Thoughts on the Game Awards 2022 Nominations: A Whole Bag of Shit!
-For the Uncensored!
It’s really apparent when video games that receive awards have a few objectives in mind. With A Plague Tale: Requiem, Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok, Stray, and Horizon: Forbidden West, are all games that have no argument of being nominated. All nominees, including Stray, were all unabashedly controversial picks, except for Plague Tale and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Enjoyment and story factor, probably.
Why is that? Well, with God of War, Horizon: Forbidden West, and Elden Ring are only appealing to their fans, and that’s not entirely a bad thing. Awards shows are meant to gauge what the audience should be able to honor. Not exactly controlling what the audience wills to win. For those who don’t know, it’s not picked directly by the people, but the industry itself.
What makes 2022’s picks, other than pretending to give a shit about the players, especially Elden Ring, which decreased their difficulty level for the casual gamers, but then increasing it after they sold a record 12 million copies. Yes, this isn’t new, but the weird decision to nominate Elden Ring, isn’t surprising, and From Software are always critical darlings to the industry and fans.
All of the nominees are visually stunning, just from mere trailers, alone, but to me, trailers don’t always make a great game. Just remember the ordeal of Watch Dogs in 2013 boasting new state of the art graphics, but turns out it was a slice level. It was sliced out to look better than the original product would turn out to be.
Luckily this wasn’t the case for God of War. But God of War: Ragnarok was released on 11/09/2022, through Chris Moye’s Destructoid.com article, “Day 1 physical sales were already greater than any other full-week launch sales for other titles in this franchise.” Bloch also notes that 55% of PS5 hardware sales this past week consisted of God of War Ragnarok bundles.”[1] But this doesn’t make much difference because no sales were given in the article itself.
(Like I said the trailer is great, but why other than this and Last of Us Part 1 Remake is the only reason to buy a Playstation system. Just get a Steam system, probably)
All of the Metacritic reviews, with a 9.4 critic score and 8.4 user score[2], only makes the nominations from the critics bodes a sus[3] but usual procedure from the Game Awards. While the only game, Plague Tale: Requiem, actually thrilled and depressed me at the same time, was the only game that managed to earn its place.
But then again, enjoyment should be the primary mode of video games. Not everyone wants to base games on awards qualifications. People just want to enjoy games, just like all gamers, do. But again, let’s just remember that awards never determine what a classic video game or piece of art is. Just until someone throws paint on it and then glues itself to the piece of art itself.
Then we can start jailing people for war crimes against great piece of art.
[1] https://www.destructoid.com/god-of-war-ragnarok-day-one-sales-break-record-money-playstation/. Found 11.15.2022.
[2] https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/god-of-war-ragnarok?ref=hp. Found 11.15.2022. Score might change from the date provided in the source.
[3] Suspect.
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 20 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline Part 2: Chaos, The Data Chase, The Disintegrating Bloodline part 3: Solvè, The Disintegrating Bloodline (and the original text re-released in 2019), Apocalypse Soldier, The Data Chase, Selection: The First Book of the Life and Death Saga, and Blinking Eyes: The Second Book of the Life and Death Saga, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep, The City of Sand, The God of Curiosity, To the Moon and Back, The Villain Lives and The Villain Lives: The Divided Pinpoint, Come Home, Young One. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Phoenix. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisBr88881650. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His newest book, The Voices Are Alive is out now: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/the-voices-are-alive/hardcover/product-mvggdg.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. If you do Subscribe, you have long term access to the paid articles that some readers won’t get to see or access after the articles/books go private. If that doesn’t tickle your pickle, I am also selling merch from t spring, if you want to help support me in other ways. I sell hoodies, shirts, phone cases, and trying to find something there loved ones would like. Links here: https://thereallouistbruno.creator-spring.com/listing/too-many-strings-not-enough. https://thereallouistbruno.creator-spring.com/listing/duck-fuckery. https://thereallouistbruno.creator-spring.com/listing/headless-corpo. Every little like, subscribe share, helps. Thanks for reading.