The Award Goes To....

A common cultural touchstone when it comes to Awards is...

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I feel like awarding a game is even more subjective than film due to the intense interaction you can have with a game. There is just no way any group of people could possibly account for all the variety of experience and preference of the public at large.

Even the Oscars are pretty selective, stuff like the Emmys even more so, where you can clearly see the "award baiting" nature of the production. I'm sure a canny developer has tweaked a game to make it more desireable to the preferences of the SdJ committee.

The democratization of critique via the internet is one of the main reasons why I think these award shows are losing their authority status. I'd much rather find an individual reviewer whose tastes seem to align with my own and then follow their recommendations than some pseudo anonymous collective that, particularly in recent years, has underlying agendas and criteria beyond just "best game" (whatever that means).