Every review was along the lines of ‘good first hour, the rest was bland and boring’. Not really GOTY material.

People talk about Baldur's Gate for months after it's released. Nobody talked about this after two weeks. Same with Starfield.
- I'm not much of a gamer anymore but cultural osmosis and all, I genuinely was surprised to find out Starfield was a bethesda game
  
  The true hot take most aren't ready to hear is that launch Starfield is a better RPG than launch Skyrim and launch Fallout 4, even if it's a mediocre game overall.
  
  not much of a gamer anymore
  How's it feel being free from the slop and
  brainworms?
- my tiktok is still full of asterion and karlach thirst
  i mean im responsible for my content but its still there
- I literally just hit 500 hours. I bought it on launch day and have played it 4 full times and running three active play throughs. One solo, one with my wife, one with a close friend.
  Still having an absolute blast just trying all the things. Currently playing a dark urge drow and it's so different from even my dark urge tiefling. And very very different from my goodie two shoes paladin. Ugh I'm just having so much fun with it lol
- i heard about it from somebody doing a review of black hair in animation. apparently it's pretty good in that regard and that regard only

It DESERVES a spotlight.
It's mid. Deal with it.
- It is incredibly mid. My wife played it and outside of some areas she said it was boring and repetitive
  
  Wot if ur AAA Ubisoft-style bloated action adventure was based on a problematic YA series?

Meanwhile the game where you can be in queer polyam relationships with your entire party and it's fine is going to win most of the awards. Go woke get paid, apparently.
- Go woke get paid, apparently.
  Or fuck, just write some dialogue that isn't more thin and wooden than an IKEA bedroom suite.
  Much like Disco Elysium, the game does afford you plenty of opportunities to be a pig, a freak, and a sadistic asshole by turns (hell, they even give you a background that's carte blanche murder-hobo). There's no reason Hogwarts-heads can't live out their most fascist fantasies by playing a full team of slavish dogmatic Githyanki or rolling Trad Clerics who go from scene to scene and murdering every White Knight and Goth Girl they come across. Its all available to you, if you don't mind short-circuiting a bunch of fun cut scenes.
  Half the joke of BG3 is how accommodating it is to virtually every play style you can imagine by padding out the plot. You'd never know it was Woke unless you insisted on staring over someone's shoulder through their entire play.
  
  It's not enough to be able to choose to be a fascist piece of shit, other options must be locked from the player entirely to satisfy
  
  See their reaction to Kingdom Come: Deliverance for instance
- Is that Baldurs Gate?
  
  Yup. You can't be in a relationship with everyone at once due to personal conflicts, but there are pairs that will go for it depending on how you play it
  
  I don't think so?
  queer polyam relationships with your entire party
  I think it's just the bear drood +1, but it's been quite a few patches and hotfixes since I last played.
  
  Starfield technically let’s you do this

It's a really good game

That's made billions of $$$

In a franchise loved by millions
Billions of flies love shit, but I ain't gonna eat it
- Billions of flies love shit, but I ain’t gonna eat it
  My new favorite words of wisdom

Any defense of a piece of media that cites sales numbers should result in forced reeducation. My son you have become the brand, repent and return to humanity

By this logic FIFA and Call of Duty should automatically win the award every year
- Man United should win the treble every year with this logic as well lol.

These piss babies are pathetic and their game sucked
Now Armored Core 6 on the other hand is getting snubbed
- AC6 is nominated for Best Action.
  And, in some mild bit of defense, Hogwarts Legacy was at least as good an RPG as Starfield or FF16, which only seem to be included because of their publishers.
  I'm more upset that a quality JRPG like Trails to Azure got nixed, given how mid the western releases have been.
  
  comparing those three games is WILD
  
  AC6
  that could be at least three very different games. death to tom nook

It came out the same year as Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, and Armored Core VI. There was no way it was going to be recognized.

No fan of the potter game ever talks about the emotional resonance of the plot lines or how good the combat is.
Which is Wild in a way. They love this game but can’t seem to like any part of the game other than “I walked around Hogwarts”
- That was the impression I got. The other people who bought it and played it were just like “more slop to help me ignore life”
- I played it for free after it was cracked. The novelty of the setting was the only compelling element.
  
  It just looked so fucking boring to play in every video that wasn’t hyper edited.
  
  Yeah I will confess, getting to faff about Hogwarts was the only element of it I found even vaguely compelling. I like big interactive spaces.

Outer Wilds never got a game award. I mean, I had to go look it up just now just in case, because the game awards are about as on my radar as the ocars.
- also, in 2020, they had a VR/AR category for Alyx, and then never had the category again.
  VR's killer app killed it.
  
