Here's the winners of the 2022 Steam Awards

The innovative part of Stray was "you're playing as a cat instead of a human", and its general setting. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Stray, thought the setting was an interesting idea, and hope we get a sequel (and voted for it because it was the only game in that category I'd played). But I'm of two minds about this award, because, yeah, its gameplay wasn't anything that hasn't been seen in third-person platformers before, but hopefully it winning might make game developers realize that, actually, people are capable of empathizing with a non-human protagonist, and you can make games without a human protagonist and they'll still sell well. I'm already a human 24/7, give me more games (of Stray's quality or better) where I get to play cool animals, or robots, or aliens, or something else that's different.

Can't argue with Elden Ring winning. I expected I'd like the idea, die a bunch of times in the first 4 hours, and give up, just like Demon's Souls (although I put 12 hours into that). 150 hours later, Elden Ring is easily my GOTY, and one of my favourites of all time, I'm sure.

No Man's Sky and Vampire Survivors (edit: and Scorn) got robbed, though.


Last edited by adolson on 4 January 2023 at 9:14 pm UTC

Stray is the feline version of Ecco The Dolphin.......

Quoting: Arehandoro

Quoting: FifteenthPenIt really does seem like most voters ignored the categories, or have very... interesting ideas about what they meant.

To be fair, within each category, Steam already had selected a few to vote for. In most cases, I'm pretty sure a lot of people voted for the few titles they knew, or had seen in other platforms, without knowing all the options.

For the initial voting, for the most categories requirement was just that game had been released in 2022. So unless Valve cheated, all nominees were chosen by Steam users.

For the final round to be completely fair though, people should actually play the nominees. Even with sales prices, buying the all games gets quite costly, especially as there are so many AAA games. Alternative would be to watch some lets plays, though that's not exactly same as actually playing the game.

So in the end, this is more of an way to increase sales (though as side effect few games might get extra attention that they would otherwise get). It seems to work as few winter sales in a row have been these awards events.

As for Stray, I agree that its strength is not innovative gameplay, so I voted for Dome Keeper. Though Neon White might have deserved the vote even more as it's quite unique genre mashup, but I opted voting for Linux native title.

Well, none of the winners are the sorts of games that I would ever enjoy playing, but good on them for the wins.

I do feel that it's a shame that Vampire Survivors didn't win Best Game On The Go, though!

Quoting: Philadelphusbut hopefully it winning might make game developers realize that, actually, people are capable of empathizing with a non-human protagonist, and you can make games without a human protagonist and they'll still sell well. I'm already a human 24/7, give me more games (of Stray's quality or better) where I get to play cool animals, or robots, or aliens, or something else that's different.

This was the norm in gaming back when I was growing up - pity that we don't see more of it now!

I recently saw a description for this - "video games as video games", describing the medium when it's used for fantastical things, rather than for emulating things that exist in real-life in some form. Space Invaders is considered to be the first game of that kind.

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderStray is the feline version of Ecco The Dolphin.......

Ecco was one of my childhood games, but unfortunately I never found it to be very much fun - I ended up concluding that people were bigging it up because they felt that someone making a game with a dolphin in it was automatically artistic and that this would somehow legitimise the medium, as if they somehow felt self-conscious about it.

Still, on the bright side, at least developers are now making "more Eccos" - there was a time about 20 or so years ago where everything had to get turned into a Vexx, a Haven: Call of the King, or a Bomberman: Act Zero, and it felt like nothing optimistic, bright, or different was allowed at all.

Quoting: dvdIt's a bad game, and the 1.6 patch is still buggy.

If you honestly think it's a bad game (and you've actually played it) then you'd think so regardless of the very very minor bugs that may still be present since logically you can't possibly like the content itself - of whom you of course are in every right to not do, just like I never really got into Skyrim.

But don't present that opinion like it's a fact.

As for me I have ~400 hours in that game, multiple playthroughs - and I usually never play a game more than once. It's the best game I've played since... Since the Bioware heydays. I still love exploring the map, it's the first game where I *never* use fast travel. I much rather just take the bike to the destination and enjoy the travel.


Last edited by Beamboom on 5 January 2023 at 1:13 pm UTC

I think way more confusing than "Death Stranding Director's Cut" ist "Hitman 3" as the VR Game of the Year. It's a really horrible VR port that shouldn't exist in it's current form. Although I think both got voted for by people who don't have VR or a Steam Deck and people picked the IP they liked the best or in case of VR known at all.

Quoting: PenglingI recently saw a description for this - "video games as video games", describing the medium when it's used for fantastical things, rather than for emulating things that exist in real-life in some form. Space Invaders is considered to be the first game of that kind.

That's an interesting way of thinking about/classifying games–thanks!

Quoting: PhiladelphusThat's an interesting way of thinking about/classifying games–thanks!

Hey, glad to spread it! Pity I can't find the original place I saw/heard it, now, though, else I'd share that too.

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: dvdIt's a bad game, and the 1.6 patch is still buggy.

If you honestly think it's a bad game (and you've actually played it) then you'd think so regardless of the very very minor bugs that may still be present since logically you can't possibly like the content itself - of whom you of course are in every right to not do, just like I never really got into Skyrim.

But don't present that opinion like it's a fact.

As for me I have ~400 hours in that game, multiple playthroughs - and I usually never play a game more than once. It's the best game I've played since... Since the Bioware heydays. I still love exploring the map, it's the first game where I *never* use fast travel. I much rather just take the bike to the destination and enjoy the travel.

Really it's not the bugs making it a bad game.
Well, the driving is totally broken (yes, like Saints Row 2 broken or even more), the gameplay is uninteresting, and what makes it even worse is all the good content - i only played it a second time since the artists and writers still clearly did the excellent job they did on the witchers - is buried under stale uninteresting gameplay. The difficulty is also broken, although to be fair that may just be a "modern game" thing, where the enemies can barely hurt you on very hard. I think the way they did the character building could be fun if your choices mattered at all. But they don't, except for maybe the brawling sidequest which is difficult to impossible to finish without investing to the corresponding abilities/attributes. I loved the main story, and most of the "bigger" side stories, but i think they hurt their game a lot by focusing on graphics - made it inaccessible for many people and they could've spent their money on more missions or creative content instead, which would've made the game a fair bit better. I had another rant about it recently, and maybe they can still fix it with the Phantom Liberty expansion/dlc, but i don't have high hopes. I'd love if enemies merging with cargo crates and the occasional rendering bug would be this games biggest problems. But it's not, it's almost everything else. Which is a shame, since the artwork and the writing is good, but the game is not.