The shortlists of nominations for this year’s Game Awards will be announced later today, but over the weekend an interesting update was made to the rules of eligibility. The FAQs section of the event’s website was updated to include DLC, expansions, remasters and remakes as eligible for all reward categories.
“The Game Awards aims to recognize the best creative and technical work each year, irrespective of the format of that content's release”, the website now reads. “Expansion packs, new game seasons, DLCs, remakes, and remasters are eligible in all categories, if the jury deems the new creative and technical work to be worthy of a nomination. Factors such as the newness of the content and its price/value should be taken into consideration.”
The Game Awards jury members were made aware of these changes before submitting their nominations.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Game Awards will be held at its traditional venue of the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California, and will be livestreamed across various platforms.
While for some this change may come as a surprise, the conversation round the inclusion of game expansions, remasters and remakes has been going on for sometime. It came to a head in 2023 when Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and expansion and upgrade to the original game released in 2020, was nominated for several awards and won the Best Ongoing Game award. With the release of Shadow of The Erdtree earlier this year, an expansion for 2023’s GOTY Elden Ring, the online debate had reached unprecedented levels.
With over 118 million livestreams for last year’s award show, it is very likely that they will break that record on December 12th as the popularity of video games continues to grow.
How do you feel about the inclusion of DLC, expansions, remasters and remakes being eligible for all award categories?
Will you be watching this year’s Game Awards?
