No Man's Sky wins a GDC award but no one showed up to accept it
No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games won the award for innovation at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards, but it clearly wasn’t expecting to. The indie team wasn’t there in person to accept its award from host Tim Schafer.
Why? Hello Games team members who made the trip to San Francisco for GDC were eating dinner at the time — and said they didn’t expect to win anyway.
When Schafer announced that No Man’s Sky had won the Innovation Award at tonight’s festivities, he called out, “Going once... going twice...” after noticing that no one was en route to the stage to accept the neon green robot trophy Schafer accepted it on the developer’s behalf.
Whoops! Let this be a reminder to everyone, if you get nominated for an award, you had better show up. You may surprise yourself, and actually win.
GAMERANT : 'Looking strictly at No Man’s Sky’s innovation, there are plenty of impressive elements to the game. The way in which the game procedurally generated a vast galaxy with unique planets and creatures is staggering. Of course, under further examination it became clear that the game did rely on familiar patterns and the variety started to disappear.
No doubt, the bigger controversies surrounding No Man’s Sky have to do with the claims made by its director, Sean Murray, who led hopeful fans to believe that the game would have some form of multiplayer interaction. It wasn’t long after No Man’s Sky’s release that the developers began to walk back from those claims, but for most gamers the damage was done.
Things only got more complicated from there, as the Hello Games team went dark on social media and in the press. It wasn’t until several months later that the team finally resurfaced to reveal the Foundation Update, which added many oft-requested features like base-building, automatic resource harvesting, and more waypoints.
Still, there’s no doubt that No Man’s Sky’s legacy will be looked at from two perspectives. On the one hand, the technology is impressive and now award-winning, but on the other its gameplay may not have been all gamers built it up to be in their heads. Perhaps the game might eventually get there, though, as Hello Games seemingly has more content updates in the works..'
GDC AWARD WINNERS
Best Debut
Firewatch - Campo Santo
Best Audio
Inside - Playdead
Innovation Award
No Man’s Sky - Hello Games
Best Technology
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End - Naughty Dog
Best VR/AR
Job Simulator - Owlchemy Labs
Best Visual Art
Inside - Playdead
Best Narrative
Firewatch - Camp Santo
Best Design
Overwatch - Blizzard Entertainment
Best Mobile/Handheld Game
Pokémon Go - Niantic
Audience Award
Battlefield 1 - EA/DICE
Game of the Year
Overwatch - Blizzard Entertainment
IGF AWARD WINNERS
Best Student Game
Un Pas Fragile
Excellence in Visual Art
Hyper Light Drifter
Excellence in Audio
Gonner
Alt.Ctrl.GDC Award
Fear Sphere
Nuovo Award
Oikospiel Book I
Excellence in Design
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Excellence in Narrative
Ladykiller in a Bind
Audience Award
Hyper Light Drifter
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Quadrilateral Cowboy
http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/2/14786762/gdc-award-winners-no-mans-sky
