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Players voted for some of the worst choices possible in the Steam AwardsWere the votes ironic?
Were the votes ironic?
The player-voted Steam Awards have reached their conclusion, and the results are aboutas weird as the nominees. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the weirdest game possible won in several categories, such asRed Dead Redemption 2for the Labor Of Love award andStarfieldfor “Most Innovative Gameplay”.
“Most Innovative” meanwhile goes to a game “at the front lines of creative experimentation,” one which brings “a fresh perspective and brain-breaking surprises”, according to Steam’s own description.Skyrimwith more loading screens seems an odd choice for such an award.
There are ways to control for this, particularly if you’re a small team of journalists (hi). I’d guess that Valve, in some way, have tried to control for it via the categories they’ve selected, which attempt to set a more specific criteria than just “I’ve played this, it’s good” for the people casting votes. On this evidence, it hasn’t worked, and voters have jammed the big game they’ve played into holes that don’t seem a natural fit.
To be clear: I don’t hate Red Dead 2 or Starfield, but they’re obviously poor fits for the categories they’ve won.
Thefull list of victorsdoes contain some more reasonable results.Lethal Companywon the “Better With Friends award”, which probably reflects some recency bias but is at least a genuine co-op sensation.Baldur’s Gate 3won Game Of The Year and Outstanding Story-Rich Game, and there is genuine consensus that it’s great.
Here’s the complete list of Steam Awards 2023 winners:
