Award Season

Good Morning. In 1982 15-year-old Scott Safran scored 41,336,440 in Asteroids over 3 days. This record was one of the longest-standing records within gaming until it was broken 38 years later in 2010 by John Mcallister.

—Derek Neville, Tim Rhyne

MAIN QUEST:

The 41st Golden Joystick Awards winners were announced this past Friday, with Baldur’s Gate 3 taking home the top award, and it is likely to see a repeat in December when the winners for the Game Awards are announced.

Nominations for the 2023 Game Awards were announced today, with a total of six games nominated for Game of the Year: Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Tears of the Kingdom. The nominees this year are dominated by sequels and existing IP, while the much-hyped Starfield did not make the cut of final nominees.

The annual award show has historically also served as a platform for publishers to release updates on their upcoming projects. The December 7th date lines up with Rockerstar’s announcement that the first GTA 6 trailer would be revealed in early December, so there is a good chance the GTA 6 rumors will finally be put to rest (or kicked into overdrive) during the show’s stream.

HUD

• 😢 Larian Studios announced on multiple socials the passing of Jim Southworth, who served as the Cinematic Animation lead for Baldur’s Gate 3. Southmore joined Larian in 2019 as part of a third-party vendor before he joined the studio full-time in 2021.

• 💰 Remedy is switching up the plan for their unreleased multiplayer game, which has been going by the codename Vanguard. Now using the codename Kestrel, the game will no longer be a free-to-play game but instead will be released as a premium game. There are still few details around the game’s content.

• 👋 After 32 years, Samwise Didier retired from Blizzard. He is credited with the name “Warcraft” and served as art director on several major franchises over the years.

MAJOR W

• ⛑️ Elden Ring player helped over 5,000 players beat the final pair of bosses.

• 🍪 Conan O’Brien’s popular Clueless Gamer segment has returned, with Conan taking on Starfield. Conan ended up blowing up Grandma’s Ship, and Sarah Morgan definitely disliked that.

• 🎮 Netflix’s Geeked Week concluded over the weekend, and the event included an announcement of 10 games coming to Netflix Games, including hit indie titles such as Hades and Katana Zero.

F IN THE CHAT

• 📦️ Amazon is expected to lay off just over 180 people in its games division as the company makes changes to its game initiatives, including shutting down its Crown Channel and ending its Game Growth program.

• 📣 Twitch will remove its Hype Chat feature this week.

• 👩‍⚖️ A mother in Arkansas is suing several large publishers, including Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, and Microsoft, claiming that the companies use addictive features and technologies, which has led to physical and mental ailments for her son.

CAREER CORNER

• Manager, Creators, North American Football - Electronic Arts (Arizona)

• VP Marketing Digital Gaming - Hasbro (Rhode Island)

• Release Manager - Xbox Game Studios (Redmond)

HIVE MIND

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