Support NeoGAF

[Valt7786]

Funny how she didnt bring this up last year when GoW Ragnarok was in the running, since she works for Sony SM.

 

[Clear]

All awards are popularity contests.

What's the alternative anyway? Gongs handed out by some omniscient God-like entity, final arbiter of truth!

ALSO... Gotta say this, but if you were to make this more based on performance metrics inarguably one of the top gaming titles this year would be Hogwarts. Which sets up a poignant critique of why vox pops are more representative than "elite" juries, because clearly in the latter case that the author of the property that particular game is based on holding views that are seen as politically incorrect or deplorable, evidently matters more* than how much the audience likes or is interested in the game in their evaluation.

*or must be seen to matter more at least.

 

[Boralf]

These statements are bullshit. It's a popularity contest.

 

[mitch1971]

They are just corporate wanking meetings.

Also...

TiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiTs

 

[lughnasadh123]

Or it's less about marketing budget and more the fact that more people just aren't as into the indies as the people complaining about them not being nominated.

 

[Fess]

Ummm.... being popular should literally be one of the main criteria for Game Of The Year.

Top 10 would just be mobile games, can have hundreds of millions of downloads, you’d never ever see games like Returnal which sold like 500k. And if you remove mobile games it would be the usual suspects with Call of Duty and some MMO and Nintendo title every year.

Nah it’s bad enough as it is with most popular game among outlets being nominated and the jury raking in 90% of the votes when they rush to vote some late afternoon without even thinking deeply about it like Alanah says.

 

[SlimySnake]

US market alone is 4 times bigger than Japan? China is just 4 times bigger than Finland?

Maybe that’s how it is I don’t know, either way this only highlight how western-centric everything is in the hobby and why politically charged subjects from a western perspective will always make things difficult for games or devs not applying the same politics. Can’t say if that’s what happened to Hogwarts but considering how some outlets avoided even talking about it I’m not surprised that it’s not there. Would be verrry interesting to see a top 20 list from jury votes and how each outlets voted.

Anyway, in the end it’s an event focused on praising widespread appeal and this year it’s another Mario, another Spider-Man, another Zelda etc. None of the new IPs I’ve played this year was nominated and I’ve only played 2 of the sequel games nominated. For me it makes the whole thing uninteresting. I’ll check out the trailers afterwards though.

Hogwarts legacy is rated 84 on metacritic, all other goty nominees are in the 90s. Maybe in a bad year like 2021 it gets nominated, but this is the greatest year in 2 decades. Ff16, Star Wars, Diablo 4, street fighter 6, pikmin, dead space, hifi rush all reviewed better than hogwarts and didn’t make the Final Cut.

And even at 84, hogwarts is massively overrated. It is a painfully average game with a boring story. It is a 7 at best. If you nominate this, you nominate every ubisoft game. If you play spiderman 2 and hogwarts back to back you will see just how poorly hogwarts campaign is structured, how lame the storytelling is and how much better insomniac is at making a narrative driven video game.

And maybe just maybe those zelda, mario, resident evil and Spider-Man games are well made and better than the other games released this year. In 2021, it takes two won the award over metroid, ratchet, and resident evil 8. Last year elden ring won over gow and horizon sequels while stray was nominated because last year.

I really don’t understand this. The best game of the year has won this award every year save for two when uncharted 4 and death stranding didnt win. This award has been in lockstep with the critics and gamers alike. There is zero controversy here.

 

[Fess]

Funny how she didnt bring this up last year when GoW Ragnarok was in the running, since she works for Sony SM.

Maybe she’s still pissed it didn’t win, downplaying the loss lol
But she seems fairly unbiased tbh. Not a typical Sony employee on social, fan of Starfield despite all the things people complain about, talking about it enough for Sony fans to get mad at her and saying she should be fired. And she avoided saying a thing about Spider-Man 2 here which would’ve been easy. And have Baldur’s Gate 3 as the winner out of the nominees available.

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

You've answered the question yourself, nobody would care about her mutterings if they didn't want to have sex with her.

Time she experienced real equality, don't give her any attention at all. No threads, no links, no clicks.

