The Steam Awards
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Vote for the 2023 Steam Award nominees during the Winter Sale starting on December 21st at 10am Pacific.

Game of the Year Award - Baldur’s Gate 3

VR Game of the Year Award - Labyrinthine

Labor of Love Award - Red Dead Redemption 2

Best Game on Steam Deck Award - Hogwarts Legacy

Better With Friends Award - Lethal Company

Outstanding Visual Style Award - Atomic Heart

Most Innovative Gameplay Award - Starfield

Best Game You Suck At Award - SIFU

Best Soundtrack Award - The Last of Us Part I

Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award - Baldur’s Gate 3

Sit Back and Relax Award - Dave the Diver

RxBrad
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1511Y

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7
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1Y

Deleted.
Who knows. Kids voted on this stuff.

RxBrad
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181Y

deleted by creator

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1Y

It’s a massive game that was absolutely a labor of love, but it’s Rockstar we’re talking about here. They turn love into microtx and milk it till it’s dry. Then it’s to the meat packing facilities for a little mobile/console porting so it’s innards can be broken up to be resold 😂. No real fault to the devs, art team, and story team that absolutely did put love into the game though.

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21Y

Yeah that was basically my original comment too, but I realized that’s not what the award is actually for.

RxBrad
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131Y

deleted by creator

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11Y

Yeah, but who reads the descriptions?

RxBrad
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11Y

deleted by creator

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11Y

Rule #1 of any UI design is “Nobody reads anything”

Just rename the award. Best Ongoing Development? Best Live Service Experience?

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361Y

Why was Cyberpunk not even a finalist? They released a massive update this year and have pretty much fixed the game and added lots of new content through the DLC.

Cowbee [he/they]
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251Y

Cyberpunk legitimately turned itself around and won back the public after a disastrous launch, just like NMS did.

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31Y

Still wondering why the fuck RDR2 was on the nominations at all

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1161Y

Starfield is the one of the least innovative games I’ve ever played. How the fuck did it win that?

@[email protected]
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31Y

Ah, but you did play it. That’s the point.

R0cket_M00se
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71Y

The innovations in menu UI is out of this world!

1bluepixel
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401Y

Steam Awards, like any publicly-voted award, is a name recognition contest.

@[email protected]
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301Y

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

@[email protected]
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-11Y

Nah, this makes sense to me.

In order to get full credit (for the badge or card or whatever they had), you had to vote for every category.

I’ve never played a VR game, but I still had to vote in that category, so I just… picked something.

RDR2 is something a lot of folks have played. Hogwarts is something a lot of folks have played.

@[email protected]
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11Y

Good. Well deserved IMO.

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2031Y

When Starfield wins most innovative, that’s when you can disregard the rest.

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11Y

I voted for without a doubt, which i though was gonna win the most innovative

@[email protected]
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-31Y

Some viewpoints would prefer it if you wrote off bg3 that way.

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21Y

Some viewpoints are actually wrong that way.

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101Y

This is why children don’t get to vote when it really matters.

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71Y

It’s the reason why I don’t ever pay attention to gamers’ choice awards etc. For all the shit that critics get, usually I agree with their consensus

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801Y

Sifu, TLOU and RDR2 aren’t even from 2023 as well…

What a load of shite.

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841Y

TLOU Part 1 was a 2023 release, even though it’s just a remake but at least I can let that slide. Even SIFU was a 2023 Steam release so I can let that slide. RDR2 is in a category that specifically built for games before 2023. What I can’t let slide is giving it the labor of love award. It hasn’t been touched since launch and the online component is a gong-show because of it’s bugs and cheaters. Even the singleplayer mode had a huge audio bug that affected many people (including myself) and the only work around was getting some guys script that you have to run before launching the game.

It’s completely abandoned by Rockstar and does not deserve to come anywhere close to the “Labor of Love” award.

