Swen Vincke knew Clair Obscur would win GOTY 2025

I just fired it up again and met my first party member. The story definitely has started now it has me intrigued now. That section with all the bodies and the dark tone here is not what I was expecting. The graphics and music in this game are incredible so far.
Yes the game is touching very mature subject. Some scenes really hit hard.
The game can be really dark but also manages to be light hearted at moments without falling into silliness or breaking the overall mature atmosphere. Love the mix.
 
The game is definitely going to sweep award shows. I can see it winning all of these categories at the VGA and for sure it will be nominated in basically all of them. VGA is decided by game sites and the zeitgeist of what game journos think is going to carry them hard.
  • Game of the Year
  • Best Game Direction
  • Best Narrative
  • Best Art Direction
  • Best Score and Music
  • Best Audio Design
  • Best Performance
  • Best Role Playing Game (RPG)
  • Best Independent Game
  • Best Debut Indie Game
  • Players' Voice (Depending on if a Chinese game is nominated or not.)
 
This is another hipsterism. All Ubi is slop, Doom with a shield is not Doom, modern games suck, Nintendo is for kids, using Steam CCU to prove a point.

This is all YouTube narratives. People parrot it without irony and its embarrassing to watch.

Swen Vicke made his company with publishers, leveraged that success to early access Baulders Gate, then when he has one hit without publisher pressure, turns around and tells all the developers that they need to "develop on their terms", to all the developers who would go bankrupt without publishers.
He isn't saying anything about publishers, he's talking about creative freedom, passion for the medium and the kind of working environment that fosters both. He's saying that games developers have a good time making and believe in, players will have a good time playing and believe in. Games made cynically as part of an ongoing production line will want for lack of creative passion.

It's not hipster nonsense, it's an increasingly unavoidable reality, with massive publishers releasing expensive, flashy games to abysmal results and smaller, less prestigious teams having breakout hits.

For a very recent example, look at the reception to Marathon vs. ARC Raiders. Or go back a year and look at Helldivers 2 vs Suicide Squad.
 
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It will like every Rockstar game, but you would also see literally tens of millions (including the ultra casuals that barely play anything) glazing and damage controlling the game for Rockstar. This is GTA we're talking about. When you've been edging your fanbase for over a decade, be certain that when the game comes out, people will be jizzing all over about the game. I don't see anything winning over GTA6, including a new Zelda, Elden Ring 2, Half Life 3, and all of the big hitters.
Zelda could beat GTA and a 96 aggregate score zelda game got beaten by an independent studio just two years ago. Even though the forums were full of people saying yeah as good as baldurs gate is, it's gonna have no chance against zelda, especially when it was so universally well received by the media.
 
Am yet to play this, but if it has to be my personal GOTY, it will need to do more than story and mature themes.

Looking forward to playing it. Installed on SSD.
 
Explain how something can be niche and sold over 10 million and played by over 20 million?

Explain that...
It can appeal to a certain type of person, but almost everyone that is that type of person could like it, while the majority wouldn't care for it.

For instance if aliens came to earth and asked what the most popular sports were and you told them cricket is second, they would expect to see a lot of people playing it while traveling all around the globe. But that wouldn't be the case.
 
This is another hipsterism. All Ubi is slop, Doom with a shield is not Doom, modern games suck, Nintendo is for kids, using Steam CCU to prove a point.

This is all YouTube narratives. People parrot it without irony and its embarrassing to watch.

Swen Vicke made his company with publishers, leveraged that success to early access Baulders Gate, then when he has one hit without publisher pressure, turns around and tells all the developers that they need to "develop on their terms", to all the developers who would go bankrupt without publishers.
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It will not be as dominant as Elden Ring, but i don't see any competition this year with GTA VI gone. Woke samurai with a wierd actress? Delivery borefest 2? Donkey Kong? That one looks fun, but i can only see it winning in a weak year like 2021 or 2024.
 
You really think it's Grummz and Vara Dark that draw up the nominees for TGA GOTYs? 😃

Most normal people aren't deducting quality points from the game simply because there's a woman protagonist.
Lol if anything the failed journalists now activists are probably gonna score that shit even higher :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
But why do sales matter for GoTY awards or nominees?

I'm having a hard time trying to understand why you're comparing Expedition 33 to Death Stranding's sales in the first place ..

Sales =/= quality but for many Sony fans this is the most important metric.