These type of women who enter male gaming spaces just to exploit men's thirst are the worst.

The simps who lush over said women are the ones who will never bang said women. A never ending circle.

 

[Aenima]

Shes not enterily wrong but shes not 100% right either. Maybe, just maybe, games that review well become popular and those games as good as they are, become nominated for GOTY. Hogwarts is the best selling new IP this year, so its popularity is massive, yet it didnt got nominated.
It Takes Two won the GOTY award a few years ago and thats not exactly a game i would call very popular.

All the nominated games this years seem GOTY contenders, some more than others but i find this year selection pretty good.

 

[elbourreau]

Funny how she didnt bring this up last year when GoW Ragnarok was in the running, since she works for Sony SM.

By the way, we know she works for SM, but do we know what she did? (yeah writer, but what did she wrote? Main quests, side quests, dialogues, PR?)

 

[Thirty7ven]

They say the same about the Oscars.

Cue in smooth brains asking for an objective, science driven way of identifying the best game/movie/music/book of the year as if that makes any sense.

 

[Hudo]

By the way, we know she works for SM, but do we know what she did? (yeah writer, but what did she wrote? Main quests, side quests, dialogues, PR?)

"Accessibility consultant". And I think she also participated in writing that God of War cookbook, according to herself. But I don't know what exactly.

 

[Belthazar]

Oscars do this all the time. Everything everywhere at once won just this year and is an indie A24 film. Oh and it beat avatar and top gun. Two of the most popular movies of last year.

Fucking coda won last year. Nomadland the year before that. Parasite the year before that.

Moonlight won over lala land, the silent French film the artist won in 2011.

If anything Oscars reward indie movies a whole lot more than big budget movies.

Those movies were rewarded because they all got massively popular, it's the same for Baldur's Gate 3 this year.

 

[SlimySnake]

Those movies were rewarded because they all got massively popular, it's the same for Baldur's Gate 3 this year.

eh none of those movies crossed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office. the few that did cross it did so worldwide, and were not beaten by movies that made $1-2 billion worldwide. nomadland and coda made like $3 million at the domestic box office. these movies won because they were indie darlings.

Oscars are in deep shit pulling record low viewing numbers because of their disconnect with their own viewers. they no longer reward movies like gladiator, lotr, titanic, forrest gump and braveheart. the biggest budget most popular movie to win the oscars in the last 10 years was The shape of water and that failed to cross $200 million worldwide.

It's good that there is no disparity between VGAs and the gamers. Thats why in the last ten years, VGA has gone from 2 million to 103 million viewers while the oscars have gone in the opposite direction.

 

[Arsic]

Did she mention what she would've nominated instead of these "popular" games?

Dredge came up .

 

[Fess]

Hogwarts legacy is rated 84 on metacritic, all other goty nominees are in the 90s. Maybe in a bad year like 2021 it gets nominated, but this is the greatest year in 2 decades. Ff16, Star Wars, Diablo 4, street fighter 6, pikmin, dead space, hifi rush all reviewed better than hogwarts and didn’t make the Final Cut.

And even at 84, hogwarts is massively overrated. It is a painfully average game with a boring story. It is a 7 at best. If you nominate this, you nominate every ubisoft game. If you play spiderman 2 and hogwarts back to back you will see just how poorly hogwarts campaign is structured, how lame the storytelling is and how much better insomniac is at making a narrative driven video game.

And maybe just maybe those zelda, mario, resident evil and Spider-Man games are well made and better than the other games released this year. In 2021, it takes two won the award over metroid, ratchet, and resident evil 8. Last year elden ring won over gow and horizon sequels while stray was nominated because last year.

I really don’t understand this. The best game of the year has won this award every year save for two when uncharted 4 and death stranding didnt win. This award has been in lockstep with the critics and gamers alike. There is zero controversy here.

Sorry for the laugh emoji but I’m actually rarely in sync with this event. Many nominees for me just come and go, a week of pleasure, sometimes less. Popular or not it’s just not my thing. For me it’s like choosing a short 5 minute sketch as the movie of the year.