@[email protected]
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11Y

What audio problem? because I had issues with my surround sound in which the channels where jumping all over the place. Support wasn’t much help and if that was the same problem then I wish I had found that sooner

@[email protected]
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151Y

Fair enough about RDR2 being in the right category, even though that’s still wrong 😆

I’m less willing to let TLOU and SIFU slide though, it’s “technically” correct but in reality it’s just stupid for these games to be in 2023 awards.

Remakes in particular boil my piss. They’re lazy, “play it safe” games instead of companies taking risks making new games, so I don’t think they should be eligible for awards imo.

@[email protected]
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1Y

The TLOU and SIFU remakes shouldn’t get as much scrutiny as you’re giving them, before the remakes released they were console exclusive, the reason these types of remakes are bad is because some of them are lazy and unplayable at launch (like the TLOU remake). But you’re right, they shouldn’t have been in the steam awards even if they technically did release on steam in 2023.

@[email protected]
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I think there’s a right way and a wrong way to do a remake/remaster. If a game doesn’t run well on modern hardware and/or its online features are long gone, a remake can be justified. But to be a truly great remaster, it should also improve upon the original without messing with what made it great.

For example, the Age of Empires remasters were phenomenal, and the AoE2 remaster in particular basically revived the entire series. Not only did it add a fresh coat of paint visually, proper HD/widescreen support, stability updates, and such, there’s been a pretty solid stream of new content and extended support. And it wasn’t even sold as a full-price title to begin with.

But remakes of games that still run fine on modern hardware, don’t really add much of anything new, and are priced at or near full-price? Yeah, cheap cash grab. There’s no reason to remake a game less than 10 years old.

Aatube
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the award heist is going smoothly. theyll never know what hit them. but even though everyone banded together to put my crappy scribbles on the lineup, i need you to click on them AGAIN because gaben DOESNT WANT US TO WIN!!!

who is stronger, todd howard (1 man) or the HUSTLERS (millions)

—Game developer of Your Only Move Is HUSTLE, a fellow innovative award finalist

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.

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311Y

Wow I’m embarrassed by the choices of steam users. Lethal company and BG3 make sense but the rest don’t.

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181Y

Sifu does since it just got released on steam this year.

RDR2 and Starfield though are just idiotic

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801Y

Starfield for most innovative gameplsy? Am I missing something or do people on Steam ride that Bethesda cock hard?

Aielman15
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411Y

At the time I’m writing this, recent reviews reached mostly negative (29%), and all-time reviews are mixed (64%). Which is honestly a lot more than it deserves, but I would hardly call that “riding Bethesda’s cock”.

It’s probably just a matter of big games getting more votes, because of name recognition. This is just a popularity contest, after all.

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231Y

Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if most people chose it as a joke.

@[email protected]
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311Y

Best guess is people voted it because they didn’t know any of the other games and didn’t bother to check.

MeanEYE
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131Y

I just came here to ask the same question. It’s not innovative one bit, it’s a clone of No Man’s Sky, and a shitty one at that.

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31Y

They copied shouts from Skyrim, except worse, that’s how un-innovative it was.

MeanEYE
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21Y

Wow, didn’t know that one. At this point I am convinced Todd will count this game as success. Earned money and they didn’t have to try.

@[email protected]
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111Y

The steam awards were never anything but a contest about which game is the most known. I really dislike them due to that, but at least one title (BG3 deserved it this year)

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11Y

Your Only Move is Hustle

Starfield

Shadows of Doubt

Contraband Police

Remnant 2

Which game out of the choices given do you think most people have heard of?

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31Y

Yeah that’s pretty awful

germtm.
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331Y

BG3 winning GOTY and LC winning BWF awards make sense. what doesn’t make sense is Starfield being innovative, RDR2 having constant dev support and Pizza Tower being robbed for the second time.

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1Y

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.

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11Y

Was Ketheric the one voiced by JK Simmons? Maybe I’ve got them mixed up with another character, but I remember being surprised to hear him, followed by incredibly disappointed by how bad his delivery was.

