SUMMARY
- Starfield and Red Dead Redemption 2 are both games great in their own rights.
- Both the AAA titles won big at the Steam Awards with Starfield bagging "Most Innovative Gameplay" award and RDR 2 getting "Labor of Love" award.
Valve’s most anticipated annual awards, The Steam Awards 2023, concluded on January 2, 2023. After the nomination process that began on November 21, 2023, followed by the announcement of nominees and the voting phase, the awards were finally announced.
The winners of the Steam Awards were announced on January 2, 2023, at 10 AM PT. Just like any other awards of 2023, the Steam Awards 2023 were also dominated by Baldur’s Gate 3, which won the most awards, that is two of the 11 categories.
While Baldur’s Gate 3 winning the Game of the Year was not that surprising, fans were in utter disbelief looking at the other games winning awards, Starfield and Red Dead Redemption 2, to be precise.
Starfield and RDR2 win big at the Steam Awards 2023
The Steam Awards 2023 featured 11 unique categories in which the games were nominated and voted. Ever since the nominations were announced it created a controversy for including Starfield in the category of Most Innovative Game. Starfield has been relatively controversial ever since its launch in September 2023. It received mixed reviews, with several fans criticizing Bethesda’s space odyssey.
Steam Awards 2023 winners pic.twitter.com/rJ9rIIinEF
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) January 2, 2024
However, fans were triggered when the game went on to win the award for the Most Innovative Game. Similarly, Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 was named the Labor of Love Award. Red Dead Redemption winning the awards was particularly unbelievable and funny since it was nowhere close to what the category stood for.
Fans react to Starfield and Red Dead Redemption 2 winning awards
Fans found it shocking to see Starfield win the Most Innovative Award since a lot of criticism that that game received was for Starfield’s gameplay loop, which is claimed to be repetitive and stale. A user named ‘Cassie’ wrote, “the most outdated mainstream video game in the last 20 years won innovative gameplay that’s f*cking hilarious.” Another user ‘BadCrippIe’ took a sarcastic dig at the game winning the award saying, “My favourite innovation was the copy and paste animations and game mechanics from your other games 🥰.” (sic)
the most outdated mainstream video game in the last 20 years won innovative gameplay that’s fucking hilarious pic.twitter.com/paC0CRUllQ
— Cassie 🏴 (@M0NK3Y_G1RL) January 2, 2024
On the other hand, the fans of the game also stepped up to defend their beloved game. A fan named ‘YouGottaBillieve’ wrote, “Well deserved. People who hopped on the hate train without giving the game a try are really missing out on a wonderful Bethesda RPG.” Similarly, another fan ‘Martin Moore’ wrote “Well deserved!” followed by listing down the unique features of the game as NG+, Ship Building, Outposts and a Massive amount of unique planets.
Talking of Red Dead Redemption 2, fans found it hard to digest that it won the Labor of Love Award. Steam’s definition or criteria for the category read, “This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the debut of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years.”
people voted rdr2 for the game’s story and graphics, they didn’t care about the category, those who can’t accept that rdr2 won should stop judging the game and blame the community
— aj (@aj134_1) January 2, 2024
Fans quickly pointed out how the game has been abandoned by the developers and has not received an update in years, which goes against the actual meaning of the category. Although a few fans came to defend the game saying it “Deserved for the greatest game of all Time,” most users had the opposite view.
A user ‘Mrskunknugget’ wrote, “Can we get an explanation on RDR2 winning that labor of love? You realize they haven’t labored over that game since release. We mean what we say.” Another user ‘JJobgen’ criticized the awards saying, “Your labor of love award is misplaced, need to reevaluate your nomination process. Rdr2 hasn’t been touched in years, ditched by Rockstar in favor of milking out GTA online and gta6.”
It is clear that fans are not happy about some games winning specific awards. Some even pointed out that this is what happens when one allows the community to vote, thus criticizing the format of the awards.