As any proper award ceremenoy, useless popularity garbage. Rdr2 a labor of love? After they abandoned the multiplayer cause they coudnt give it money printing shark cards?

And starfield is innovative? In what? Being the laziest pile of poo that people still bought?

What a bunch of drivel

Starfield won the innovative gameplay award? RDR2 won labor of love award? Some of these winners are extremely strange.

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I’m upset that HiFi Rush didn’t win anything at all

Anyone who didn’t expect BG3 to win Game of the Year has been under a rock since it launched O.o Anyone who expected Starfield to win Most Innovative Gameplay, are you offering divination services to the public?

Damn, I know some people are dead-set on insisting that Starfield isn’t that bad but… innovative?? Really??? Most innovative?!?? Baffling!

There is no way they actually gave “Most innovative gameplay” to Starfield. And on top of that Best Soundtrack to Last of Us Part 1? Did they change the soundtrack for the remaster? How is it even nominated in 2023?

Starfield won “most innovative” which immediately denigrates and insults literally every other game that received an award.

What an actual fucking joke.

BG3 getting GOTY makes complete sense, I’ve put like 1k hours into the game and every play through has been different and engaging.

The voice actress for aylin and the voice actor for ketheric are simply amazing, but honestly all the VA’s did an amazing job.

As much as I love RDR2 it did not deserve, at all, labour of love.

RDR2 beating DRG and DOTA 2 for Labor of Love is a fucking joke. Even RUST and APEX still get regular updates.

Outstanding visual style for Atomic Heart?! Are you shitting me? Only unique visuals in that is the faceless sex bots and it’s a terrible game overall. Wholly undeserved.

Most Innovative Gameplay for STARFIELD?! OF ALL GAMES?! Yikes. Just… fucking yikes.

This is… A weird spread of awards…

Like BG3 winning GOTY and story rich makes total sense.

But RDR2 won labor of love? What? Lol. Have they been putting out massive updates lately or something?

Atomic heart won visual style… Sure? I mean I guess it’s atmospheric but I wouldn’t call it particularly stylized.

Lethal company getting better with friends is a solid pick

Hogwarts Legacy is best on deck? The fuck? Lol I suppose i haven’t played this one but I was under the impression the game was like… Fine? Kinda boring after a while but still playable? It’s not horribly offensive but how does a game like that win an award for being the most beloved steam deck game lol

STARFIELD WON FUCKING WHAT??? Okay, I was not as big a starfield hater as some. I thought it was boring as shit for sure but I don’t think it’s completely without merit on the whole… But Innovative? Fucking LOL! Starfield innovated exactly 0 things, hell it retroactively made things from 2011 seem new by comparison. I don’t think theres a single fresh idea in that entire game. Starfield winning most innovative game paints a very uncomfortable picture of the steam awards. There is CLEAR tampering going on here, either by bots vote spamming, or just a behind the curtain dealings with Bethesda. To be honest every single other award here feels tenuous at best just by Starfield winning that specific award. If that boring ass rehash of 2007 gameplay can be called the most innovative game on steam then I’m not sure I can trust any of these games actually got nominated by real players for any of their respective awards. What a fucking joke

I’m shocked Pizza Tower lost soundtrack though.

Most Innovative Gameplay Award - Starfield

ahahahahahahahahahaahah 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂🤣🤣😹🤣🤣😹no fucking way

Such nonsensical results. It really is a popularity contest.

At this point, I think it’s clear that voting restrictions of some sort are necessary. My first thought: players can only vote in a category if they’ve got at least 5 hours of total gameplay distributed amongst at least 25% of the games in that category, with a minimum of 30 minutes of gameplay per game.

The fact that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk didn’t make any of the lists, especially for the soundtrack category, was disappointing. The fact that a fucking remake won the best soundtrack category is straight-up gross. Valve should honestly disqualify remakes from the steam awards. There are a few exceptions, like I think Halo’s MCC is worthy of standing by itself, but they’ve gotta do something more than remaster some textures and throw in a few new models.

Steam has once again shown us the flaws of a direct democracy, in that idiots get an equal vote to informed people. Really the only winner that makes sense is Baldur’s Gate 3. Even discounting the obviously silly ones, like a game that hasn’t been updated in three years winning Labor of Love, something like Hogwarts Legacy is a generic by-the-numbers open world collectathon that’s nowhere near the best thing you can play on the Deck. Atomic Heart’s visual style is a 2008 shooter with a sprinkle of Sovietpunk. Neither the Last of Us Part 1 or SIFU even came out in 2023.

On the one hand, you can make a clear argument that 2023 was a pretty shitty year for games, and say “sure the awards look stupid, but nothing good came out.” That’s a pretty fair take for AAA, but a ton of incredible games came out in the AA and indie space. Some of them, like Lethal Company and Dave the Diver, were mentioned, but tons of great games weren’t even nominated. I think Valve needs to do a better job of policing the nominations if they want to show off more of the creative and original titles that go to Steam. Otherwise, we’ll just keep recognizing derivative garbage, since it usually has the most money behind it.