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21Y

I thought Ketherics delivery was great but maybe we chose different paths? I’ve played a couple of durge runs and several mostly-positive runs where I attempted to turn ketheric to the light, so perhaps I missed the bad parts?

IIRC JK Simmons was Ketheric

wootz
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11Y

I think what comes across as bad delivery is intentional uncaring jadedness from Simmons part.

I felt the same way, possibly having been over-hyped by the prospect of hearing a villain voiced by the man who gave us Cave Johnson, and then… meh?

Seeing the behind the scenes footage of all the voice actors in the booth, it definitely feels like he’s trying, so maybe the lines are weird or it’s just hard to play a guy who is both figuratively and literally dead inside?

I definitely agree, Ketheric struggles a lot with delivery. I think, at the very least, that I expected him to “open the trottle” at the end and finally let loose, but he still felt restrained.

@[email protected]
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21Y

That’s fair, I’m sure there were a ton of lines he recorded lol! I’ll have to give it another chance on this next playthrough, as my memory is from months ago at this point. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

@[email protected]
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121Y

That and RDR2 make no sense. What did they add to RDR2? It’s just a good game that still exists, they aren’t continuing to work on it.

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11Y

deleted by creator

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41Y

You are absolutely correct and I amended my comment because as much as I enjoy RDR2, having to navigate their god awful DRM every time I open one of their games is easily one of the most annoying things in gaming. Not to mention I don’t even think R* has done any serious updates to the game since release

@[email protected]
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41Y

1000 hours? Really? BG3 came out 153 days ago, which means you would have spent, on average, 6 and a half hours a day every day since then playing just that game. I’m not saying you’re lying… but I kind of am? (if true, seek help)

Regardless, what you said is true. BG3 offers so many options that each playthrough is so drastically different, the replayability is as close to infinite as any story-based game has gotten IMO. It’s kind of amazing the game works at all, let alone works as well as it does.

@[email protected]
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4
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1Y

I apologize, I inflated my time by 370.1 hours

Not as bad as my rimworld situation:

@[email protected]
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21Y

Do you leave your games idle a lot?

Because a full-time job is around 2000 hours a year.

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Technically yes for rimworld cause once you get a larger colony completing anything takes forever because it doesn’t support multi-threading.

It helps that all my friends are gamers and no family in the picture.

I’ve also got my stuff setup in such a way that I can do cardio while I play video games.

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371Y

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

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81Y

Maybe it should have had an amazing soundtrack like The last of Us

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101Y

TLOU does have an amazing soundtrack but come on it was released eons ago. Justice for Chai

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-11Y

You mean Horny Simulator.

Space Sloth
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321Y

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.

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51Y

for real… RDR2 has been abandoned years ago

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11Y

It’s not even that big of a surprise after last year’s “best VR game” was Hitman 3. That game’s VR support is, excuse my language, absolute fucking dogshit.

Bonelab was a disappointment, absolutely, but at least it was a proper damn VR game and not a mediocre game with VR tacked on for literally no reason but, I assume, some exec’s feature checklist

@[email protected]
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81Y

I had a similar reaction on these titles…honestly I felt that the results were rigged. Is it just me?

@[email protected]
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61Y

I don’t know but it would be very like Valve to put zero effort into ensuring it’s not manipulated.

That said, most large polls trend much more mainstream than people expect.

Starfield may have been a bold new frontier in mediocrity but it nevertheless had about 2 million more chances to be someomes favorite game compared to some indie title.

Space Sloth
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161Y

Probably just the fact that it’s a popularity contest. Doubt it’s rigged, it’s just poorly moderated and fabricated.

@[email protected]
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11Y

Thanks, makes much more sense. Too bad that some great titles lost just because they were not so popular. To be fairer Steam should add some rules like: of you didn’t play the game, you cannot vote it…

@[email protected]
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41Y

But why would RDR2 Fans give it the Labor of Love award with Rockstar that abandoned it years ago to focus on selling more Microtransaction in GTA-Online

RxBrad
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11Y

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