I want games I keep playing, games that literally define my year. Rare exceptions exist like Metroid Dread which I played several times instead and 100-percented.
Elden Ring was the right choice for sure last year, I played it almost all year, just started another playthrough and it’s still amazing. Most deserved win I can think of. BOTW was right too.

I guess I would enjoy Baldur’s Gate 3 this year for similar reasons, seems big and open-ended, but I’m still playing Starfield so can’t really vote here.

Zelda TOTK started out amazing, loved the building mechanics and physics. But I dropped it after the third temple so is that the GOTY? hmm

 

[elbourreau]

"Accessibility consultant". And I think she also participated in writing that God of War cookbook, according to herself. But I don't know what exactly.

Yeah... I see...

Nothing really consistent... Another PR move.

 

[AMSCD]

You've answered the question yourself, nobody would care about her mutterings if they didn't want to have sex with her.

Time she experienced real equality, don't give her any attention at all. No threads, no links, no clicks.

These type of women who enter male gaming spaces just to exploit men's thirst are the worst.

You need a safe space for men's gaming?

 

[Thirty7ven]

Oscars do this all the time. Everything everywhere at once won just this year and is an indie A24 film. Oh and it beat avatar and top gun. Two of the most popular movies of last year.

Fucking coda won last year. Nomadland the year before that. Parasite the year before that.

Moonlight won over lala land, the silent French film the artist won in 2011.

If anything Oscars reward indie movies a whole lot more than big budget movies.

You are mistaking different types of popularity. Popularity amongst those who vote and popularity amongst the audience at large. Completely different and you’re choosing to ignore how more popular at large games consistently get sidestepped.

Not to mention the amount of campaigning that goes on by studios behind the scenes. Coda is a prime example.

 

[RespawnX]

They are just corporate wanking meetings.

Also...

TiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiTs

This. It's more group wanking than anything else. Industry awards are there for industry members to pat each other. In every industry. Without exception. You then package this nicely as cases or products and you have your award. In an industry as young and moderately professionalized as the gaming industry, however, awareness plays a decisive role, as stated.

 

[Madflavor]

Zelda TotK has no microtransactions, the full game is playable without bugs, and you can say mostly the same nice things of love and work that went into it.

I think it's either of the two.

Not necessarily.

Larian is not a studio as large and as experienced as Nintendo. BG3 is a niche genre, TotK isn't, and yet BG3 was so good it broke into the mainstream. BG3 sold far more copies than the average CRPG, by a significant amount. BG3 was built from the ground up, whereas TotK clearly builds off of the foundation of BotW, and reuses many of it's assets, gameplay mechanics, sound, etc.

There's a stronger argument for Baldur's Gate 3 being the more impressive success story. People would much rather see Swen in his full armor get up, take to the stage with his employees, basking in the fact that over the decade they went from a tiny niche studio, to creating one of the best RPGs ever made, and beating the strongest GotY competition we've seen in a very long time. THAT's a success story.

Zelda would be the boring choice.

 

[SRTtoZ]

"milk wagons" xxD

Thank you English language !

The first time I heard milk wagons is when the girl from the AT&T girl did a livestream saying how she hated how much men complimented her body and someone in chat made reference to her milk wagons and she read the comment out loud lol. There was another guy who said something about leaving his entire family for her. Shit was hilarious.

 

[Fess]

These type of women who enter male gaming spaces just to exploit men's thirst are the worst.

Why?? Does it makes you suffer or something?
I see beautiful women as sweet candy in an otherwise dark and boring world. I’m thankful every day. Tbh I have no clue what women even see in us sorry meat bags of man flesh, so if they’re for some unknown reason okay that we’re looking at them then just be grateful that you’re allowed to do that and enjoy life.

 

[Madflavor]

What's up with the hypercriticalness towards her?

As if her opinions are any less valuable than any of our own cause she's hot AF, and leverages it.

Gaf has it's fair share of lonely men who resent women. They see an attractive woman in the gaming space, talking about games, it hilariously triggers the absolute fuck out of them. Alanah threads in particular are a fun read. It separates the men from the boys.

