No Man's Sky Wins GDC Award, But No-one Was There to Accept it

[Steven Bogos]

No Man's Sky Wins GDC Award, But No-one Was There to Accept it

Hello Games, the team behind No Man's Sky, were not expecting to win an award, and thus were not in attendance at the awards ceremony.

Every year, the Games Developers Conference [http://www.gdconf.com/news/overwatch-nets-game-year-2017-game-developers-choice-awards/] has its "Games Developer's Choice Awards," which is kind of like a GoTY but from actual games developers. Overwatch, fairly predictably, won Game of The Year. Quite unpredictably, however, was No Man's Sky winning the Innovation award. If you're shocked, you're not alone, as even Hello Games, the team behind No Man's Sky, weren't expecting to get an award, and were absent from the awards ceremony. This led to poor host Tim Schafer trying to present an award that no-one would accept.

When Schafer announced that No Man's Sky had won he called out, "Going once... going twice..." but no-one showed up. Later, we learned via the Twitter account of Hello Games code lead Innes McKendrick, that the team had skipped the awards ceremony to get dinner.

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/innesmck/status/837147802736209921]

McKendrick later said the developer's absence during its award win was "quite embarrassing". Considering the, for lack of a better word, vitriol surrounding the game, which currently sits at a "Mostly Negative" [http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/] rating on Steam, you wouldn't blame him for not expecting an award.

The Innovation Award, according to the GDC, "recognizes games that demonstrate true innovation, advance the state of the art, and push the boundaries of games as an expressive medium."

Source: Twitter [http://www.gdconf.com/news/overwatch-nets-game-year-2017-game-developers-choice-awards/]

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[Erttheking]

It says a lot about how nonsensical them winning that award was that they thought for certain that they wouldn't win it. Although this is kind of hilarious.

 

[Saelune]

Embarrassing they werent there to receive it? Personally, I find it humbling of them to not bother.

 

[TilMorrow]

"recognizes games that demonstrate true innovation, advance the state of the art, and push the boundaries of games as an expressive medium."

I was staring at this and wondering how No Man's Sky actually fit the description for winning and then I realised it's because they highlighted the fact that trailers may not represent gameplay anymore, truly pushing the boundaries of games. xD It says a lot when they don't even think their own game was going to considered at the GDC.

 

[chrystallix]

Very serious question. What did No Man's Sky actually innovate? I'm...I'm actually struggling to think of anything they did that wasn't done better in another, older game. Was it, was it really just for the size of their universe? Was that all it took to be considered innovative?

 

[ragnarokz]

But they didn't innovate at all? The technology is the same used in freaking Minecraft, just with loading screens in-between.

Innovation isn't really a meaningful concept anymore, is it?

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Were they up against other nominees/know that they were nominated? Who did they beat out in this category? I have the game and honestly I've probably spent about 24 hours playing it between launch and the "foundation" update, and not at all in a long time. It wasn't innovative. It has about the same environmental diversity as Minecraft, with next to no enemy diversity, and Ratchet & Clank games have better spaceship battles etc.

There is absolutely nothing innovative about the game other than the complete lack of an ending or much at all to actually do. Noby Noby boy was innovative, and had almost nothing really to do and the whole learning languages thing was already done in FFX among others.

Literally every sliver of content in the game was already done, and done better, years ago. So...yeah I wouldn't have shown up either to accept an award I in no way deserved.

 

[Gatlank]

An Innovation award for what? What did that game innovate?
How to build hype for a scam? GDC looks more like a developer circlejerk where awards aren't given for merit.

 

[Aerosteam]

I think the fact that Hello Games themselves think that they didn't deserve an award shows that... well, they didn't deserve an award.

How are nominees handled anyway? I thought all of them have to agree to being one or something.

 

[TheFinish]

I checked what the other nominees were out of curiosity, and they were: Firewatch, The Witness, Pokemon GO and Inside. The honorable mentions were That Dragon, Cancer, The Last Guardian, SUPERHOT, Thumper and Quadrilateral Cowboy.

Now, I've only played NMS, Superhot and Firewatch, but from what I know of the others, it really should have been a contest between Superhot, Thumper and Quad Cowboy. Not really sure how the actual nominees innovated in any way.

But hey, what do I know, I ain' no developer.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Why would NMS win an award for innovation?

Especially when there's wonky neat stuff like Quad Cowboy, or something particularly neat like Superhot?

Hell, didn't Pony Island come out last year? THAT was fucking innovative!

 

[ryan_cs]

Very serious question. What did No Man's Sky actually innovate? I'm...I'm actually struggling to think of anything they did that wasn't done better in another, older game. Was it, was it really just for the size of their universe? Was that all it took to be considered innovative?

