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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn't have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated for any award about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying "I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don't deserve [blank] award."
I just don't get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn't win. Shit on TGA all you want, but the fans and the devs literally had nothing to do with winning. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore anyway and will probably be complaining that "RV There Yet" wins the "Most Innovative Gameplay" award on Steam. I mean, a flippin' gacha game won the "Players Voice" Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.
For what it's worth most people are more mad that E33 won best indie and best debut indie. It's not an indie game, many people have said as much and it's completely unfair that they won in categories meant for small budget games by small teams.
Totally deserved in other categories, but that does leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess I'm confused because I didn't know that "low budget" was now synonymous with "indie." They are an indie dev that made their first game yet their game doesn't count as "indie" because they had a budget? What about a game like No Man's Sky? They were an indie dev that got promoted by Sony and everyone shat on it when it came out and said they bit off more than they could chew. In my opinion, that seems even less fair.
I'm not saying they deserved the award more than any other game, I enjoyed all the games nominated, I'm just saying that if E33 flopped I highly doubt anyone would call them more than an indie dev that tried to punch above their weight just like No Man's Sky.
There aren't any hard rules of what an indie game is, and TGA don't set any because they don't take their jobs seriously, but it's usually accepted that indie = small teams, small budget. Otherwise, technically games like Cyberpunk 2077 are "indie" because they're self-published, while games published by Devolver Digital are technically not indie because they have a publisher despite the games being made on a tiny budget and occasionally created by only one person.
Expedition 33 had a huge budget compared to other games in its category, and much more developers. They had mo-cap, they had popular voice actors, and they had tons of contract workers overseas. It's not fair to put it up against games that didn't have any of that.
E33 is what the industry refers to as a AA game. Mid-sized budget, mid-sized team. As opposed to AAA, massive budgets with massive teams.
No Man's Sky (on release) is way smaller in scope than E33. It was made by around a dozen developers only, and they actually self-published it which makes it much more "indie".
So a successful crowdfunding campaign could make a game not indie anymore?
"Indie" means "independent", which means there is no publisher or investor that could influence creative decisions in the service of profits. (As CDPR is publicly traded and does answer to investors, Cyberpunk would not qualify.)
If you want a low budget award, call it low budget award and define a threshold for said budget.
Jesus fucking Christ people, we are talking about video games. Get a grip.
What a benign comment to respond so strongly to lmao