  They'd have to make it a lifetime award, good VR games take at least a year to get polished/shine though all the garbage VR apps.
  According to steam charts, only like 2 of the top 100 VR games by current player count came out in 2023; a VR Tarkov clone and Gorilla Tag.
- Didn't it win a BAFTA? Or was it just nominated? That counts more than a game award, imo
  
  oh, it did! good for them

It's not nominated because people and critics are tired of the same open world pseudo RPG game. Same reason Starfield did not get nominated. Look at the nominations:
Alan Wake 2 (survival horror)
Baldur's Gate 3 (a proper RPG)
Spider Man 2 (it's Spiderman, simply flying around the city is fun)
Resident Evil 4 (remake of legendary survival horror game)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (it's super Mario)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it's Zelda).
The only game there that could fit in the "open world pseudo RPG" genre is Zelda, but it's usually so well made and executed as a Zelda game that most people don't really care. People will play a Zelda game no matter the genre.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it's Zelda).
  To be fair they took the physics fuckery up to a new level and in the open world it genuinely makes one of the most weird and enjoyable sandboxes you can possibly mess around with. Nintendo's attitude of "fuck it, just let players break the game" was a very good decision.
  In terms of gameplay it's really not like other open worlds, it successfully manages to feel and provide something different.
  
  It does wear outbnewr the end but I've realized something that is gonna make me use more unique and weird building mechanics just causenull have to, I'm just not gonna get the paraglider next play through! it's an optional item this time
- No Armored Core VI, illegitimate
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it's Zelda).
  Okay lets be real this game was mid AF and relied on silly mechanics and piggybacking off of BOTW
- Even midfield is nominated for best RPG lol.
  Hogwash Legacy L

The "audience they create the show for" forgot this game exists like a month after release.

If it’s such a good game, why havent i heard anyone try and spoil it?
Destiny had a dogshit pile of a story, yet i know about what’s going on in it.
- Some if us were doing that when it came out, I think one of the professors dies or was evil or something like that
  
  I remember trying to spoil it, but snake already killed dumbolddoor, I mean how many more random moody professors going postal is going to be a surprise?
- There were a significant amount of people trying to spoil the game as some way to spite JK Rowling. It was spoiled for me online while my SO was playing it. Here's a Google search for you to browse with many articles and SM posts warning spoilers.
  You might consider that you don't know everything that happens online, and just because you're unaware of something doesn't mean it didn't happen.
  
  You might consider that you don't know everything that happens online, and just because you're unaware of something doesn't mean it didn't happen.
  
  Get the fuck out of here reddit brain

Imagine this being your entire personality.
- Even worse, it's her career. 70k subs on youtube, so about half of the entire population of /r/KotakuInAction. Daily or twice daily uploads. No editing as far as I can tell. About 10 minutes of ranting to a camera while slowly scrolling through an entertainment weekly article. Every video title has a word capitalized like RUINED or ERASED or FREAKOUT or FAILURE.
  
  Is she also trying to sorta emulate the Gamergate mascot.
- "Just ignore your bully" and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race. It leads to malignant narcissists growing up without getting a well-deserved beating to teach them some respect.
  
  Personality predates Ideology. If you believe we should punch Nazis and Fascists then you should belive in punching bullies too.

Harry Potter horseshit aside, the game itself just looks like a generic game, I'd have mistaken it for a Ubisoft game if it wasn't for the franchise itself.
- Yeah everything I've seen of it just looks aggressively mid. I don't see why you'd be interested in it unless you were a Harry Potter fanatic, because on a gameplay level it just looks like a very paint-by-numbers open world game.
  
  Exactly and I honestly think that's worse than a bad game
  A bad game can be interesting but a bland game is by definition not interesting
  I'm being completely serious when I say I would rather play Gollum than this
- Every open world game is a shitty Ubisoft clone game and they all suck
- LoL. That describes spiderman perfectly to me too, but I figure I'll see it on a alot of goty lists.
  
  to be fair, swinging around is very fun

who actually thinks hogwarts legacy is better than bg3? Anybody? Come on...
- People who prefer a different genre. Far too much gatekeeping. Everyone keeps shitting on people who disliked BG3. There's a choice and people should respect it. All respect is lost when people use opinions as fact. That's why the gaming community is a shit show nowadays.
  
  like the gaming community hasn't been full of the same assholes since pong
  
  Sure, but HWL isn't better than really any game in it's genre either. It's an open world adventure game with some of the worst open world gameplay I've seen in a long time. Sure, it's in a popular franchise. That should hold no bearing on it being considered a good game or not though. It's one of the most bland games I've ever played even though the universe that it comes from is somewhat interesting, though critically flawed.
  
  Even in its genre, there are better options
  
  For a while there anyone criticizing BG3 would get piled on.

imagine thinking that a triple A video game connected to one of the most profitable media franchises of all time doesn't already have the largest spotlight imaginable. i guarantee that my mother is aware that shit exists.

