steems awards must have moderatiuon. this year's awards is obvious proof.

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

Red Dead Redemption 2 got the Labor of Love award even though it didn't recieve any content updates in the past 3 years.

Starfield getting the Most Inovative Gameplay award even though it's the same old bathesda game design since 2006

Baldur's game winning an award in 2 categories in the same time. each game is supposed to win only in 1 category to five a fair chance to other contestants

it's so obvious that bots flooded the votes. making the awards lose all their credibilty and it won't be a source of pride or accomplishment for anyone.

if Valve won't be moderating the voting and nomination process and keep it automated as it is now, we're better off just canning this whole thing altogether

[Thor II]

The worst category, not just this year but every year is Labor of Love.

The Labor of Love Award itself and its description are a big mistake. "Released a long time ago, it continues to be treated with affection by its Devs", etc, etc.

All of the winners from the last few years are games that have been released very recently. It's a popularity contest, since if I'm not mistaken it's the only category in which games that weren't released this year are allowed. It turns out that the "having been released a long time ago" and still receiving attention and affection from its Devs" is totally ignored.

Seriously, a successful game, which has not yet received a sequel, which still has a gigantic audience, continuing to receive updates 4 years after release is the basics, it is no more than an obligation. For a game to compete in this category, it should have been released at least 10 years ago. It's games like Age of Empires 2, which has continued support more than 20 years after release, that should win this category.

[Kargor]

The problem with "moderation" is that it's not an easy thing to do.

If they want some sort of user-vote, they have to give users something to vote on. For now, they let you pick everything that was released that year -- which is easy enough, since their game database knows the release date. The problem is that users could nominate a game for "best soundtrack" even if it doesn't have a soundtrack -- there's no way to check whether the votes are sensible.

Now, lets assume they want to restrict the nominations (there's no need to restrict the final votes, since you can only vote for nominated games). Steam could just select 20 games for each category and let users choose the top 5 -- but, with 11 categories, some poor chap at Steam would have to fill out 220 spots with games that make sense in those spots and don't anger the community too much.

And that poor chap might not even know 220 suitable games released in that year. Steam is a shop, not a game review or recommendation site. They don't know most of what they are selling.

They could, of course, just look at the nominations, top to bottom, and pick the 5 highest ones that make sense for the category. But that's a bit... fishy. They'd be giving you what looks like a free choice, and just fix up things afterwards...

Ok, maybe the second option would work better if they make it public -- so we'd still see the winning games that have been skipped.

[Crazy Tiger]

Actually, the awards show that they indeed are a meaningless popularity contest. Nothing rigged or curated, simply a popularity contest among regular Joe, Jane and such whewre the game with the most nominations and votes wins.

Publicado originalmente por JolyJew СлаваУкраине:

Baldur's game winning an award in 2 categories in the same time. each game is supposed to win only in 1 category to five a fair chance to other contestants

Valve stopped with that. Cause, you know, people complained.

[miakisfan]

It is almost like they don't even read the other topic titles regarding the awards.

I wonder if Steam makes money off every post. I get why some of them don't care to read some of this rehashed diatribe, though.

The only thing that the Steam awards proved to me is that people voted their opinions. I didn't expect everyone to agree with them.

[MrDammit]

That labor of love winner was a laugh.

[Abigail From Sneaky Squid Dept.]

What I don't understand is why people care so much about a bunch of awards that are meaningless at the end of the day.

[Takohashi]

Steam Year in Review 2023.
1. You played Х games:
Steam Median -- 4
2. New Releases:
The percentage of Steam playtime in games that were new releases (games released in 2023) -- 9%

Users voted for games they didn't even play. Of course the award is a joke.

[MrDammit]

Publicado originalmente por Takohashi:

Steam Year in Review 2023.
1. You played Х games:
Steam Median -- 4
2. New Releases:
The percentage of Steam playtime in games that were new releases (games released in 2023) -- 9%

Users voted for games they didn't even play. Of course the award is a joke.

Good point.. They should add a total playtime for the year on that review. too much math to figure what 9% is. 4 new games isn't much but that 9% is more hours then it sounds like.

[Sitrueis]

Starfield is trolling for sure.

[T9]

RDR 2 labor of love, lmao
10 / 10 joker

[Something Inoffensive]

RDR2 getting Labor of Love HAS to be a joke. Devs abandoned that game years ago. Sounds like something one of the chans would do or Rockstar just bought the award.

[Yujah]

Publicado originalmente por Something Inoffensive:

RDR2 getting Labor of Love HAS to be a joke. Devs abandoned that game years ago. Sounds like something one of the chans would do or Rockstar just bought the award.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by humanity."

Publicado originalmente por Yujah:

Back when I didn't have to avoid getting "stickers" and still joined in I remember doing so basically only for the cards and while usually not even having heard of any of the contenders.

I.e., makes perfect sense to me that e.g. RDR2 would get "Labor of Love". I'd probably also have picked it, it being the only one I'd have heard of and thought was, probably, nice.

"The Steam awards" are and were always meaningless nonsense. What seems to be changing is only the percentage of people knowing them to be meaningless nonsense.

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

Publicado originalmente por Kargor:

The problem with "moderation" is that it's not an easy thing to do.

If they want some sort of user-vote, they have to give users something to vote on. For now, they let you pick everything that was released that year -- which is easy enough, since their game database knows the release date. The problem is that users could nominate a game for "best soundtrack" even if it doesn't have a soundtrack -- there's no way to check whether the votes are sensible.

Now, lets assume they want to restrict the nominations (there's no need to restrict the final votes, since you can only vote for nominated games). Steam could just select 20 games for each category and let users choose the top 5 -- but, with 11 categories, some poor chap at Steam would have to fill out 220 spots with games that make sense in those spots and don't anger the community too much.

And that poor chap might not even know 220 suitable games released in that year. Steam is a shop, not a game review or recommendation site. They don't know most of what they are selling.

They could, of course, just look at the nominations, top to bottom, and pick the 5 highest ones that make sense for the category. But that's a bit... fishy. They'd be giving you what looks like a free choice, and just fix up things afterwards...

Ok, maybe the second option would work better if they make it public -- so we'd still see the winning games that have been skipped.

lets start with the easiest one: labor of love.
if a game didn't recieve a meaningful content update during the year, it shouldn't be possible to vote for it. it's pretty easy to automatically detect.

if a company cheats by adding a fake update - first of all, everyone will notice it and call out the BS. and second of all, to really make sure cheating won't be possible - the publisher needs to mark it's a major content update before releasing it in the news post. and if players see no content is added they could report the news post for being false

as for games get undeserved nominations - pretty sure a valve employee can download each nominated game, play it for a few minutes and conclude whether the game actually has decent music/inovation in gameplay/story etc. and if it doesn't fit just remove the nomination and nominate the next most voted game.
it's not really diffuclt, it just needs to involve a handful of people that actually care

[Tito Shivan]

If you guys want serious awards there's already a place for that.

This is all fun&games for the sake of a badge and some stickers.

[T9]

Publicado originalmente por Tito Shivan:

If you guys want serious awards there's already a place for that.

This is all fun&games for the sake of a badge and some stickers.

Sure thing. Fanboy defense activated