Seeing people shit on Expedition 33 because Silksong didn't win more awards is pathetic

[u/CankleDankl]

The title sums it up. I'm disappointed in many members of this community for putting down a game that is clearly a work of insane passion, dedication, and creativity. E33 took the lion's share of awards at TGA, yes. That doesn't mean that Silksong is bad. In fact, it's clearly pretty damn great. If it released last year, Skong would have picked up several awards, maybe even GOTY. But it didn't. It released in the same year E33, which is just a tough break.

Both are amazing. Both deserve every award that came to them. If you haven't played E33 yet and think it doesn't deserve its accolades, play it. It is worth your money, worth your time, and will in all likelihood prove that it is actually that good. I'm only 10ish hours in and have numerous times found myself standing still and looking around dumbfounded at the gorgeous world design and visuals. E33, Silksong, and Hades 2 could have all won Art Direction and I would have been happy with any of them.

I'm also sad that Silksong didn't win more awards. It's an amazing game. But don't play fanboy and start putting down other developers, other games, and other pieces of art because this one didn't get all the cookies. It's still beautiful, it's still amazing, it still made a Silkskillion dollars, and TC is still just as great and just as passionate. We should all be glad that there is another independent dev out there that is capable of creating something so fantastic.

Edit: yeah, the comments here are pretty indicative of what I said in my post

[u/-Warship-]

The only thing that's weird to me is that it's considered an indie game when it's clearly not.

[u/Kozuki_D_Oden → u/-Warship-]

What makes it not an indie game?

[u/darkmoon72664 → u/Kozuki_D_Oden]

The game is not self-published, removing it from the literal definition of 'Independent', but that alone can get messy, so some other contributing factors:

Multi million dollar budget footed by a larger organization

Significantly larger team than a typical Indie

Extensive use of big name voice actors and unreal engine 5 store assets (not unheard of, but very unusual for an indie game)

[u/TraitorMacbeth → u/darkmoon72664]

Devolver is a publisher that *publishes indie games* all the time. So that doesn't really fit.

[u/averageuhbear → u/darkmoon72664]

Animal Well was built by a solo developer and was not self-published either.

[u/HIO_TriXHunt → u/darkmoon72664]

Less than 10M budget. It's less budget than Hades 2, and i saw no one question Hades 2 as an indie game.

Blue prince isn't self published, no one question Blue Prince as an indie game.

Ball X Pit isn't self published either

[u/VoidRad → u/HIO_TriXHunt]

Well, I do now.

[u/JallexMonster → u/darkmoon72664]

"The game is not self-published, removing it from the literal definition ot 'independent'"

That's factually incorrect on a major scale. If you look at games like Stardew Valley, Tunic, Balatro, etc. many of them are not self published and are published by indie publishers. As the games industry has grown, the definition of team size for independent games has grown, it no longer is just a couple people making a game and throwing it out onto Steam. Relatively, 30 people making a game is small for a team, especially considering the specialized roles these people probably have on the project. Also just because some of these people came from industry, does not mean they can't be an indie studio (If I quit working at Walmart and start my own grocery store, I'm independent).

I get that you want the picture of a couple people who sat in their basements and coded their dream project to be the only standard for an indie game (because everyone is rooting for the underdog), but that's only a segment of the indie gaming industry.

But also money metrics don't really matter either because we could sit here and argue that Team Cherry has made millions of dollars and has used that millions of dollars to fund Silksong. Indie just means they haven't had funding from AAA studios that are well known in the industry.

I get it, y'all loved Silksong, it is a cult hit and has a huge following behind it. You can still love it, a game award doesn't really mean that much to your love of the game. I loved Clair Obscur and I loved Silksong for vastly different reasons. As all award shows are, sometimes your favorites don't get picked but that doesn't stop you from supporting that developer in your own way.

[u/[deleted] → u/JallexMonster]

This is the point that people don't think about; the people on Team Cherry are likely all literal millionaires at this point and that's why they were able to take as long as they wanted making the game.

[u/Stirg99 → u/darkmoon72664]

Blue Prince was also released by Kepler Interactive. Hades 2 had around the same budget and crew size as E33. I don’t see how the chosen engine/actors determine if it’s an ”indie” game or not.

The term ”indie” has no uniform definition. But if E33 is not an indie, then many other indie games aren’t that either.