I've seeded 3 tb, hope it helped 20 people to find their 1 hour of happiness
- Not all heroes wear capes 🫡

- it kind of is, the amount of casual observers/critics that talk about "box-office bombs" and shit is too fucking high. do you own Disney stock? then why the fuck should you care whether Mr Iron Marvel Hulk III made 200mil or 300mil opening weekend?
  and as a side note all the illiterate critics talking about that stuff also poisoned the well on the financial reporting---because a company suddenly taking a bunch of losses might be something to look out for---but none of these people know the first thing about hollywood accounting and are happy to declare things "flops" after a single weekend
  
  then why the fuck should you care whether Mr Iron Marvel Hulk III made 200mil or 300mil opening weekend
  that is the way that media becomes influential in the short term

There are no bad videogames, only bad reviewers that aren't a fan of the series.
Gamer X
Dunkey
- This quote really makes you feel like Spider-Man.

I'll put it like this. I have a very insufferably liberal friend (a 'rah rah Ukraine' 'Russian jets are a joke, I know because of articles and DCS world') that I play games with because he's a soft-boi who I like playing games with even if I don't like his politics.
Naturally, he was very excited about Harry Potter coming out. And yet, he gushed about the game for about a week after it came out and I haven't heard dick about it since. It's a mediocre game, at best.
- I play dcs. Of course American jets from the 2000s are better than Soviet jets from the 1980s, because that's what's in the game right now. They can't make a newer Russian jet because everything newer is classified.
  
  it's like when "Communism no phone" yeah because your idea of Communism is to picture Russia in the 1960s. There weren't smartphones in the 1960s
  
  They can't make a newer Russian jet because everything newer is classified.
  Also, the Russian armed forces have only produced two non-soviet designed fighter jets, and of those they've built something like 17 combat models combined.
  The same is true for the US, in that they only really have two post cold war designs but they've built well over a thousand between the F-35 and F-22.
  
  I think the worst point here is OP's friend 100% doesn't realize and definitely never heard of Flanker 2.0(highly regarded flight model back in the day) and definitely isn't aware who and what Eagle Dynamics even are.

You wave a stick, speak shitty Latin, and magic happens. I know it sounds great on paper (no it doesn't) but tell me what they give you that any Elder Scrolls game doesn't? Because it's sure as shit not a good story.

The real game of the year is not Wizard game or even any of the nominees. It's actually a 50+ hour monochromatic sokoban puzzle game but Gamers™ aren't ready for that yet.
- Void Stranger? Never heard of it until now but it's going on my wishlist.
  
  Yup, you won't get quite the same experience if you haven't played System Erasure's previous game ZeroRanger but I think the parts that made me get really into Void Stranger stand on their own.
  The game's puzzles get hard and interesting and there's an entire meta layer of puzzles on top of that that you need to figure out. I'd recommend not looking up anything unless you really can't figure out how to continue at one point since the game does a good job telegraphing most of its secrets.

Yeah even without the Harry Potter license, it's the same kind of Ubisoft sandbox game that gets made a dozen times per year. Uninspired busy work game largely meant to sell nostalgia to wistful millennials. Was anyone really expecting it to go down as a masterpiece?

Games aren't "good" anymore due to actual design, its only "good" when it has a lot of advertising and is using nostalgia to turn all gamers into victims of stockholm syndrome.
- Not necessarily always nostalgia, but definitely chasing the newest trends, be that in popular art styles(every indie game needs to be a pixel art) or oversaturation of a genre e.g roguelikes. Specialy roguelikes for me is so often just blatant "let me add RNG and a tedious repetitive progression system to pad out my totaly orginal and not at all procedural/filler content".
  
  Roguelikes are one of the few games that get a pass for procedural generation. Some do it really bad, but when the player has to select randomized rewards and doesn't know what's ahead, it becomes very rewarding to put together a novel strategy.
  Retro pixel art is awful though. Pixel art was never meant to be viewed on a LCD monitor.

the game is a 70 dollar 3d model of magical fantasy school hogwarts with the the least inspired most boring game imaginable set within it. genuinely garbage, not even worth a pirate
- It's amazing to me that despite how generic it is, they still somehow managed to make the plot actually offensive to real life sensibilities. Cool. I love to "learn" magic at a "school" while enforcing apartheid. Awesome

You don't get special points because you were made by conservatives, you have to make a good game like everyone else.
These people would scrap together a remake of Custer's Revenge and demand that it get every gaming award under the sun solely because it's a right-wing game.
- I don't think Hogwarts was made by conservatives though, was it? One of the main characters is transgender. It seemed like it was a direct "fuck you" to jk rolling.
  It was kinda a boring game, but so are a lot of aaa goty bait games.
  
