Earlier this month, we got our first look at the nominees for The Game Awards 2023. While we were pleased to see Nintendo getting some much-deserved love (including two titles in the GOTY category), much of the conversation online in the ensuing days has been around the Best Indie Game category and, specifically, Dave The Diver's inclusion in it.
Despite the game's lo-fi aesthetic and mechanics, the title was actually developed by MintRocket — a subsidiary of the billion-dollar South Korean publisher Nexon. If games like this are now deemed 'indie' then where do we draw the line? This is the precise question that Mr TGA himself, Geoff Keighley, attempted to tackle in a recent Twitch Q&A and his answer was... expectedly balanced.
Somewhat skirting around the issue of whether he believes that Dave the Diver should be granted indie status, Keighley stated that "independent can mean different things to different people," before explaining, "we defer to our jury [...] to make that determination of is something independent or not". On the game in question, however, Keighley went on to say the following:
I think it's a fair debate and discussion of 'is that game truly independent or is it not', and you can kind of argue it either way. It's independent in spirit and it's a small game, I don't know what the budget is but I think that it's a relatively small budget game, but it is from a larger entity, whereas there are other games on that list that are from much smaller studios.
As a reminder, the other games that are nominated in this category are COCOON, Dredge, Sea of Stars and Viewfinder.
The host and producer made it clear that he has no problem with people agreeing or disagreeing with the TGA choices, and he even noted that he is "open to thinking, moving forward, how do you define that category?'. The times may well be a-changing, and given the level of discussion on this very topic over the past few weeks, it's clear that the industry is going to have to address these labels if it is going to move on.
Be sure to check out the Twitch Q&A in full to hear Keighley's complete answer. If you want to skip the rest of the chat and get straight to this discussion, we'd recommend starting around the 00:27:10 mark.