The Game Awards 2021: The Biggest Snubs
Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards is a yearly awards show in which industry professionals nominate top releases for different categories. Fans vote to choose a winner. just released its 2021 nominations. This brings down the number of notable titles that have been released over the past 12 months. 2021 was a strange year for games. Aftershocks from the pandemic have disrupted releases more than last year and supply chain problems have prevented many gamers from getting next-gen consoles.
Although some high-profile releases, such as Psychonauts 2,, Deathloop, and It Takes Two, have received a lot of nominations, the ballot makers left out the best of the crop. We’ll be listing the worst snubs but first we have a few points to make about games that were nominated for certain categories.
Last year’s Cyberpunk2077 received nominations for Best Score and Music, and Best Role Playing Game. Cyberpunk 2077 had a lot of bugs when it launched. It also included seizure-triggering lights, which were needed to be fixed.
Cyberpunk 2077 is technically a role-playing game. You can customize your build and tweak your stats to suit your character, but it doesn’t reward experimentation or tinkering. Cyberpunk’s music is mostly Wish.com Nine Inch Nails, Run The Jewels and a lot of ‘get out the studio by 5’ energy. It was a well-known game, which must have been the reason it was nominated. We still talk about it a year later.
Twelve Minutes, What are You Doing?
Twelve Minutes was nominated as Best Independent Game. Twelve Minutes, a time-loop mystery thriller that draws inspiration from Hitchcock and Kubrick, is nominated for Best Independent Game. Luis Antonio, a former Rockstar and Ubisoft developer, created it. He also worked on the smash hit puzzle game The Witness.
Annapurna Interactive is the publisher of Twelve Minutes, a company that has a history of publishing high-profile titles. The film also stars James McAvoy and Daisy Ridley. You may have different opinions on the game’s point-and-click gameplay or tight, repetitive loop, but it is hard to see Twelve Minutes as an independent underdog given its three Hollywood stars. Indie gaming is a vibrant, growing industry that produces titles that do a lot with very little. It is a shame that this nomination has been missed by one of them, Twelve Minutes.
Devolver Digital is the publisher behind the indie titles Death’s Door and Inscryption. Devolver Digital, a publicly traded company, was valued at $1 billion in the earlier part of this year. Although these developers may be small and independent, they are tied to a large publisher. Are they truly independent? Is it possible for truly independent games to get this type of press?
Now, let’s move on to the games.
