"If You Love Something, That is Yours": Deconstructing the Games Industry's Obsession with Review Scores and Awards
Geoff Keighley’s “The Game Awards” event has risen over the last decade to become one of the biggest annual events in the post-E3 era of the games industry, for better or for worse. The increased visibility of this show has brought with it a toxic fixation on review scores and what makes games “deserve” awards. // Image: The Game Awards
For better and for worse, it’s award season. This is the time of year when we reflect on what were some of the most meaningful pieces of media that we engaged with throughout the year and, perhaps arbitrarily, decide to crown the media that represents the very best of what the preceding year had to offer. Among these award shows is Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards, an annual event that is seeing its 10th anniversary this year. Every year, this event brings joy, frustration, disappointment, controversy, and discourse over various elements of the show. Most crucially, though, The Game Awards has largely influenced the video game audience over the last ten years with regard to how they discuss what makes a game worthy of awards and prestige. This creates a broad conversation among the video game community every December, and this year is no different.
This is an apt time to think critically about what makes us enjoy media in the first place. In the case of games, it’s easy to get caught up with whatever got the most buzz on social media, what had the most concurrent players on SteamDB, or what had the highest aggregate score on Metacritic. But all of these methods are flawed means to decide on what a game of the year ought to be. Just because something reviews well among critics seldom means that it strikes a chord with audiences. For example, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, a release from earlier this year, impressed critics but failed to make a splash with audiences the same way that the first title did in 2017. That doesn’t take away the value that it may have given players, but this discrepancy in critic and audience reception is one of countless reminders that aggregate scores aren’t an accurate reflection of the impact that games can leave on players.
Fixating on peak concurrent player numbers on SteamDB is equally ineffective in measuring game quality. Just because over two million people played Black Myth: Wukong on Steam concurrently at launch doesn’t mean that it is superior to other games that reached less players. Garnering high sales and popularity is not a ticket to winning awards or becoming a major part of culture. James Cameron’s Avatar is the perfect example of this, in that, to date, it is the highest grossing movie of all time, and yet…well, when was the last time you thought about James Cameron’s Avatar? Believing that data such as sales, concurrent players, or aggregate review scores is a reflection on what a Game of the Year “should” be is deeply flawed and deserves to be critiqued now more than ever.
This fixation on data and “objective quality” that is inferred by these aggregate scores undermines the very purpose of video games and of art itself: to elicit emotional responses out of people. In the case of video games, this emotion often equates to fun and immersion - putting a number on a review score that determines how “fun” something is isn’t something that really works with the human brain. Video games, like any piece of art, are inherently subjective in their quality, meaning that the same game will carry different meaning to everyone that plays it. Herein lies the fatal flaw of the very concept of award shows: when crowning the best games of the year, it’s encouraged that we cast aside the personal, subjective side to enjoying video games and instead focus on the shared experience that multiple players have with the same media. This inherently gives an edge to AAA games that already have mainstream attention and appeal and creates an uphill battle for lesser-known, more niche titles that have a more focused and ambitious concern.
Put simply, award shows often turn into “popularity contests” rather than genuine representations of a piece of art that has most effectively represented the apex of human expression for that year. To an extent, I think we’ve all given way to this - after all, awards shows are, well, shows. They’re meant to be an entertaining way for audiences to collectively celebrate the medium they love. Award shows don’t have to be anything more than rewarding what has left the loudest impact for the year, but they still carry the responsibility of representing a culture and its current relationship with the medium that such an award show is celebrating.
The Game Awards is an event marketed as a celebration of video games and the achievements that game developers have made over the last year. But let’s not kid ourselves - The Game Awards is also a big commercial. Since the gradual collapse of E3, the event that was once the video game industry’s largest announcement-filled event, Geoff Keighley has turned The Game Awards and Summer Game Fest as the primary industry-wide events that are prime opportunities for developers and publishers to make major announcements. With millions of eyeballs on an award show comes the perfect chance to do some marketing. And that’s okay. History has proven that, if there’s anything gamers truly love, it’s commercials. They will gladly watch three-hour-long strings of commercials to amp themselves up about upcoming games and hardware.
This often makes the “awards” part of The Game Awards become even further diluted, which, in turn, makes the discourse around awards become messier and perhaps even insignificant to some people. And ultimately, they’re right to feel this way. At the end of the day, awards don’t mean anything. The Game Awards that are handed to and accepted by developers are just trophies that carry as much meaning as we choose to give them. All this hullaballoo that is discourse around awards is precisely the wrong conversation to be having about the games that matter most to us.