Most of the boys bitching about her in this very thread would freeze up if she even looked in their general direction.

 

[Hudo]

BG3 was built from the ground up

Not true. BG3 couldn't have been made without Original Sin 2 first. It is clearly an evolution of what they established in that game but with that D&D5 ruleset, which is better than that fucking armor system of OS2.

 

[ADiTAR]

Larian is not a studio as large and as experienced as Nintendo. BG3 is a niche genre, TotK isn't, and yet BG3 was so good it broke into the mainstream. BG3 sold far more copies than the average CRPG, by a significant amount. BG3 was built from the ground up, whereas TotK clearly builds off of the foundation of BotW, and reuses many of it's assets, gameplay mechanics, sound, etc.

Just because a studio isn't large doesn't mean love and care didn't go into a project.

BG3, as the 3 in its name suggests, is a continuation of the biggest franchise in CRPG. Two top games that won accolades, I don't get why ignore that.

There's a stronger argument for Baldur's Gate 3 being the more impressive success story. People would much rather see Swen in his full armor get up, take to the stage with his employees, basking in the fact that over the decade they went from a tiny niche studio, to creating one of the best RPGs ever made, and beating the strongest GotY competition we've seen in a very long time. THAT's a success story.

Zelda would be the boring choice.

I get the story, but in theory the award should go to the better game. Maybe it'll be a tie.

 

[Eotheod]

Totes, or just want to actually have a conversation about the topic rather than tits all the fucking time. It was cute and funny the first few times but now it reeks of desperation by some to be seen for a hot take.

 

[Evil Calvin]

​

Alanah Pearce, influencer and writer at Santa Monica Studio recently gave her opinion on The Game Awards. According to her, the show is nothing more than a popularity contest.

Duh

 

[Bruno_Arrais85]

until whatever game she is writing gets nomitated....

 

[LiquidMetal14]

These people get all their ideas from others. And then get glorified by people sharing their content.

I can watch and not share it or just see big boobs lady and have no need to give these people more attention then they already crave.

 

[Madflavor]

Not true. BG3 couldn't have been made without Original Sin 2 first. It is clearly an evolution of what they established in that game but with that D&D5 ruleset, which is better than that fucking armor system of OS2.

I didn't say it was built from scratch. D:OS2 -> BG3 is not even close to the same thing as BotW -> TotK.

Just because a studio isn't large doesn't mean love and care didn't go into a project.

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said that.

BG3, as the 3 in its name suggests, is a continuation of the biggest franchise in CRPG. Two top games that won accolades, I don't get why ignore that.

Made 23 years ago by a completely different studio. I'm talking about Larian. Larian made a GotG type of experience.

I get the story, but in theory the award should go to the better game. Maybe it'll be a tie.

They're both fantastic games, but BG3's development and success given the context, is more impressive. A game is truly special when a bunch of people who've never heard of, or would normally not play the genre, jump in to try it out. Elden Ring managed to do that last year.

 

[MasterDerico]

She is correct.

 

[Hudo]

I didn't say it was built from scratch. D:OS2 -> BG3 is not even close to the same thing as BotW -> TotK.

Fair enough but I also think that you underestimate how much work went into TotK. The physics system alone is much more capable and robust than what we had in BotW (which was just a repurposed Havoc). And all the design work that went around it. And if you believe the official interviews, then retouching Hyrule (and adding the whole underworld and flying isle stuff) is apparently harder than just doing something new from scratch since they wanted to preserve the overall cognitive maps players made and whatnot.

 

[SmokedMeat]

She’s wrong. Cod has the biggest marketing budget and it never gets nominated. A lot of ms first psrty games have huge marketing budgets and they almost never get nominated. Ubisoft games have huge marketing budgets and never get nominated. Ff16 was everywhere and didn’t get nominated. Last year plagues tale got nominated over far bigger games.

Plenty of indie games have gotten nominated. Hades, psychonauts, stray have been nominated each of the last 3 years. And no double fine was pretty much done with psychonauts 2 ms bought them. Celeste was nominated in 2018.

