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Tag: Game Awards

  • The animated VTuber Ironmouse won Content Creator of the Year at the Game Awards | TechCrunch

    The animated VTuber Ironmouse won Content Creator of the Year at the Game Awards | TechCrunch

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    This year at the Game Awards, the coveted Content Creator of the Year award went to Ironmouse, a fan-favorite VTuber. It marks the first time that an animated character has won the award, showing how expansive the streaming world can be.

    A movement originating in Japan, “VTuber” means “virtual YouTuber,” though the genre has spread to other streaming sites like Twitch, where Ironmouse has 1.8 million followers and is the most-subscribed female streamer. VTubers often resemble anime characters, and the creators build their virtual personas by using motion-capture or AR face-tracking technology to embody their avatar. Though VTubers have been around for about a decade, they gained a boost in popularity at the onset of the pandemic, when the VTuber agency HoloLive launched its English-language division, catering to an expanded audience in the West. As the technology to make a VTuber becomes more accessible, the streaming genre only continues to grow.

    Though the VTuber phenomenon is already widespread and beloved, the “fun loving demon” Ironmouse’s win at the Game Awards lends the genre even more legitimacy.

    “Ironmouse couldn’t be here tonight, because Ironmouse is animated, and sadly, we’re not in the Matrix yet,” the host of the show said upon announcing Ironmouse’s victory.

    Ironmouse’s intrigue doesn’t end with her innovative persona. Though we don’t know the identity of the creator behind Ironmouse, she has revealed that she is from Puerto Rico, and she is chronically ill with common variable immune deficiency (CVID) and a lung condition. At times, her chronic illness has left her bedridden, she told the Washington Post, but being a VTuber allows her to access a rich online world where she can be anyone who she wants to be — even a pastel pink-clad gamer escaped from hell. Last year, she streamed for 31 days straight as part of an annual “subathon” event, where viewers could pledge money to keep her online; she took on the streaming equivalent of an ultramarathon again this year, raising money for the Immune Deficiency Foundation.

     

     

    “I have no words to describe how I am feeling right now,” Ironmouse wrote on X after her victory was announced. “I am in utter shock. Thank you all so much for changing my life.”

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    Amanda Silberling

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  • This Beloved Game Was Completely Snubbed by the Game Awards Nominations

    This Beloved Game Was Completely Snubbed by the Game Awards Nominations

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    The nominations for The Game Awards were announced today. The award show has been creeping up in popularity in recent years, with host and producer Geoff Knightly trying his damndest to make it gaming’s version of the Oscars or the Emmys.

    Where the Game Awards stand apart, though, is that popular fan votes account for 10% of the outcome, with a jury counting for the other 90%.

    As with any award show nomination announcement, there were some surprises and some nominations to be expected. While I was delighted to see Super Mario Bros. Wonder get nominated for Game of the Year, the big award will (rightfully) be a fistfight between Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur’s Gate III. (As much as I love Baldur’s Gate, I will be at your doorstep with a pen and clipboard campaigning for Tears.) Also, as with any award show nomination announcement, there were some snubs. And in this case, there was a big one: Square Enix’s OCTOPATH TRAVELER II did not get nominated for a single award.

    OCTOPATH TRAVELER II was released in February of this astonishingly busy year for gaming, right before your gaming wish list started to stack up. It’s a turn-based JPRG in which you can control eight different characters, each of whom has their own engaging stories that eventually intertwine. The game is done in Square Enix’s retro-tinged and absolutely gorgeous HD-2D style. It’s highly narratively driven, and it also requires some patience from its players—it takes a little time to find your groove and for the game to sink its teeth into you.

    But the result, at least going by the consensus of the gaming critics I follow, is not only far and away the best JRPG of the year but arguably one of the best JRPGs ever made. Following the nomination announcement, the game’s fan base poured onto social media to express their shock and disappointment.

    Where—and maybe why—OCTOPATH TRAVELER II was snubbed

    Admittedly, OCTOPATH‘s appeal in the West is rather niche—only a handful of super-mega-hit JRPGs have really made a mainstream impact here, namely Pokémon, Persona 5, and (most of) the Final Fantasy series. The busy year also seems to have hurt OCTOPATH TRAVELER II, which took three times longer to hit a million copies than its (beloved but now considered inferior) predecessor, Octopath Traveler. It’s possible OCTOPATH TRAVELER II suffered from being released in the same year as Square Enix’s mega-title Final Fantasy XVI. There wasn’t a huge wave of media coverage either, with the merits of the game primarily reaching me through word of mouth and podcasts like Triple Click. (Overwhelmed as I’ve been all year, I did try to share the love.)

    That can serve to explain, at least theoretically, why The Game Awards chose to snub it for Game of the Year. What makes no sense at all is that OCTOPATH TRAVELER II did not get nominated for RPG of the Year. Instead, the RPG category includes Final Fantasy XVI, which was widely considered a huge shift for the longstanding series because it plays more like an action game than an RPG. (I happen to agree with this take—I mean, they got the Devil May Cry combat director and it feels like it.) Many have expressed similar confusion over Lies of P‘s place among the Best RPGs instead of the Best Action or Best Action/Adventure Game lists.

    Fans were also shocked that Yasunori Nishiki’s score didn’t get nominated for Best Score and Music. Nishiki—who is a regular at Square Enix—really did make an astounding score, including some truly memorable and amped-as-hell battle themes and some gorgeous character songs.

    Awards shows are always bizarre affairs that show the biases of the judges involved and thereby the biases of mainstream culture. With a year as bloated with amazing games as 2023, creating a list of nominees was always going to be difficult. But that’s not an excuse to snub the widely accepted best JRPG of the year from any nomination at all. At least the game has a passionate fanbase vying for it.

    (featured image: Square Enix)

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    Kirsten Carey

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