The Players' Choice award at The Game Awards is, as the name suggests, fully voted for by fans. The category adopts a tournament-like structure, with games being eliminated on a round-to-round basis. And now, we're down to the final five — with the eventual winner being announced at Geoff Keighley's big show later this week.
The finalists are as follows:
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2
- Genshin Impact
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Baldur's Gate 3
- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
For what it's worth, we think the final five titles are all great in their own right, but as you can probably imagine, this is the epitome of a popularity contest. Genshin Impact, for example, is in the running — and there's obviously no way the live service action RPG makes it to the final round, in 2023, without its gargantuan community at its back.
But the same will be true of all five finalists, of course. Baldur's Gate 3 has been a colossal hit this year and has a hugely dedicated following. Heck, Phantom Liberty is an expansion, not a game, but Cyberpunk 2077's fantastic 2.0 revival has inspired its incredibly loyal community to get behind it.
Meanwhile, it feels like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are there because so many PlayStation and Nintendo fans, respectively, are always going to vote for their console's flagship 2023 title.
Still, it'll be interesting to see which set of fans rallies the hardest around their chosen game, because there's absolutely no doubt the winner will be decided by how well mobilised its most loyal supporters are.
But what do you make of the final five games? What do you think will win? Rally behind your favourite with no objectivity whatsoever in the comments section below.
[source thegameawards.com]
Comments 40
Genshin might just win, not least it's a popularity contest and they have more than 65 million players a month, but players also know MiHoYo will give them free stuff in game if they win. Social engineering. I'm just surprised Honkai Star Rail didn't make it too.
Genshin will probably win. Which is a farce.
It’s honestly baffling that Genshin and Cyberpunk are in the shortlist. I voted for Tears with no objectivity whatsoever.
Maybe a little objectivity.
If it's not Baldurs Gate then this will be a joke. It's even more stupid you put in a expansion to choose from can't they make it a seperate thing for expansions only.
I'm a player and my choice is RE4 Remake.
@somnambulance It really isn't baffling. The fan vote is a popularity contest, and whether console players like it or not Genshin has more players than the other games. That said most Genshin players probably don't care about the Game Awards so are less likely to vote, I still expect it to be Zelda.
But fan votes are also open to social engineering too, as Pewdiepie proved a few years ago getting all his fans to influence awards as a test. (I think it was the Golden Joysticks)
@Flaming_Kaiser Why would it be a joke? It's a fan voted award - a popularity contest based on the small sub-section of gamers that are engaged enough to vote for the game awards. Like all awards, the systems is flawed.
I've to see both a Playstation and a Nintendo exclusive still in there. I've voted for Zelda as its the best game I've played out of those remaining 5, although I haven't played BG3 as it doesn't interest me.
I think Genshin will win again because it's the only game offering free rewards for winning. If Honkai was also in the top 5, I could've seen the 2 gacha games split the vote resulting in BG3 winning.
Genshin is a good game (gacha aside) but I'm 100% sure that most people only vote for it because they will receive free item if it wins. And that completely defeats the point of the award
Also it's kinda weird that a game that didn't release in 2023 and already won that award even gets nominated again. I think games like that should be restriced to the "Best Ongoing Game"-Award, while every other award is for 2023 games only
You get currency in Genshin for voting, so even if people don't care or don't even know what the TGAs are, they will vote for it.
Seeing Genshin there should be a reminder to everyone that the Chinese marketplace opening to the world changes everything. There are an estimate of more than 650 millions gamers in China, more than there are people in the US or in the EU. The Chinese marketplace alone is potentially as big as the the North American, European and Japanese marketplace combined.
There is no way videogame publishers will not pander to China, because they see the potential profit, and they see how competitive Chinese games like Genshin Impact can be if they don't reciprocate quickly.
Now what it means in term of content, types of games and of economic dependence in the videogaming world, well, we'll see soon enough I guess.
What's Genshin Impact doing in a GOTY contest?
@ExReey I'm guessing any game with at least one nomination in any category is eligible for this vote, and Genshin is up for best ongoing game. It's a bit silly if you ask me.
I feel like Cyberpunk deserves it based off the fact they actually listened to their fans and fixed the game and made it better and closer to their original vision for the game.
What no FFXVI 🙄🤐
@themightyant Yes, that is very true. I would not be surprised if, given that this is online voting as well, that there’s other scams potentially going on as well, ie bot voting, multiple email voting, etc. The fact that Genshin has a shot strengthens my appreciation for the critical community for giving us a more rational take on the industry (most of the time).