Instead of fixating on the likes of review scores, sales numbers, and any other type of metric that justifies a game as being the ultimate representative of all video games for that year, we should be having a far more nuanced conversation about what makes games good in the first place. Focusing on objective data over-simplifies the complex, emotional relationship that we develop with the games that we spend parts of our lives with.
I feel that it’s more important than ever to explore what these nuanced conversations about video games should look like. While it is fun to watch the spectacle of video game award shows, we needn’t look at them as the beacon of discourse on what video games should be. All works of art should not and cannot be judged for the objective data that we measure from them. Rather, we should celebrate the emotional value that can be uniquely provided by video games.
Tekken 8 proved to be one of the most important games of the year for me. The game’s aggregate review score, concurrent player count, or out-of-game controversies are irrelevant when considering how much joy and thought it provoked from me over the last twelve months. // Image: Bandai Namco
Speaking in a recent interview with RadioTimes, voice actor Ben Starr of Final Fantasy XVI fame delivered the exact problem with valuing review aggregate scores in a beautifully eloquent way that I feel deserves both a signal boost and expanded commentary.
“Metacritic’s kind of a weird system, really, because we’re talking about aggregation of quality. There is no objective quality. People talk about really loving 7/10 games, or like a 10/10 game…what does that mean? Why do we choose to go ‘this is a 10/10 game’? When we talk about a video game, we’re not talking about how good the video game is, we’re talking about how meaningful the experience was when we played that game. ‘How did that video game unlock an experience that is memorable to me?’ It doesn’t matter if a game wins an award or loses an award or your favorite performer doesn’t win the award. The fact is that you feel that [the game or performer] has had that effect on you, that’s enough. They don’t need to take home a trophy, they don’t need to get 90+ on Metacritic, they don’t need to do whatever. Have your experience, that’s yours, that’s cool, and just enjoy it. No one else can take that away from you, as much as you may feel like they’re trying to…if you love something, that is yours.”
Ben Starr’s statement is representative of what our conversations about video games should look like. When talking about video games, we need to place a higher emphasis on the personal relationship between the player and the game that is inherent to the medium of video games. Unlike movies, books, or TV shows, video games are capable of establishing unique relationships with its players thanks to the unique layer of interactivity and expression capable within them. For example, Tekken 8 has been one of my most-played games of 2024. Through playing this game, I’ve had to learn the game’s unique mechanics, understand character matchups, recognize optimal combo routes and situations, and figure out how best to enjoy the game in a way that makes me feel like I’m expressing my personal understanding of the game all while improving my skill through experience in every match that I partake in.
Everyone that plays Tekken 8 is inherently going to have a different relationship with it. How many Tekken games have you played before? What character do you main? Do you play multiple characters or just one? Do you want to play casually or competitively? How good are you at adapting to how your opponent is playing? Depending on how you answer these questions, you’ll have a different experience with Tekken 8, and yet, that’s what’s beautiful about the personal experience of playing this game. My experience with Tekken 8 is incapable of being like yours. I primarily play Raven, have climbed up to just under the “Tekken King” rank in the game’s Online Mode, often watch tournaments, and have even competed in a few tournaments over the year. I’ve loved my time with Tekken 8 throughout this year because of my unique journey with the game and how much I’ve been able to personally improve at it in a way specific to my experience with the game.
Put simply, Tekken 8 has made me think about it when I’m away from the game just as much as when the I have the controller in my hand. When I think about how much I’ve found myself thinking about the game, theory-crafting combos, and how to navigate certain situations when I’m nowhere near my PS5 - that’s when I realize just how much of an impact Tekken 8 has made on me. With nearly 200 hours clocked in over the year and many more to come over the next few years, I find myself grateful for my time with Tekken 8 and look forward to what the game has to offer in the coming months and beyond.
While positive, the game’s Metacritic score, Steam review scores, and concurrent player records are irrelevant to my overall enjoyment with the game. Tekken 8 is special to me because of the memories that I’ve made with it, and it’s for that deeply personal reason that the game stands as one of my favorite games of the year. I love Tekken 8 because of my personal, emotional connection to it. The connection that has been uniquely created between myself and Tekken 8 carries far more value than any award or review score ever could. And that connection is precisely what should lie at the heart of any conversation about what our favorite games of the year are.
I invite everyone reading this to reflect on what game that they’ve forged a similar connection with over this past year. Maybe it was Helldivers 2, Deadlock, or the recently released Marvel Rivals. Maybe it was a game released a few years ago that you just finally got around to. Whatever the case, it’s important to recognize the personally significant connection that you’ve forged with a piece of media over the course of time that you’ve spent with it. If you’ve created a strong connection with a game and look back on your time with it with sentimentality and fondness, then that is enough. That connection is what loving video games is all about, and it’s more than enough of a justifiable reason when describing your favorite game of the year.
