I wouldn’t say that Roberta’s name carries anywhere near the renown as the examples I listed. Unless you were a really big fan of Sierra’s adventure games in the 80's and 90's, you’ve likely never heard of Roberta Williams or the IP she helped create. If we’re talking about famous adventure game developers, Tim…

I agree. Throughout history, many ubiquitous products or services fell to the wayside as superior alternatives rose up. Internet Explorer, Yahoo, AOL, etc, all had the dominant shares of their respective markets at one point but were later supplanted by superior alternatives. Google was one of those alternatives.…

If people continue to use Google when alternatives are freely available, it means they’re happy enough with Google that they have no desire to seek alternatives. I imagine the vast majority of the world’s populace is perfectly happy with Google’s search results. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming your own opinions…

Okay. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s by far the most popular search engine so apparently most people are happy with its quality.

The reality is that there simply aren’t any women in the games industry whose names carry the same recognition as the men’s. There’s no female equivalent to Hideo Kojima or Warren Spector or Cliffy B or John Carmack or Phil Spencer or Todd Howard or Peter Molyneux or Sid Meier or Tim Sweeney or Will Wright or Gabe…

I don’t see how pointing out demonstrable facts could be made to look weaker or nefarious. Epic’s claims are just so absurd that I don’t see any way that they can win. They’re equating a store to an operating system and saying that Google should be forced to distribute Epic’s software and receive nothing in return.…

Not at all. Google is easily the most popular search engine despite there being alternatives available. Gmail is very likely the most popular e-mail service, Android is very popular worldwide, etc. Suits doing shady/stupid shit doesn’t reflect on the quality of the products or services in any way. If it did, you’d…

I don’t see how Google potentially withholding evidence of some unspecified activity would make Epic’s specific claims any stronger. Epic is asserting that Google should actively distribute Epic’s software (via Google Play) without compensation. Epic made the same assertion with Apple and that failed miserably. It’s…

You might be taking the term a bit too literally. It just means that your only real interaction with the game is walking because there’s no combat, stealth, platforming, puzzle-solving or anything else that would constitute meaningful gameplay.

Except I’ve seen people call those games free too. Hell, I’ve even seen people call GP games free even though they’re the whole point of subbing to GP.

I don’t think that would necessarily be true if they replaced those categories with more niche categories, like Best Puzzle Game, Best Stealth Game, Best Adventure Game, Best Platformer, etc. There wouldn’t be enough AAA games to fill those categories so they’d have no choice but to nominate indie games.

I’m not sure what insane praise you’re talking about. Hogwarts has an 84 MC score. That seems pretty reasonable to me and more than enough to warrant a nomination in a number of TGA’s award categories, especially when you look at the games that did get nominated (many of which have MC scores below 84). Should it be…

Nobody is saying Hogwarts Legacy is a GotY contender. However, it’s absolutely good enough to be nominated for numerous other categories, especially when you look at the games that did get nominated. Hogwarts has a better MC score than like half of the nominees across multiple categories. It could very easily be…

In terms of CCU, Lost Ark and New World are the most popular MMOs on Steam so I think they’re probably doing okay.

Hogwarts Legacy has a higher MC score than many of the games nominated for awards. I mean, Dead Island 2 was nominated for best action game so it’s not like the bar is all that high. Hogwarts can have easily been nominated for Best Action Game, Best Action/Adventure Game (Jedi Survivor’s MC score is only one point…

Eh, comparing Starfield to DNF might be a bit much. Starfield isn’t a bad game. If you ignore the exploration and just stick to the non-procedural quests, it’s enjoyable enough.

I mean, yeah, you basically just described 99% of AAA “RPGs.” They avoid meaningful choice and consequence because they want you to be able to get 100% completion in one playthrough. Hell, these days they don’t even want the game to actually end, which is why they keep adding procedural quests and loot systems, etc.

What? The reviews rated the game for what it was at launch, not what it could have been. Most people enjoyed the game at launch. It wasn’t a live service game so I’m not sure why anyone would expect it to dramatically improve over time.

It’s an issue of scope. You can’t create unique, handcrafted content for thousands of planets. You could rely on procedural content but it wouldn’t look or feel unique and would therefore be forgettable.

I guess it boils down to the criteria you think is important for a GotY nomination. If you recycle a lot of content from the previous game(s) and don’t innovate much, should you still be nominated? Or should every title be considered within a vacuum?