But they didn't innovate at all? The technology is the same used in freaking Minecraft, just with loading screens in-between.

Innovation isn't really a meaningful concept anymore, is it?

Why would NMS win an award for innovation?

Especially when there's wonky neat stuff like Quad Cowboy, or something particularly neat like Superhot?

Hell, didn't Pony Island come out last year? THAT was fucking innovative!

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.
The problem is that the planet's are all pretty much the same after a while, the gameplay gets boring after a few hours, and that they lied about a lot of things about what's in the game.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.

So it wins an award for innovation by being...3D Starbound, but with less to do?

That seems backwards for an innovation award.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Yeah, Quad Cowboy should have won. NMS COULD have won had the environments simply been a whole lot better generated but whatever.

 

[ryan_cs]

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.

So it wins an award for innovation by being...3D Starbound, but with less to do?

That seems backwards for an innovation award.

Well, Starbound only has around 13 quadrillion planets, NMS is literaly several magnitude bigger than Starbound, AND it's also in 3D.

This article talks about the largest game worlds, part of it talks about how NMS generates that many worlds. It's probably not be 100% how NMS handles it, but you might still find the article interesting:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=33711

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.

So it wins an award for innovation by being...3D Starbound, but with less to do?

That seems backwards for an innovation award.

Well, Starbound only has around 13 quadrillion planets, NMS is literaly several magnitude bigger than Starbound, AND it's also in 3D.

This article talks about the largest game worlds, part of it talks about how NMS generates that many worlds. It's probably not be 100% how NMS handles it, but you might still find the article interesting:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=33711

Eehhhhh, I guess. But size doesn't impress me. What matters is what you do with it.

Like Evhochron Legacy is freaking massive, and unlike Elite Dangerous, you can literally fly with your default engines to faraway planets if you want. But it's still big empty space, with procedurally generated worlds.

Minecraft is freakin' massive, but if everything was the same big grassy plains with no variety, it would be incredibly dull.

I guess if it found some innovative way to handle procedural generation to make so many worlds, that's great, but size no longer impresses me after my experience with Evochron and Elite. Size is meaningless if all it does it make everything samey.

 

[shrekfan246]

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.

So it wins an award for innovation by being...3D Starbound, but with less to do?

That seems backwards for an innovation award.

Well, Starbound only has around 13 quadrillion planets, NMS is literaly several magnitude bigger than Starbound, AND it's also in 3D.

This article talks about the largest game worlds, part of it talks about how NMS generates that many worlds. It's probably not be 100% how NMS handles it, but you might still find the article interesting:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=33711

The technical impressiveness of the size of No Man's Sky kind of stumbles a bit once you realize that the game only ever physically contains a single star system at a time. And actually breaks if you try to escape the skybox for long enough.

 

[ryan_cs]

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.

So it wins an award for innovation by being...3D Starbound, but with less to do?

That seems backwards for an innovation award.

Well, Starbound only has around 13 quadrillion planets, NMS is literaly several magnitude bigger than Starbound, AND it's also in 3D.

This article talks about the largest game worlds, part of it talks about how NMS generates that many worlds. It's probably not be 100% how NMS handles it, but you might still find the article interesting:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=33711

Eehhhhh, I guess. But size doesn't impress me. What matters is what you do with it.

Like Evhochron Legacy is freaking massive, and unlike Elite Dangerous, you can literally fly with your default engines to faraway planets if you want. But it's still big empty space, with procedurally generated worlds.

Minecraft is freakin' massive, but if everything was the same big grassy plains with no variety, it would be incredibly dull.

I guess if it found some innovative way to handle procedural generation to make so many worlds, that's great, but size no longer impresses me after my experience with Evochron and Elite. Size is meaningless if all it does it make everything samey.

Yeah, I prefer a compact world with a lot of interesting things to do.

 

[Avnger]

Ok, you know how NMS has a lot of huge sized planets, 18 quintillion according to the wiki,across several galaxies? That's why.

So it wins an award for innovation by being...3D Starbound, but with less to do?

That seems backwards for an innovation award.

Well, Starbound only has around 13 quadrillion planets, NMS is literaly several magnitude bigger than Starbound, AND it's also in 3D.

This article talks about the largest game worlds, part of it talks about how NMS generates that many worlds. It's probably not be 100% how NMS handles it, but you might still find the article interesting:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=33711

That really doesn't mean much of anything though. The developers simply let their extremely basic (based on how very, very similar all the worlds are) procedural generation program run for awhile longer. Instead of "for(i=0;i<5;i++)", NMS did "for(i=0;i<500;i++)." Something innovative would have been if said generation formula actually did produce the widely varied results that both the devs and trailers promised pre-release. More isn't innovative when it's simply another go-around of the algorithm.