Baldur's Gate 3 wins Game of the Year in the 2023 Steam Awards

Starfield winning most innovative? LOL.
Optimistically, Heretic's Fork was in the running for Most Innovative, but that was always a long shot.

Baldur's Gate winning best game - no surprises there, that's a deserved one.

I was hoping WarThunder had a chance for Labor of Love, but no luck.

Never heard of Lethal Company - it seems to be in Early Access.

Hogwarts Legacy winning the Linux category is also surprising - I refunded it as it would not run on my Nvidia GPU, but probably the AMD GPU performance was better.


Last edited by Pikolo on 3 Jan 2024 at 11:04 am UTC

Absolutely, Starfield has pretty much zero innovation. It's a decent game, but innovation is not part of it, at all.

TLoU robbing games like Hi-Fi RUSH for Best OST and REmake4 being nominated for story-rich are also... not great at all.

At least the latter had zero chance of winning against BG3, but still...


Last edited by williamjcm on 3 Jan 2024 at 11:10 am UTC

Absolutely, Starfield has pretty much zero innovation. It's a decent game, but innovation is not part of it, at all.

This nomination has to be a troll, honestly. It's just too perfect.

Same goes for RDR2. People have been complaining Rockstar abandoned the game for years.


Last edited by such on 3 Jan 2024 at 11:35 am UTC

BG3 = Divinity Original Sin + Dragon Age

For me Beamdog is still the master of Baldur's Gate (Even i own both but never played and i know i have to play them)

Larian has stolen the spotlights and i'm pissed...

I have voted for Hogwarts Legacy as GoTY but noooooo random NPCS who think using dices non stop and reloading over 100 times the save to avoid failure is funny.. Those guys should play Solasta it has no romance but it's like you play D&D with friends in the garage.

Labor of Love i have voted DRG... i don't know why AAA games keep hacking the awards

Best game on steam deck (i don't own) but brotato was my vote, could have been dredge

Better with friends well Lethal Company is small indie early access where's it's more fun with friends and it is well deserve it doesn't use a big licence like warhammer

Atomic Heart won an award that's good i was tired of people giving hate

Starfield won = Todd Howard aren't fired... Remnant 2 should have won

The Trash of US remake after remake... i have voted for Hi-Fi Rush but noooo AAA games from brain dead

Outstanding story-rich sorry but Love is all around could have won it

Like Game awards everything is biased. No spotlights for indie devs who work hard to serve us good gems

What are you thoughts on the winners this year?

Mostly a pretty sorry bunch, I'm sad to say - there were only a few well-deserved wins, and it was largely like an echo of Geoff Keighley's The Godawful Awards.

Except, unlike those, they're not telling the guys behind Baldur's Gate 3 to please wrap it up whilst they pay tribute to a deceased colleague (it was an automated prompt to hurry all gaming-related content along to make as much room as possible for advertisements, but it still wasn't a good look).

Absolutely, Starfield has pretty much zero innovation. It's a decent game, but innovation is not part of it, at all.

This is probably why Starfield won. https://www.gamesradar.com/starfields-new-game-plus-narrative-is-bethesda-rpg-innovation-at-its-finest/

Absolutely, Starfield has pretty much zero innovation. It's a decent game, but innovation is not part of it, at all.

This is probably why Starfield won. https://www.gamesradar.com/starfields-new-game-plus-narrative-is-bethesda-rpg-innovation-at-its-finest/

Ah yes, the innovative power of "New Game+"! Such trendsetters, such visionaries.

Deep Rock Galactic was robbed, these awards are a joke.

Random crud hentai game for GOTY 2024!

First time since they dropped their own awards that I honestly didn't even vote. Wasn't feeling the list of games they make us vote on. Congrats to Baldur's Gate 3, Atomic Heart, and Sifu.

I didn't vote in most of the categories as there was no Linux option as a candidate, so I'm equally as uninterested in the results.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

BG3 could be fair. I have no opinion on this the VR games of this year. The couple of indie games could be fair as well. But the AAA games in there definitely don't deserve it.

I'm so happy Lethal Company won the co-op award. So much fun that game is with friends. Also easy to mod with r2modmanplus (appimage) so you can play with more than 4 people, plus a bunch of more stuff. I will eventually get around to play Dave the Diver. It sits waiting on my Steam Deck and feels like a perfect game for handheld play.

Starfield is the first proper load screen simulator (LSS). So yes, very innovative!

Most Innovative Gameplay: Starfield

That right there is the only documentation one need against user driven awards. It really is a general popularity contest. The more users, the more votes.

And that's not always the purpose of an award. Like here.


Last edited by Beamboom on 3 Jan 2024 at 3:58 pm UTC

Most Innovative Gameplay: Starfield

That right there is the only documentation one need against user driven awards. It really is a general popularity contest. The more users, the more votes.

I think RDR2 getting "labour of love" even though Rockstar abandoned it the year prior is a better example. :D

Most Innovative Gameplay: Starfield

That right there is the only documentation one need against user driven awards. It really is a general popularity contest. The more users, the more votes.

And that's not always the purpose of an award. Like here.

Voting what you know is also easier. However if you get past the few baffling AAA wins, there's plenty of indies in the winners too. Which more or less means that indies have a chance, they need just enough publicity. And big publishers don't control all the media like they used to, so even the stranger indie games might get featured at least somewhere. I doubt something like Lethal Company has had big advertising budget.

Labor of Love: Red Dead Redemption 2

Love for money, maybe? A sad joke given that Deep Rock was also a finalist and actually deserving of the award.

Better With Friends: Lethal Company

Only in that it is slightly less terrible with friends than without. However I guess it fits the description of the award and the other finalists weren't much better.

Most Innovative Gameplay: Starfield

Hahaha, no.


Overall, except for BG3's well deserved top spot, there really wasn't much worth in the finalists and even less in the winners.

I'm not very far in yet, but BG3 is the closest to D&D 5E tabletop that we're going to get. It monkeys with established Forgotten Realms lore a little, but BG1-2 did that as well. Not to the degree WotC did with 4th edition (aka PnP for the MMO generation). Thank goodness, grayer beards prevailed.

The story reminds me more of Demon Stone than any other Realms game, really. (A very good action game, oddly not an RPG. If you liked LotR: The Two Towers on the PS2/Xbox. Patrick Stewart voiced Blackstaff in that game. Michael Clark Duncan voiced Y'Gorl. Khelben sounded pretty good for ~900-1100!)

A few things I'm not happy about are the level cap not going to at least 16-18, as that's when you gain access to some of the most fun (read overpowered) abilities. Maybe we'll get another Throne of Bhaal?

No patron deity for Paladins? Drow pigeonholed into Lolth-worshipers and Seladrine syncophants? Svirfneblin without half their abilities? And that's just what I've noticed so far!

Spoiler, click me

Elminster's only here as a magical construct? What the Avernus! Obviously ruined forever!

I mean BG2:ToB let us break 20 and even implemented Wish if I remember correctly (I've never played a wizard PC in BG1-2.).

But it is easily the best CRPG released in the last couple of years. It's easily on par with DA:O, if not quite BG2, in my mind.

What are you thoughts on the winners this year?

!link
This is fine.....