Among the nominees for The Game Awards’ 2022 Game of the Year category, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the game that resonated with me the most. While the game lost all three categories it was nominated for, that doesn’t diminish the game’s meaning to me and its other players. // Image: Nintendo
When we discuss the idea of “Game of the Year”, we’re talking about more than just what was the highest quality video game release over the last 12 months. A year is a signifier of a substantial passage of time, one that defines a significant portion of our lives. In many ways, the idea of a “Game of the Year” is about more than just what represents a year the most - rather, it represents a temporal slice of our lives. Games are powerful tools in that they offer varied means of supporting us through our lives. For some, games are a means of engaging with stories, no different than reading a book or watching a movie. For others, games are a means of stress relief - a comfort to spend an hour or two with after a long day of work and tending to responsibilities with family and the like. For others yet, games are purely a means of testing our ability to learn, adapt, and overcome challenges. For some, games are a mixture of various aspects coming together to produce an experience that helps guide us through certain periods in our lives.
Put another way, every person playing a video game has a different mission that they seek to accomplish through playing video games. Likewise, every video game has its own mission as well. Some games are more concerned with providing a fun, laidback experience while others seek to push players to their limits. It’s when the player’s mission and the game’s mission collide in a way complementary to each other that the most special of gameplay experiences arise.
This is why games like 2022’s Elden Ring and 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3 prevailed with as much critical and commercial acclaim as they did. Elden Ring’s blend of difficulty and freedom through its build variety and explorable world created an experience driven by resilience and exploration. Likewise, Baldur’s Gate 3’s sandbox of gameplay opportunities gave way to the likes of experimentation, adaptation, and creativity with regard to handling encounters. It’s these types of dynamic, open-ended types of experiences that make way to crafting gameplay experiences that create unique, personalized experiences. Two people may go through the same combat encounter in Baldur’s Gate 3, but navigate it in completely different ways that are representative of the two players’ different levels of creativity and ways of thinking.
Both games have a specific missions with regard to the types of experiences that they want to facilitate. But they’re open-ended in such a way that allows players with different missions of their own to find enjoyment with. If someone wants to coast through Elden Ring because they enjoy the lore and world, the game’s summons help soften the difficulty and make the game more accessible to that type of player. For players that are more interested in role-play-focused experiences, Baldur’s Gate 3 empowers players to avoid combat through smartly navigating conversations with NPCs. It’s this catering to various types of players that helped make both games reach levels of success that were unprecedented for both of their respective franchises.
Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 were the highest rated games of their respective years of release on Metacritic and both featured hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on Steam - but fixating on that data overlooks why they’re as successful as they were to begin with. These games weren’t Game of the Year contenders because they checked off so many boxes that let them meet a level of objective quality - they simply featured experiences that allowed various types of players to develop personal relationships with the game - the types of which that define the player’s self-expression, their personality, and the period of life that they’re in that contextualizes their experience with the game. It’s through understanding these personal, subjective factors that we see the true reason why these game’s reached as high of a level of praise and popularity as they did.
When someone looks back on a year and the experiences they embarked upon throughout that year, what was going on in their life outside of that experience also informs how they look upon the year. Maybe you were going through a bad breakup and a playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth helped you escape into a world where you were able to separate yourself from that situation. Years from now when you’re far removed from when that breakup happened, you will forever associate that first playthrough of Rebirth with your recovery from the breakup - that external experience in your life provides a mindset and context that you inevitably associate with that time in your life. Thinking of that breakup may make you think of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and vice versa. These can be regarding painful, negative times in our lives and illustrate how games helped us get through them. Conversely, these can also be happy, triumphant times in our lives and show how games maintained a presence in our lives at that time.
Our relationship with video games changes drastically throughout our lives, and the specific games that we play throughout certain parts of our lives inherently informs our perception and experience with that game. My reason for bringing this up is that I think our personal decisions for what games we decide are our “Game of the Year” are informed by far more than just our critical, objective assessment of how good a game is. Deciding on our “Game of the Year'“ is, by nature, a reflection on where our lives have taken us throughout the last year, and determining what game played the most pivotal role in assisting us in the unknowable direction that life is dragging us toward. When we talk about what games are our favorite games of the year, we can talk about how they innovate. We can talk about how they push the medium forward on a technical and/or creative level. We can talk about the options that it gives players and how well-written is. But we also need to learn that we need to talk more substantially about the emotional layer of games and how they inspire us to think in new ways and how they help navigate the ways in which we think about our lives. Games like that can and do exist. And it’s those games, in my experience, that I recall as some of my favorite games of all time.