Clair Obscur won GOTY 2025?

Robin Williams What Year Is It GIF

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Watch death cringe 2 stealing the goty from it.

I think I will love DS2 (I really liked DS1) but I don't think it will reach E33 level in my eyes (I'm ready to be proven wrong Kojima).

Now gaming journalists... Who knows what those slimy bastards choose.
 
This is one of those feelgood clips filled with platitudes that everyone can clap like seals at but which doesn't stand up to the scrutiny of reality. You do have to worry about sales figures and you do have to adapt to what the market wants. If a game doesn't sell, developers will lose their jobs. It's that simple. Here on GAF there is a thread every month about "go woke, go broke" or whatever - are we going to pretend now that there aren't plenty of examples of products that are repellent to their audiences?

It sounds like Swen also believes that everyone should remain employed and free to do as they please independent of consequences like meeting sales targets. Nice thought, but companies are not charities, and when the money runs out they will not subsidize failure or divert the successful areas of their businesses into their losses. This is why you see places like Tango getting closed at Microsoft, because they produced bomb after bomb (irrespective of the game's quality).

It's easy for Swen to smugly get up on stage and decree how game development should be done when he has millions of sales figures to back him up. There are plenty of games doing exactly what he says which fail and the people end up working at McDonald's.
 
DS2 and GoY would have to be exceptionally better than their predecessors to win GotY. Unless there's some game flying under the radar right now that comes out during the 2nd half of 2025 and blows people's socks off, I think CO has it locked.
 
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Where did you see 'flopped' said or insinuated in that block of text?
When you said they released 'player' numbers and not 'sales'. I have seen several posters confidently claim this means a game is a flop.
 
Imagine if somehow an ubisoft game won goty just after that speech :messenger_tears_of_joy:
yeah, the good thing is that Swen has a point and this ll not happen, Goty ll be on the hand of a passion project 100%, KC2, SF, BP, E33 ( my Goty atm ) or DS2, anything else this year dont have a chance, GoY has to be really good do be even nominated.
 
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The game is an all time great.
It not just the style, or the gameplay, or the music, or the story....it is ALL of those things.

GOTY
Sound Track of the Year
RPG of the Year
Best Game Direction
Breakout Studio Award
Independent Game of the Year
Best Narrative
Voice actor of the year: Multiple Ties: Jennifer English, Charlie Cox, and Kristy Rider.

It will also DEMOLISH most of the awards here on Gaf. While we are a rowdy bunch and love to crap on each other, BUT you can tell shit is getting real when you have the type of consensus this forum had in the OT and the spoiler thread.
Yep. It will likely win. Being a new IP, it will destroy other 'more of the same' sequels like DS2, KCD2, Prime 2, Doom TDA, Monster Hunter Wilds, Ass Creed Shadows, Civ 7, Borderlands 4.........all the same crap.

Only Blue Prince, Avowed and CO: Expedition 33 should win. (all new IP's too.....and yes Avowed is a new IP but set in the Pillars world)
 
Zelda could beat GTA and a 96 aggregate score zelda game got beaten by an independent studio just two years ago. Even though the forums were full of people saying yeah as good as baldurs gate is, it's gonna have no chance against zelda, especially when it was so universally well received by the media.
Yes it could, but not gta6. Rockstar has been edging everyone for too damn long. When your game is anticipated for almost 15 years, there is zero chance of anybody winning against it. This is a guaranteed i'd bet money on np.
 
Am playing through it. Wont comment for now.

It is however, successor to best fps ever made IMO. That carries some weight, no?
gameplay is really good and thats it, story is Doom story, music is Doom music, narrative ? character development ??

i ll give you that ll prob win FPS of the year, but goty ???

No Way Mac GIF by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
 
gameplay is really good and thats it, story is Doom story, music is Doom music, narrative ? character development ??

i ll give you that ll prob win FPS of the year, but goty ???

No Way Mac GIF by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Fair enough.

I do feel pretentious games win due to these criteria.

But they do make exceptions for Nintendo games somehow 🤔
 
What he said was pure demagogy, a pure poser. Game publishers and developers who have to justify budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and try to make sure it comes back to ensure their survival, they are companies and not charities.

P.S.: Clair Obscur won't win the GOTY at all
 
What he said was pure demagogy, a pure poser. Game publishers and developers who have to justify budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and try to make sure it comes back to ensure their survival, they are companies and not charities.