Baldur's gate 3 vs genshin_impact who would've thought
No alan wake 2 ,what a travesty
@somnambulance Every award system has it's flaws in the process, but the pubic ones are the absolute worst. It's only sensible to me that TGA's only allow the fan vote to count for 10% in the other awards.
Ones like this are susceptible to all kinds of manipulation bots, multiple voting, streamers etc. Hell the site keeps me logged in but keeps telling me I am 0/31 each time I go back... I don't revote. lol
If games that weren't even released this year can get into this vote, then we should organise an amusing trolling of the game awards for next year by getting loads of people to vote for like Treasure Island Dizzy or something and see if we can get it to win a game award. It'll be like that time Rage Against The Machine got the Christmas number one, but loads better because Treasure Island Dizzy is involved.
So not even the 9 million fans can save the game of the generation LOL.
@johncalmc @themightyant To me, I feel like GotY should go to something, I dunno, released this year, but what do I know? This is why the popularity contests need to embrace the ridiculous.
For the sake of Pushsquare, I suggest we rally behind the very popular Knack series for GotY 2024. We need to show Geoff that our voice matters.
The fact that honkai didn't make it means its fans will team up with genshin so it will easily win this
@Olmaz
I mean Genshin and Honkai have both been very good, very F2P friendly games with minimal predatory mechanics so if this is what "pandering to China" means then sign me up. Way better than western pay to win slop that we've been getting.
@Mephisto2869 stupid gamers don't like smart games they like stupid games. We're lucky some proper games made it through at all 😅
Genshin shouldn't be on there, just 2023 games. If genshin is on there why aren't other live service games like fortnite?
Cyberpunk isn’t even a game, it’s an expansion. Plus, Starfield is missing.
Yah Genshin nor Cyberpunk should be on here.
The fact that official dev given bribes are given to the player base to vote for Genshin in these awards should automatically have it disqualified. Rallying a fanbase via lame social media schills is one thing, but to have the actual dev soliciting praise via in game rewards that usually require money is another.
The game awards and the golden joysticks always have some very questionable inclusions and omissions that would suggest some financial influence is at play anyways. Which already diminishes credibility.
I genuinely hope something arises that recognizes the medium and the hard work that goes into it on a less sleazy way at some point. It's the most successful entertainment arm on the planet and deserves more than what amounts to a 2 hour marketing dump.
Game of the year is Baldurs Gate. period.
Player's choice really isn't in the same category of thought as it involves certain platform and genre biases. So it makes sense to have differences, but those differences of opinion shouldn't be bought. We have enough of that in every other aspect of our political/socioeconomic enslavement systems.
@ATaco On opposite day, maybe. Genshin Impact is one of the worst examples of F2P on the market, bar none. I've seen players waste literal hundreds of dollars before getting the character that they actually wanted. If Genshin is an example of a "good" gacha game then I don't want to know what a bad one is
@Tchunga Diablo Immortal.
@Darude84 it probably would've got there, if voting was made the same day as its release,but people have played it for a while now ,and realised what a shallow experience it actually is
@Mephisto2869 It actually wouldn't have been my game of the year if I had to vote in the first 20 hours of playing. After 250 hours it’s my clear number 1.
@ATaco Or maybe seeing the success of F2P like Genshin Impact pushes Western publishers to go even harder into the F2P live service thing, because they don't see themselves competitive in any other way.
Which, by the way, is sadly true in our current system.
If you think opening the door to China because of a few games you liked is a good idea, I can place a bet right now you're going to be sadly disappointed in a few year...
@themightyant Let me refrase it's a price that says nothing its just as usefull as a metacritic player review.
Genshin does not belong there. Waifu gacha games are obviously targeting something other than quality gameplay or storytelling.
@Olmaz
This reads more like paranoid xenophobia, but I suppose all we really can do is wait and see if the future is as bleak as you predict.
BG3 enjoyed a decently higher number of votes during the last round, so unless TotK absorbs a significant number of votes, I'm pretty sure it's gonna win.
Leaves me out, and not giving an "F"....those are all trash IMO...
@Darude84
Starfield isn't missing; it just doesn't deserve to be there.
@Darude84, Starfield was in the running (it was one of the 30 games in the initial round), but it was knocked out in the first round (games like Mario Wonder & FFXVI were also knocked out in the first round).
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...