Earlier this month, we acquired our first have a look at the nominees for The Game Awards 2023. While we had been happy to see Nintendo getting some much-deserved love (together with two titles within the GOTY class), a lot of the dialog on-line within the ensuing days has been across the Best Indie Game class and, particularly, Dave The Diver‘s inclusion in it.
Despite the sport’s lo-fi aesthetic and mechanics, the title was really developed by MintRocket — a subsidiary of the billion-dollar South Korean writer Nexon. If video games like this at the moment are deemed ‘indie’ then the place can we draw the road? This is the exact query that Mr TGA himself, Geoff Keighley, tried to sort out in a current Twitch Q&A and his reply was… expectedly balanced.
Somewhat skirting across the difficulty of whether or not he believes that Dave the Diver needs to be granted indie standing, Keighley acknowledged that “unbiased can imply various things to totally different individuals,” earlier than explaining, “we defer to our jury […] to make that willpower of is one thing unbiased or not”. On the sport in query, nonetheless, Keighley went on to say the next:
I believe it is a honest debate and dialogue of ‘is that recreation actually unbiased or is it not’, and you may type of argue it both means. It’s unbiased in spirit and it is a small recreation, I do not know what the funds is however I believe that it is a comparatively small funds recreation, however it’s from a bigger entity, whereas there are different video games on that listing which might be from a lot smaller studios.
As a reminder, the opposite video games which might be nominated on this class are COCOON, Dredge, Sea of Stars and Viewfinder.
The host and producer made it clear that he has no downside with individuals agreeing or disagreeing with the TGA decisions, and he even famous that he’s “open to considering, shifting ahead, how do you outline that class?’. The occasions might be a-changing, and given the extent of dialogue on this very subject over the previous few weeks, it is clear that the business goes to have to handle these labels if it’ll transfer on.
Be positive to take a look at the Twitch Q&A in full to listen to Keighley’s full reply. If you wish to skip the remainder of the chat and get straight to this dialogue, we might suggest beginning across the 00:27:10 mark.