  I don't think Hogwarts was made by conservatives though, was it?
  For a most of its development, the lead designer was one of those YouTube antifeminists and had ties to gamergate.
  The main storyline is about putting down a rebellion of a segregated underclass. The goblins themselves lean heavily into old antisemitic caricatures, and there's an incredibly uncomfortable parallel between blood libel narratives and the goblins kidnapping children for some sort of ritual.
  Looking cynically at the one trans character (who's character is largely just telling the player that she is trans), I'd wager she was a last minute inclusion to try and shield the game from some of the backlash of its right wing premise.
- It seems like you're deeply confused about what conservatism is and what it produces and the fact that soulless liberal corpo-speak is almost exactly the same. What are you unsure about and how can we help clarify?
  
  how do you feel about blood libel?
  
  Have you ever seen the cast of a Ben Shapiro/Daily Wire movie?

You wanna talk about games robbed of a GOTY nom lets talk SF6
- I would love to talk SF6, if I had any idea what game it is?
  I dislike how people, like yourself, just assume everyone else knows what your abbreviation for a game is.
  At least be clear and easy to follow when trying to make a point, please.
  
  Sorry lol. Street Fighter 6.
  
  TBH it's kinda rare to know video games and not know about street fighter.
  
  Going to agree with you there. After some research, it looks like they are referring to either sulphur hexafluoride, or Street Fighter 6.
- I still haven't played it but have heard nothing but good things, probably deserved a nomination as much as Armored Core VI
  Seriously don't get how a remake of any kind can get a nomination for anything and I say that as someone who played the hell out of Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube when it first came out and replayed it more times than I can remember
  Don't even get me started on Starfield, if Bethesda deserved a nom for any game it should have been High Fi Rush
  
  Hi Fi Rush not getting a soundtrack nom is another big crime this year.

Average Harry Potter fan:

Average Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell enjoyer:
- Ayyyy :D
  There are dozens of us. DOZENS!

Imagine using this argument to justify why the crappy FNAF movie deserves an academy award.
- the woke mob is cancelling me simply for telling an incoherent story that makes no goddamn sense

The Game Awards
How many levels of made-up bullshit are we even on anymore? I want to hear this person's take on the ESPYs.

BG3 is flawed, but me and my friends can't stop thinking about it and playing it. Checkmate TERFs.
- BG3 is too clunky for me to enjoy anymore. That said, I did put a good 100 hours in it or so. Definitely one of the best games this year, no question there.
  
  What make it clunky? (Guys please don't dog pile hate on their answer I want to hear their critique (unless its bigoted))

Sterile neoliberal imaginary game lol

Its a boring game, looks good but insanely unimaginative and boring
- Just like the entire franchise!

I don't think I've heard anyone talk about it since it's release.

When I clicked on this post I had a funny comment in mind. But then I forgot it.
- many such cases

Deserves. What a funny word.

We have to protect our politics! By, you know... not nominating a video game for awards it doesn't deserve.

Why did RE4 get nominated? Didn't that game come out years ago?
- I think a remake came out this year? Maybe?
  
  Yes it's the remake using their latest engine, in the line of the remakes or RE2 and 3 we got earlier

- I read through the entire thread (skimmed a little) after your comment and saw almost none of what you describe. Two high-order comments about the overdone genre, maybe three generic "game sucked" and two "I played it or know someone who did and it sucked". People are talking way more about Starfield's mechanics than HL's ITT.
- Yahtzee's review basically confirmed the game was what I was expecting it to be. It's pretty obvious what is is from gameplay footage.
- but the gameplay in hogwarts legacy really is amazing. actual magic wielding finally done right in a harry potter game and damn it feels good killing bad guys and flipping them around and shit. game should have been nominated it was super fun
  
  Possibly one of the most milquetoast dark souls roll steamrolls of the year, with zero replayability and worse build depth than starfield. The story has two interesting beats total. I'm sorry you think this was good gameplay, lichdom:battlemage from a decade ago outshines it completely and the only interesting thing the spells might bring is stockholm syndrome style nostalgia from a wholly overrated children's novel series. If your idea of good gameplay is flinging things around, maybe see if you can find hit flash game interactive buddy in an archive.
  
  and damn it feels good killing bad guys and flipping them around and shit.
  Just find a used copy of Dark Messiah if you want that

The best part about this entirely manufactured, fake outrage is that it will be over in less then a week. After that, we won't ever have to think about it again.
Even the conservatives know this is a dead horse and no one actually cares, they just have to go through the motions because they don't have another gaming-related controversy this year. What were they gonna go off on? Starfield Pronouns? That was an even bigger nothing. I think they would love to go after BG3 for gay stuff and whatnot, but they know that wouldn't fly because everyone likes the game.