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I think The Game Awards should just remove the mobile category going forward. They’ve done a few things to try to make it work and I appreciate that, but it’s a completely pointless category thanks to the process behind it.
These are the nominees for this year’s category. Two of the five games aren’t even from the 2020 eligibility period. Which, hey, I appreciate the forward-thinking approach but imagine if other award categories were like this. BotW for GOTY 2020? Let’s do it.
Then we’ve got Pokemon Cafe Mix in there. That’s... ridiculous, to be frank. It’s an okay game but I don’t feel it’s particularly great or popular, and usually you need one of those two things to get a nom. That leaves us with Genshin Impact and Legends of Runeterra.
And hey, lucky! I think Genshin Impact is it. Really and honestly, even in a far better list of nominations Genshin is arguably the winner. Legends of Runeterra? Well, it wouldn’t be my pick but it’s actually a popular, well-made mobile game released in 2020 so, sure.
So we’ve got two genuinely decent nominations for 2020 mobile GOTY. The largest segment of the gaming industry in terms of revenue, player base, and maybe even sheer quantity of releases. Even better? This has been the year of Apple Arcade. Not that you can see it here.
How does this happen? It’s the system behind it. TouchArcade has been invited as judges and I think we aren’t the only mobile voice in there, but we’re handily outnumbered by voices from traditional outlets.
Voices that, by and large, not only do not play mobile games but actively ignore them. Like.. full-on, head-in-sand ignore them. Which is how we end up with the lists of nominations that we do. Absurd lists. The kind that your old uncle who still calls games “Ataris” would pick.
The traditional segment that by and large makes up the voting body of The Game Awards is about as qualified to pick the best five mobile games of the year as the Academy/Oscar panel is to pick the best PlayStation game of the year. Which is to say... not at all, and grossly so.
If this is how it is, it would be better for The Game Awards to not bother with mobile at all. This isn’t even half-assed. It’s no-assed. And band-aids can’t fix it. Either the process gets bottom-up rebuilt, or it’s always going to be this stupid.
That’s all.
That’s all.