Budgets don’t decide what’s popular.

Also your list of “indies” proves my point, because they’re all well known titles that received loads of media coverage.

Hades from mega popular developer Super Giant had the spotlight on it from the start.

Stray picked up by Sony for timed exclusivity. It was thrust right into the spotlight.

Psychonaut’s 2, a sequel from well known developer Tim Schaefer’s Double Fine studio.

You’ll never see a real indie that noone’s familiar with earn a nomination. It’s all the well known popular indies. Not the indies that don’t have IGN and Gamespot reviews.

 

[thismeinteil]

Gaf has it's fair share of lonely men who resent women. They see an attractive woman in the gaming space, talking about games, it hilariously triggers the absolute fuck out of them. Alanah threads in particular are a fun read. It separates the men from the boys.

Most of the boys bitching about her in this very thread would freeze up if she even looked in their general direction.

No need to white knight. Nothing wrong with people refusing to simp and stating the obvious. That's a real man.

It's not like these people obsessively follow her and harass her about it. Now, that would be a bitch move.

 

[Gambit2483]

I bet she looking at this thread and laughing her ass off...

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

White Knights, incels and misogyny. Wooha!

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

TestifyGaf has it's fair share of lonely men who resent women. They see an attractive woman in the gaming space, talking about games, it hilariously triggers the absolute fuck out of them. Alanah threads in particular are a fun read. It separates the men from the boys.

Most of the boys bitching about her in this very thread would freeze up if she even looked in their general direction.

 

[mansoor1980]

 

[RoboFu]

Gaf has it's fair share of lonely men who resent women. They see an attractive woman in the gaming space, talking about games, it hilariously triggers the absolute fuck out of them. Alanah threads in particular are a fun read. It separates the men from the boys.

Most of the boys bitching about her in this very thread would freeze up if she even looked in their general direction.

I’m old, married, kids.. don’t even know who this girl is beyond a few threads filled with pics of her. But going by the pics she’s definitely is not just “talking about games” she’s selling a fantasy to young boys.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Gaf has it's fair share of lonely men who resent women. They see an attractive woman in the gaming space, talking about games, it hilariously triggers the absolute fuck out of them. Alanah threads in particular are a fun read. It separates the men from the boys.

Most of the boys bitching about her in this very thread would freeze up if she even looked in their general direction.

No need to white knight. Nothing wrong with people refusing to simp and stating the obvious. That's a real man.

It's not like these people obsessively follow her and harass her about it. Now, that would be a bitch move.

If I am being honest I don't think she is all that attractive but I can see where some would

I was lucky enough to marry way out of my league now 23 years ago so FOR ME it takes someone pretty special for me to call hot

 

[adamsapple]

 

[Topher]

If I am being honest I don't think she is all that attractive but I can see where some would

I was lucky enough to marry way out of my league now 23 years ago so FOR ME it takes someone pretty special for me to call hot

Married my high school sweetheart 28 years ago. She is/was way out of my league, but somehow I snagged her.

I don't find Alanah particularly attractive either. Not ugly either. She's got boobs, but she ain't exactly cute.

 

[Arsic]

I bet she looking at this thread and laughing her ass off...

She apparently doesn’t look at any social media towards her , and when colleagues or friends point it out to her she tells them to not do so/she doesn’t care.

So feel free to talk about her mommy milker fun bags she doesn’t give a shit.

 

[Gambit2483]

She apparently doesn’t look at any social media towards her , and when colleagues or friends point it out to her she tells them to not do so/she doesn’t care.

So feel free to talk about her mommy milker fun bags she doesn’t give a shit.

She's a (industry) woman...she looks at social media.

 

[Arsic]

She's a (industry) woman...she looks at social media.

Straight up blocks it.

Here’s where she said that:

https://youtu.be/cyHggtdfDMg?si=y1xjFpuNYU5cSNsp

 

[Gambit2483]

Straight up blocks it.

Here’s where she said that:

Women lie...but

 

[Arsic]

Women lie...but

Who hurt you ?

 

[Gambit2483]

Who hurt you ?

Right question. Wrong Person.