Tis the season for awards
Valve has announced the nominees for its annual Steam Awards. This is a chance for the Steam community to vote for their favourite games in each category starting today, December 20th. Past awards Valve has presented have been classic categories like Game of the Year, Best Soundtrack, etc.. This year we see the return of some categories exclusive to the Steam Awards such as Better with Friends. But enough about the categories, here are the nominees Valve has announced:
- PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS
- MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance
- HITMAN™ 2
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
- VRChat
- Beat Saber
- Fallout 4 VR
- SUPERHOT VR
- Dota 2
- Grand Theft Auto V
- No Man’s Sky
- Path of Exile
- Stardew Valley
- The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt
- Subnautica
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Far Cry 5
- DARK SOULS™ III
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Siege
- PAYDAY 2
- Dead by Daylight
- Overcooked! 2
- Wolfeinstein II: The New Colossus
- Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey
- Hearts of Iron IV
- Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI
- Fallout 4
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Rocket League
- NieR: Automata
- Factorio
- Space Engineers
- CD PROJEKT RED
- Ubisoft
- Bethesda
- Rockstar Games
- Digital Extremes Ltd.
- Square Enix
- Capcom
- Paradox Interactive
- BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
- Klei
Let’s talk about some of the choices here
What stands out for this writer is that about half of these games didn’t even come out in 2018. I suppose Valve expanded the list of contenders based on the popularity of the titles throughout the year, but it kind of defeats the purpose of having annual awards if games can win any year. Granted, the category Labor of Love sounds like it implies effort from a developer over an extended time, we can accept that.
Some of the categories appear to kind of arbitrary. Best Alternate History? Most Fun with a Machine? We could talk all day about the potential for fun 2B could be, but presence of machines in nominees NieR: Automata and Euro Truck Simulator 2 is pretty different. Every game based on planet Earth has an “alternate history”. What exactly qualifies a title to be nominated for these categories? Past categories that have been retired include the Whoooaaaaaaa, Dude! Award and Defies Description Award. What do these even mean? Categories with strange names are absent in this years nominations, so maybe Valve is done confusing even themselves.
The last category on this year’s list is the Best Developer category. Along with the nominee announcements, Valve said that there are so many contenders in this category because of how competitive it was. Some of these developers might have trouble securing the award due to recent controvercies *ahem Bethesda ahem*, while others like Rockstar have consistently proved themselves over the past few years.
What do you think about this year’s Steam Awards nominees? Do you have predictions or games you think Valve overlooked? Let us know down below.
Source: YouTube – The Know