For me, 2022’s Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the perfect example of a game that will forever carry meaning for me. As a player whose mission with games is to experience stories and overcome challenges, I initially came to Xenoblade Chronicles 3 wanting to enjoy the story of the game’s world and characters while diving into a complex battle system with various interlocking mechanics. While I certainly got that, the game means so much to me not only because of the unique ideas presenting in its story and gameplay design, but also because of the point in life I was in when I played it.
2022 was a period of growth for me - I was pivoting away from professional game development as the industry was entering an unprecedented era of layoffs. Just having gotten laid off myself from a technical writing role, I was anxious that my new unemployment experience would mirror my 18-month-long stint of unemployment in 2020 and 2021. I was constantly worried that I would struggle to find work and, thus, a place in the world. But when I played Xenoblade Chronicles 3 that summer and early fall as I was between jobs, I was so immersed in the game’s story, world, and mechanics that my anxiety faded into nothingness. In its place was hope that was instilled from the game’s themes of life and defying a narrative that you’ve been told by yourself and others around you.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 represents a shift in my mentality with regard to looking for work and having a place in the world. While I love the game and admire how much it accomplishes, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 carries additional emotional value with it this is unique to its context in relation to my personal life when I played through it for the first time. It’s a special game to me, and was easily my personal Game of the Year in 2022 as a result.
Later that year, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was nominated for three categories at The Game Awards but had won none of them. It mattered not to me. Nothing could take away the personal experience I had with Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I’ll never forget my time with it nor how it helped me reframe how I thought about my life. And it’s that meaning that guides my decision for what was my Game of the Year for that pivotal year in my life. I encourage everyone reading to think of a game that has helped them navigate any stretch in their life and think critically about how that game helped inform your experience with that period in your life. For some, that experience may be the edge that pushes you to associate an entire game as being the best of what that year had to offer for you. Don’t let the industry’s current fixation on data fool you: that is enough.
Balatro is one of the biggest surprises of the year thanks to its unique, addictive gameplay loop. It’s a game that begets creative, dynamic decision-making, a skill that helps people beyond the world of video games, increasing its emotional value to its players. // Image: LocalThunk, PC Gamer
What guides my decision-making (and what I think ought to guide everyone’s philosophy) for determining the best media of the year is simply assessing what stays in my mind the most potently after I’ve walked away from it. What game have I played this year that has made me think about it the most? Of course, the phrase “think about it most” can have different interpretations. For some, that may mean what story has stuck with you the most. It could also mean what game has made you look at things differently or made you think more critically about game design.
Balatro is a good example of one such game, in that it makes me think about something - playing cards and poker hands - in a completely different way that makes me think a lot more critically about synergy and how to apply rules in various contexts. Balatro offers a unique situation where the player is invited to think about how they can bend the rules of the game to fit their deck, Jokers, and randomly-generated aspects of their run.
How much a game sticks with you isn’t just something that’s emotional - it’s also often logical. Whether it’s through an emotionally told story, a soundtrack that stays ringing in our ears, or a game mechanic that invites us to think about different gameplay possibilities even when we’re not playing the game, video games offer various opportunities for us to think about them in a way that’s distinct from any other piece of media. Regardless of whether the tie is an emotional or logical one, it is unquestionably a personal one. Regardless of how personal that bond or recollection is, we shouldn’t hesitate to become open for that being the primary means of determining what games we decide are the most meaningful to us.
As time goes on, trophies collect dust and get tossed in the corners of closets. The amount of concurrent players will inevitably dry up as new things come along. The very means of accessing a game may fade away (which is cause for a separate conversation about preservation), but one thing will never fade: the connection we forge with the media we care about. Whether it’s a game you love or hate, the connections you build with games are both personal and stronger than anything you can imagine. These connections, above all else, should be the basis of our discussions when talking about what makes the most meaningful and enjoyable games that we played over the last twelve months of our lives.
Next time you see someone bring up review scores, player counts, or other data to suggest one game deserves Game of the Year nominations and/or awards above another game, I encourage you to engage in conversation with that person and seek to understand what they went through this year, and more specifically, how games helped get them through whatever it is they experienced this past rotation around the sun. Whatever comes from that is bound to be a more productive, thoughtful conversation than any dispute over meaningless review numbers will beget. And those conversations are precisely what we need to see more of, now more than ever.
Thank you very much for reading! What are your thoughts on how awards and aggregate review scores are perceived in the video game landscape? What do you think is most important when considering what makes a “Game of the Year” contender? As always, join the conversation and let me know what you think in the comments or on Bluesky @DerekExMachina.
