No Man’s Sky is the last game anyone expected to win an award at the Game Developers Conference.
With its reputation as the most disappointing game of 2016, the overhyped title from Hello Games ranks as one most poorly-reviewed titles on Steam, after selling a lot of copies by deceptive marketing.
The game’s misleading promotional campaign even prompted Valve to create stringent new rules against the practice.
Players hate it, but game journalists and developers who are friends with its creators rate it highly, defending it against criticism.
Those who asked for refunds were declared “entitled” and “thieves.” Gamers are just the worst, apparently.
To drive that point home, voters at the GDC Awards elected to give No Man’s Sky the Innovation Award, ahead of Inside, The Witness, Firewatch, and Pokémon GO. The game was also nominated for Best Technology.
Like all the other categories at the GDC Awards, an advisory board made up by the editors of Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine select the winners.
The Innovation Award recognizes a single title that “demonstrates true innovation, advances the state of the art, and pushes the boundaries of games as an expressive medium.”
Precisely how No Man’s Sky accomplished any of this has become a reason to ridicule the GDC by the gaming community. Even its developers did not expect to win anything, and refused to attend the event – foregoing it for dinner, instead.
Reactions to the win garnered anger, confusion and ridicule on social media and gaming websites.
People actually voted that No Man's Sky was INNOVATIVE?
And here I thought lying and not keeping your promises had been done before.
— Rhea (@ashelia) March 2, 2017
CONGRATULATIONS @hellogames ON YOUR #GDC17 GAME DEVELOPERS CHOICE AWARD FOR INNOVATION
ᵃᵖᵒˡᵒᵍᶦᶻᵉ pic.twitter.com/9V8c3OfMst
— Best Mom Eva (@mombot) March 2, 2017
How did No Man's Sky win an innovation award? If an idea without execution can count for innovation then Molyneux is owed some back-awards.
— Fraser Agar (@FarFromSubtle) March 2, 2017
“It has the most innovative lie ever told to gamers,” wrote Demon1337 on in the PC Gamer comments thread.
“It’s sad that you can get an award for being a con man and lying to consumers,” wrote another.
Comments like “It seems like it was a … No Man’s Award,” as one Reddit user phrased it, are dime a dozen.
A game developer voiced how dismissive of the competition it was for Hello Games to skip the event because they thought they weren’t going to win.
“It’s not out of the ordinary for people to skip out on the award ceremony but I’ve never seen someone who was nominated do it,” he wrote. “You go and support the other devs. This is just gross.”
Many also highlighted how much more impressive games, including X-COM 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and DOOM were denied recognition at the GDC Awards.
If No Man’s Sky deserves any awards at all, it should be one for Innovation in Deceptive Marketing.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