P.S.: Clair Obscur won't win the GOTY at all
lets see what big corporate +200mil budget game ll win Goty this year
 
We are still in May...
Some people just have too emotional response to recent stimuli

PS. Metaphor didn't won GOTY even though it ranked higher
 
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DS2 and GoY would have to be exceptionally better than their predecessors to win GotY. Unless there's some game flying under the radar right now that comes out during the 2nd half of 2025 and blows people's socks off, I think CO has it locked.
Crimson desert is the only wild card i can think off.
 
I don't like persona but I do like the new turn based like a dragon games. I don't really like the uninteresting and safe characters in a lot of modern rpg games but I did like baldurs gate. Would I enjoy this game?
 
Yes it could, but not gta6. Rockstar has been edging everyone for too damn long. When your game is anticipated for almost 15 years, there is zero chance of anybody winning against it. This is a guaranteed i'd bet money on np.
I mean it's likely. I don't think it's guaranteed, certainly not if the game doesn't deliver at launch.
 
I mean it's likely. I don't think it's guaranteed, certainly not if the game doesn't deliver at launch.
Why won't it deliver? Just like with GTA5, the singleplayer portion will be good (if you're into these games of course), and polished. The singleplayer will also serve as a foundation for its online, and you want that foundation to be as good as possible because billions will be made from it.
 
Switch 2 will have at least one game fighting for the goty awards, maybe Metroid, maybe something else. Death Stranding 2 is a sure candidate, especially in Geoff's awards show. Clair Obscur will definitely be included considering the impact it's made.

KCD2 is my personal goty so far, but I think it'll have a tough time making it to the main category in mainstream awards shows. Games from the beginning of the year are often forgotten and it's also a more demanding title, both in terms of gameplay and also when it comes to forcing you to know the story and mechanics of KCD1.
 
Why won't it deliver? Just like with GTA5, the singleplayer portion will be good (if you're into these games of course), and polished. The singleplayer will also serve as a foundation for its online, and you want that foundation to be as good as possible because billions will be made from it.
GTA V is 12 years old. 12 years ago it wasn't yet normal to release unfinished games and fix it later. Not saying VI will be like that, but yeah i'll believe it when i see it. Plenty of other reasons too. Game could be too ambitious for it's own good and end up doing too many things but not excelling at anything. I don't really believe that, but who knows. No game is guaranteed to be good regardless of the history of the studio. We've seen it time and time again.

People thought starfield was gonna be amazing but expected it to be full of bugs. Because every other bethesda game in the last 2 decades was amazing and full of bugs. Turns out it ended up just being mid and full of bugs.
 
GTA V is 12 years old. 12 years ago it wasn't yet normal to release unfinished games and fix it later. Not saying VI will be like that, but yeah i'll believe it when i see it. Plenty of other reasons too. Game could be too ambitious for it's own good and end up doing too many things but not excelling at anything. I don't really believe that, but who knows. No game is guaranteed to be good regardless of the history of the studio. We've seen it time and time again.

People thought starfield was gonna be amazing but expected it to be full of bugs. Because every other bethesda game in the last 2 decades was amazing and full of bugs. Turns out it ended up just being mid and full of bugs.
RDR2 is from 2018, which is in the middle of the unfinished/unpolished games shitshow that we're still in, and the game was glorious. No shot they ain't going all hands on deck for their biggest IP, and that includes polishing and finishing everything. 2K might be a bunch of greedy bishes, but they understand how to create a foundation to milk with mtx for years and years after launch.
 
Couldnt be more spot on.


If you had said ANY name but Swen Vincke I would have made fun of you, OP, and also claimed that I predicted it too(which I did not).

But instead, you said the magic name.
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Also guys, Mibu no ookami Mibu no ookami is right. There is a lot of green left on the table this year. You are counting your fucking chickens right now boys. Don't count the chickens. I hope a game DOES come out to give this one a run. I expect the MK Tour game to outmetacritic it, just off the top. A 92 is very beatable and Nintendo has cooked for 9 years. Also I'm not sure there isn't a holiday surprise this year. Pick your battles. You are probably right this year but keep thinking like this and eventually you will be wrong. That said, E33 is absolutely a GOAT and I'm so appreciative of it. I would love to see it get all the awards but not at the expense of other goats that we might also get. E33 is definitely head and shoulders above the pack atm. You know they are probably already working on an xpak and Switch 2 port.
 
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