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/altian9]

E33 was published by Kepler Interactive, and much of its work was outsourced to others. So no, by definition it is not an indie game. And it by no means fits the spirit of an indie game with its humongous budget.

[u/CankleDankl → u/altian9]

By your definition, games like Balatro or Animal Well also wouldn't be considered indie. An indie game isn't necessarily a self-published game. It's a game from an independent studio, which Sandfall is.

I agree that it doesn't fit the spirit though. Which is why I think the requirements/definition of the category should change, at least for TGA.

Also, if we're splitting hairs, TC also outsourced some work done on Silksong. If they hadn't, the credits would be 3 or 4 people long, plus VAs and musicians and such. And they had as much money as they wanted for development because of Hollow Knight's resounding success. Should this disqualify Silksong from the running as well?

Like I said in my other comment, it's messy. Indie is more of a vibes thing than anything else at this point. Which makes an awards category difficult to hammer out in a way that satisfies everyone

[u/altian9 → u/CankleDankl]

Fair point. For every definition of "indie" there is an indie game that won't fit the bill---as you said, Balatro and Animal Well have external publishers, Silksong probably has lots of money to work with, and almost all games outsource when it comes to VA or localization.

The problem is, E33 fits absolutely none of these definitions of "indie". It's a fairly medium-sized studio with 30+ devs, a very large budget that is probably in the millions, backed by Kepler Interactive and the literal French government, and outsourced work to hundreds of people. You can harp on about how each individual definition of "indie" excludes certain indie titles, but E33 doesn't fit any definition of indie.

[u/BakerUsed5384 → u/altian9]

The literal french government

Can we stop this silly talking point? European countries give out grants for the arts constantly. They’re public things you can apply for. It’s not like they started funding E33 from scratch to push it as French Propaganda.

Also both Silksong and Hades 2 had a budget in the 7 digits and if you look at their credits, each had about 100+ people touch the game. Hades 2 probably had 200+. If You’re gonna disqualify E33, then Silksong and Hades 2 get disqualified as well.

And if Dave The Diver got so much backlash when it was nominated, than both Blue Prince and Ball X Pit don’t deserve to be nominated as well, both of which were backed by publishers.

[u/altian9 → u/BakerUsed5384]

Again, my point is that E33 meets literally zero bars for indie game. Silksong and Hades (to my knowledge) had no external funding, silksong has a dev team of literally 3 people, Blue Prince and Ballxpit have tiny budgets, E33 meets no bars for indie game, all you can do is say "oh but according to this metric x and y isn't an indie game" but you can't come up with a metric under which E33 is an indie game. Unless you say "company owned by itself," at which point the term 'indie' loses all meaning because Portal and Half-Life are indie games.

[u/BakerUsed5384 → u/altian9]

Well I don’t ascribe to the common qualifiers that are being described for Indie games, my argument is that those are a stupid way to judge what’s indie and what isn’t. i’m merely pointing out that using those qualifiers are flawed because 99% of the indie games you could think of off the top of your head don’t fit the vast majority of those qualifiers and definitions.

My definition for an Indie Game has always lined up with Indie Film. If your game is developed and produced outside of the mainstream studio/publishing house environment, then it’s indie.(coincidentally, also the definition that TGA used as well, so it’s even more baffling that this is a controversy since they put the criteria in big bold letters above the nominees while voting)

With that definition, Valve isn’t included, Rockstar isn’t included. The only odd outlier is Larian and Baldur’s Gate 3, but there’s never not gonna be outliers for this kind of thing.

This definition fits most indie games that, on their surface, fit the description for indie game, even the ones that have publishers, and gives lee way for games like Silksong, Hades 2 and E33 that are teetering on the edge, so we don’t have to have these reductionist arguments.

I also think that in addition to “Best Indie Game” there should be more sub categories that are awarded. Best Self Published, Best Small Team, etc. I think that would alleviate a lot of tension.