meme game?
Ha, absolutely no way. They're nothing alike on any meaningful level. Goat Simulator is nonsensical barely functioning carnage, you make a mess, stuff blows up and it looks shite, controls like shite, has zero subtlety and is about as one note as it gets.
Comparing that to the elegance and the beautifully designed mechanics of Goose Game is madness. Goose game is mechanically simplistic but within the limitations of your actions the Devs have allowed for real moments of character to shine through via the environment, the props, how the goose and the people respond to various actions and interact. It's thoughtful and clever and elegant in how you resolve the various puzzles you're presented with.
I mean, my kids and I enjoyed Goat Simulator for a time, but it's not a coherent experience, it's just toss everything into a crappily made sandbox area and let you fuck about.
Do you genuinely believe that the folks voting for these awards were unable to critically assess the nominees and instead succumbed to the social media presence of Untitled Goose Game?
one fascinating thing to me is the conspiracy I've seen on Reddit that we "paid for the memes". I don't even know how one would.. pay for memes
I think it just translates to, "I am growing up extremely skeptical of media and brands, and absolutely do not believe that a true 'thing' can happen naturally without being paid for." But that's what happened! to answer your question, believe me we have a hard time wrapping our head around it all. It's almost beyond comprehension.
Everyone at each other's throats over Goose Game's win, and I'm just over here glaring at gacha-Mario Kart winning Best Racing Game over CTR Nitro.
oh yeah? well at least those games aren't memes created by the developer.
But is it a more impressive development feat? Is there no place to argue that an excellent 5-course meal is more deserving the spotlight than an excellent 1-course meal that also has less ingredients? Why is it a problem saying picking the latter is curious?
If some 'simply good' movie won the Oscars, people would have had the same discussion. Film awards also separate short vs feature-length productions.
I'm happy to see an indie game winning over the usual AAA big guns and the salt here is entertaining. That said, it's not that rare to see smaller games winning. Last year saw return of obra dinn winning some GOTYs, the year before it was what remains of edith finch.
The fascination people have for AAA, thinking they're the only ones worthy of an award, isn't luckily the standard, despite all the dollars those who publish them pour everywhere to convince people that they are.
But Mario kart tour winning, that, yeah, it's a joke.
The fascination people have for AAA, thinking they're the only ones worthy of an award, isn't luckily the standard, despite all the dollars those who publish them pour everywhere to convince people that they are.
But Mario kart tour winning, that, yeah, it's a joke.
Just because something can be seen as more impressive technically, it doesn't mean it automatically trumps something shorter and less complex. People can have a preference absolutely, but there'a no catch-all.
You talk about short films v feature films at film awards - comparing UGG to a 20 minute short film is a bit unfair. Especially seeing how Journey was a big player in awards season in 2012 and was probably a shorter game than UGG. I don't want to disparage short films but I see them more as the equivalent of a tech demo or short 20 minute proof of concept game.
This season we had films competing against others twice their length and sometimes nearly ten times their budget (Jojo Rabbit v The Irishman in both cases) and it's a bit strange that we don't seem to have the same consideration when it comes to games
Sure, why not? It was a cute game, unique, and very memorable.
Ah, yes. The general public. A group of people we should all trust.
A thread from the old place I like to reread occasionally is the one when GameSpot gave Demon's Souls their 2009 GOTY. A few comments were made that are hilarious in retrospect with how big From and Souls became. This thread reminds of of that: Plenty of positivity for the original game winning with a nice dose of "UGH, THIS WON OVER XYZ!?"
Thank you for this game. As I said earlier in the thread, it has become one of the most refreshing and frankly weirdly cathartic games I played in years.
The success and awards are more than deserved.
I've been meaning to check this one out. Glad to see something unique win. I guess the game is quality too which is nice to hear.
It'll be my next purchase.
It'll be my next purchase.
The thing that really irks me is that Sony developers are notorious for copying famous memes like Leo raising a toast becoming Nate Drake, and other examples like this plugging their characters into them in ways that make no sense.oh yeah? well at least those games aren't memes created by the developer.
It's the laziest form of imitation being flattery.
Opinions are not inherently disrespectful. UGG is a great game, but in no way would I (and a lot of others based on this thread) consider it anywhere near the top of the list in 2019. That's not inherently a mark against UGG, because on some level i'm happy it won, as it speaks to both the wide breathe of games on the market and the diversity of game experiences (and opinions) they offered in 2019, but that does not mean I personally agree with the verdict. Sekiro's gameplay is the Platonic Ideal for action games. Death Stranding and Control were both more miss than hit, but they are both mastersclasses in presentation and advanced the medium. RE2 was a phenomenal reimagining of one of gaming's most iconic games. I could go on but the point is, i'm not as scandalized UGG won as others, but its a bit dismissive to think there are no valid criticisms to be levied against its victory. I personally don't think UGG advances the medium in any way, nor will it be talked about in 10 years, its just a fun, flash in the pan indie game, and that is perfectly fine.
