Is The Game Awards 2024 Rigged?

A tide of skepticism has been rising against the Game Awards in recent years. A portion of the gaming community believes that The Game Awards is manipulated or influenced by major corporations to spotlight their investments. Whether it's true or not, I'm not here to delve into that debate. Although I have never cast a ballot for The Game Awards, I have never missed one of their events—especially when it comes to seeing the announcements and unveilings.

There's hardly any doubt that, just like me, every video game enthusiast, journalist, and millions of gamers won't miss out on this event due to the number of surprises that are revealed by several publishers. This year, in particular, everyone will be eyeing the announcement of the GTA VI release date and some of the highly anticipated titles from PlayStation studios.

Well, The Game Awards 2024 finalists were revealed by Geoff Keighley, and PlayStation fans are in for a real treat. This year at The Game Awards 2024, PlayStation 5 exclusives have been all over the place, with nominations for award after award, including many major ones for different categories for the Game of the Year award. Apart from that, two PlayStation 5 exclusives—Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth—made the finalist list. Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, Black Myth: Wukong, and indie sensation Balatro are their opponents.

The inclusion of DLC, remasters, and remakes in the Game of the Year category caused quite a dispute, particularly because it allowed Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, to become a part of the roster. This obviously scares other publishers and developers of the other games in the finalist category. Though I don't mind this at all, being an Elden Ring fan and having played the Shadow of the Erdtree for over 300 hours. If FromSoftware hadn't released it as a DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree was much better than most of the so-called AAA titles that came out this year, with way more depth and replayability.

I'm also delighted that Black Myth: Wukong made it among the finalists. If I put it simply, Black Myth: Wukong does everything right in all the departments and is an absolute beast. Being Game Science's first major AAA release and based on ancient Chinese mythology, it has become one of the best-selling video games of all time since its debut on August 20. The game has surpassed 20 million copies sold, and I'm not at all surprised with the numbers. It's also one of the best games I've played this year and deserves to be among the finalists.

Though I'll be honest here, I never heard of Balatro before this announcement came. It appears, at first glance, to be the type of game you might play through one time before deleting it. Card games have never been my strongest forte, but I'm not surprised that it made it to the list. In 2022, Vampire Survivors won NoobFeed's game of the year despite the presence of ELDEN RING, so why not Balatr? The game seems to be doing well on Steam, with close to 50K overwhelmingly positive reviews. So, as long as people are having fun with a game, I don't see any problem with it being nominated for the GOTY award.

However, it seems that not everyone in the gaming media is pleased because Dragon Age: The Veilguard was completely ignored. Despite a final Metacritic score of 82, reactions to The Veilguard have been varied. An official BioWare stat says sales of The Veilguard have surpassed one million copies. On the other hand, a plethora of information regarding the dismal sales figures, terrible reviews, astonishing return rate, and falling resale value has leaked out of BioWare and EA since The Veilguard was released.

I, too, think this game doesn't deserve to be among any of the categories. I've played all the Dragon Age games, starting from Origins and Inquisition, and The Veilguard was an utter disappointment if you're truly a long-time fan of this series. Those who are crying out for this game to be among the GOTY nominees are probably trying to change the definition of a good game.

So, to answer the question I raised at the beginning; Is The Game Awards 2024 Rigged? I'd say, No, it's not. Yes, there are some questionable selections, but none of them are overly debatable. Obviously, not everyone will be happy about it, and I, too, am not pleased about a few selections because I didn't like those games, such as Life is Strange: Double Exposure being an impactful game, really? But it's the overall gaming community that matters. I'm all right with a game, even a DLC like Shadow of the Erdtree or a Remake like Silent Hill 2, winning the GOTY award, even if I didn't like it while the majority of the gamers did.