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I would consider it at the top of the list - mainly for reasons I've already expressed on twitter..
While sekiro is absolutely consuming people like my brother, and there are other AAA budget games with obvious and insane talent on display - I'm not sure I could show any of those games to my work colleagues and the response be that they want to play them. They wouldn't sit there and offer suggestions on how to best those games, maybe because they wouldn't really know how... But I've played this game on the lunch area TV and had people howling and offering advice on how to lock a small child inside a telephone box...
UGG is probably the most memorable & funny game of the last year that does have a kind of instant charm and appeal. It captured the interest of everyone I showed it to. At the end of the day, sure you can argue it's not massively lighting your world on fire or doing any of the crazy impressive and immersive bombast of other titles, but for me - it's everything a fun game should be. Something novel and fun you can share with others, something that makes you smile and laugh while playing.
It's puzzle and stealth wrapped in good humour, a goose on its worst behaviour in a little English village. It showed that a fun idea and solid execution can make a good game go viral. I can well imagine developers wanting to hold this game high as inspiration to others. That this is the kind of success story developers who value fun, fun mechanics and fun ideas would love. Well deserved IMO!
While sekiro is absolutely consuming people like my brother, and there are other AAA budget games with obvious and insane talent on display - I'm not sure I could show any of those games to my work colleagues and the response be that they want to play them. They wouldn't sit there and offer suggestions on how to best those games, maybe because they wouldn't really know how... But I've played this game on the lunch area TV and had people howling and offering advice on how to lock a small child inside a telephone box...
UGG is probably the most memorable & funny game of the last year that does have a kind of instant charm and appeal. It captured the interest of everyone I showed it to. At the end of the day, sure you can argue it's not massively lighting your world on fire or doing any of the crazy impressive and immersive bombast of other titles, but for me - it's everything a fun game should be. Something novel and fun you can share with others, something that makes you smile and laugh while playing.
It's puzzle and stealth wrapped in good humour, a goose on its worst behaviour in a little English village. It showed that a fun idea and solid execution can make a good game go viral. I can well imagine developers wanting to hold this game high as inspiration to others. That this is the kind of success story developers who value fun, fun mechanics and fun ideas would love. Well deserved IMO!
That wasn't the question though. The original post I responded to was saying it was just an era thing to say that 2019 was a poor year compared to 2018. Any reasonable person would know that's not true.
Come on man you can't honestly believe it's just an era thing to say 2019 was weak compared to 2018 lol
A year with God of War, Spiderman, Monster Hunter World, SSBU, Forza Horizon 4 and RDR2 compared to.. what in 2019?
You can tell me all you want about how those don't appeal to you and you prefer whatever little indies released in 2019 to all of that, but that would be a niche opinion and you know it.
Certainly you can't claim it's "just an era thing" to be disappointed in 2019 compared to what we got in 2018.
House House can now look at their DICE GOTY award and confidently say:
"finally, we made a game as good as Fallout 4, which beat Bloodborne and The Witcher 3 in 2015"
You guys fully deserve that GOTY award imo. Congrats to the team!
I guess you wouldn't be talking about Death Stranding then, because no one in their right mind would describe it as an artistic failure.
I'm speaking more to the folks throwing it in the bin as "meme game". I would say that games that advanced the medium this year were Disco Elysium, Outer Worlds, and Baba is You. You mentioned Death Stranding? Eh, no. Death Stranding was an amalgamation of burden systems from the *last* decade of games, so it's really funny to see you claim that it advanced the medium when it smashed together elements from the past. It also had one of the absolute worst stories I've ever experienced across all mediums. If it is spoken about in 10 years, it will not be positively but rather in a "this got praise?" kind of way.
I don't disagree with your opinions on RE2, Sekiro, and Control though. I just find it weird that you could consider Death Stranding as advancing the medium when it was a love letter to systems from the last ten years. Even it's combat felt 10 years old, which was a shocking disappointment after experiencing the combat of MGS V.
And yet plenty of players and reviewers have described it exactly that way. Granted, there's not the kind of consensus about the game that there is about Battlefield Earth, and it'll be really interesting to see how the game is remembered a few years from now, but there's nothing particularly outlandish about that opinion. Anyway, phrases like "no one in their right mind would think" are just thought-terminating clichés designed to shut down a debate without really engaging with it.
Anyway. back on topic, the thing that I love about Goose Game is that it's not trying to mimic another artform. It's a pure game, and all of its moments of joy and innovation and ingenious storytelling are a function of the player naturally experimenting with the mechanics and experiencing the world design. It makes a far better argument for games as an artform, imho, than games that tell a more "important" (read: pretentious) story primarily through voice acting and cut scenes and scripted sequences.
Congrats on the award. Goose Game is a great experience and it was much deserved.
sony makes serious, goty-quality games though. they don't spend man hours churning out memes for social media and game media websites to carry within a week of the game's release. if they did that, then obviously the only reason people knew about those games would be due to the memes they put out into the world themselves and not the quality of the game and the word of mouth that came with it.
Not gonna lie, I initially raised an eyebrow at the title, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense.
It's short -- meaning that more of the judging panel are likely to have played and gotten a large chunk through it or even completed it -- is extremely charming, and hones in on the few things it does really well as opposed to doing a lot of things fine.
Wouldn't have been my own pick, but I can't begrudge the choice.
It's short -- meaning that more of the judging panel are likely to have played and gotten a large chunk through it or even completed it -- is extremely charming, and hones in on the few things it does really well as opposed to doing a lot of things fine.
Wouldn't have been my own pick, but I can't begrudge the choice.
i sincerely implore you to look back at your previous post, because i wasn't using the word 'fact'. please reconcile the differences here:
why on earth would you then have said the following:
"Goose is a good game that owns it major awareness (that most other indie games couldn't dream of getting) to the widespread memes about it more than people finding the game being top quality or very original - in fact many of the people using goose memes never played it at all. That's not a knock on the quality of the game, that's just stating a fact."
because if you're going to use 'facts' as a way to prove an argument... you should probably have some data to back it up. i can see on google trends that untitled goose game's awareness started climbing shortly before launch, which is probably because of the reviews getting out into the world. the most people were playing it all at once probably happened right in the first two weeks of the game's release, where it hit its maximum exposure and then started to decline. is that because of memes, or is that because of general gaming trends for single player games? link's awakening came out in the same week, and it experienced a similar curve. same with code vein, which was a week later. untitled goose game probably saw a slight bump in awareness due to the spread of the game on social media. the difference between that and the other games could have been due to the positive word of mouth the game received (code vein wouldn't get positive word of mouth and link's awakening was probably warmish due to technical issues). compared to undertale, untitled goose game had a fairly regular curve for a single player game, while undertale sustained a high level of recognition due to its word of mouth and strong fanbase. untitled goose game probably had some help in awareness due to people sharing it on social media, but it otherwise shared the same trends as other single player games from september 2019.
that's just a cursory glance, but it's the sort of thing i recommend looking into.
you can go ahead and claim that you are not trying to dampen the enthusiasm for people who enjoyed the game, but your argument holds as much merit as claiming that god of war wouldn't have been wildly loved if siea santa monica didn't themselves spread memes for god of war. intentional or not, the point you're trying to make only serves to discredit the reasoning for why a game would be successful - that it was funny memes and not the design of the game that people found charming and appealing and wanted to share with others. that was the point of the rest of my post - not to convince you specifically that you were wrong and that you should like the game, but to describe from the point of view of someone who liked it what they saw in it and why they would want others to play it.
I loved your game soooo much. My daughter played through it several times, and my wife and I would just sit and laugh at her talent for mischief. It's a special experience...my daughter told me it is her favorite game of all time. I really hope you guys make a sequel, I think about it all the time.
oh yeah? well at least those games aren't memes created by the developer.
or there's also last year's version of this year's thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/tetris-effect-is-eurogamers-game-of-the-year-2018.90375/
although there weren't memes to blame so it fell more transparently on the '...but effort was put into aaa games!' side of things.
These will always be cringeworthy. Like for all those claiming HouseHouse only got popular thanks to memes they were never this desperate to have their game in the zeitgeist
do you seriously care about how many ingredients are used in your food over how good it tastes? when you go out to eat do you honestly stop your server to ask "excuse me? what on the menu has the most ingredients?"
Untitled Goose Game deserves to be GOTY, just like Outer Wilds or Resident Evil 2 would. If a GOTY was always a game with realistic graphics, dozens of hours, and a very serious story, we'd always be getting the same kind of games.
UGG doesn't have dialogue, but has a great storytelling that is super simple. The mechanics all work and fit the theme. So does the soundtrack. It can make you laugh.
You may not like it, and that's okay. But GOTY doesn't necessarily mean a game is objectively better than others. It just stuck out more, while being great on its own.
I mean, if we went by the logic of some of you, Portal would never receive GOTY awards in 2007/2008. Simple mechanics (shoot portals), soundtrack, rooms that look similar artistically, and full of memes. That wouldn't disqualify it, right?
UGG doesn't have dialogue, but has a great storytelling that is super simple. The mechanics all work and fit the theme. So does the soundtrack. It can make you laugh.
You may not like it, and that's okay. But GOTY doesn't necessarily mean a game is objectively better than others. It just stuck out more, while being great on its own.
I mean, if we went by the logic of some of you, Portal would never receive GOTY awards in 2007/2008. Simple mechanics (shoot portals), soundtrack, rooms that look similar artistically, and full of memes. That wouldn't disqualify it, right?