Should MSFS be game of the year?  I think so not for what it has done but what it is attempting to do.  Yea a risk but I'm happy with the result.  

Say a prayer for those who can't build a gaming rig due to parts availability. 🥴

cheers

bs

Definitely. Nothing even comes close. 

With cyberpunk 2077 being what it is I’d say MSFS has a solid shot.

Should definitely be considered. Very definition of a rough diamond.

No.  Game of the Year should be reserved for products that are complete, stable, and deliver all of the features promised in any major advertising campaigns. 

The press has been way too lenient in their coverage of MSFS.

That sounds 😴. 

Regards

bs

I am not super informed about these contests, but isn't the GOTY 2020 closed already?

For me it has been not only the game of the year but the event of the year 2020! Not only for the pandemic that forced me to stay at home: I have been waiting for a new Flight Simulator for so many years, feeling like an orphan, going back and forth between P3D and XP without spending many hours with them and unable to love either one.

Having said that, I think that MSFS is still a niche "game" and not mainstream enough for a GOTY award.

I think that too many people have been transfixed by the pretty pictures. Whilst it seems to have some amazing graphics, I find it hard to understand how a game that (apparently) lacks so many features, and which (apparently) has so many bugs can possibly even be considered for an award like this.

Edited April 5, 20215 yr by Christopher Low

Maybe

AGOTY (Almost the Game Of The Year)

or

GOTYASIIF (Game Of The Year A Soon It Is Finished)  

or

GOTY2023

1 minute ago, Christopher Low said:

I think that too many people have been transfixed by the pretty pictures.  

 I wouldn't say that, Christopher. Many features missing or broken but when it is good, it is good ! Flying the Spit' or the default Cub is a ball. It feels like you are here in the darned aircraft. I do not hide my frustration at many things but as an old simmer Ii can tell you, it is a good one.

Although I would love MSFS to be awarded GOTY, I too agree with the others here that the amount of missing critical features and bugs should be enough reason to disqualify it. 

However, I wouldn't be surprised at all if MSFS won, and if it did, it's a threat to the gaming industry as a whole as it would reaffirm all game developers that messy and buggy games are acceptable and pretty looks are all that's needed.

It already won the best sim/strategy category!

https://thegameawards.com/nominees/best-sim-strategy

Not sure if the OP is asking if it should have won?

Or maybe he is hoping it should win again in 2021?

Or maybe it should have won the "overall winner" category (instead of "The last of us II")?

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

I think that too many people have been transfixed by the pretty pictures. Whilst it seems to have some amazing graphics, I find it hard to understand how a game that (apparently) lacks so many features, and which (apparently) has so many bugs can possibly even be considered for an award like this.

Or perhaps this place is self-selecting for being several standard deviations outside the norm in terms of its demands, and for a mainstream audience it's a satisfying, exciting product that will let them fly anywhere in the world, and they just don't care about things like LOD regressions and incomplete autopilot functionality.

Just to present an alternative hypothesis.

For the "non-hardcore" simming community and casual gaming community, I would imagine it is an extremely strong contender for the title of GOTY. It is incredible in its scope and stature and an amazing rebirth of the powerhouse title that Microsoft Flight Simulator is known to be. I would not argue against it being GOTY in the slightest. After ~36 years of flight simming, this edition of MSFS is the first time I felt something revolutionary (* instead of evolutionary) had happened in the genre.

That said, it's clear that there are some simmers who find it lacking - either in technical ability, performance, or addon depth and/or availability.  Within the relatively narrow confines of our dedicated simulation enthusiast's gaze, these are entirely legitimate observations that may or may not affect your usage of MSFS.

But from the big picture in the computer gaming world, I think people will be hard pressed to find another entertainment title which would supersede MSFS as the GOTY.

2 minutes ago, greggerm said:

But from the big picture in the computer gaming world, I think people will be hard pressed to find another entertainment title which would supersede MSFS as the GOTY.

The big picture is that all flightsimulators COMBINED have probably less than 5% of the player numbers of some of just one of the competing titles. 😉

So if you make ANY of the flightsimulator games out there "game of the year" - the vast majority of gamers will go: offensive initials not allowed?? 😂

(On Steam there are over one million people playing Counter Strike right now, about 15.000  people playing flight simulators).

In addition - if you look at the "advisory board" of this competition and compare the entering titles with the companies represented in that board...it will not surprise you that some REALLY successfull games are not even considered for the title.

It´s a bit like me doing a sing-off-contest while I am under the shower. And the winner is... ME! 😁

 

I don't think it is practical to compare MSFS to "mainstream" games.  They are just too much of a niche.  Apples and oranges. 

That said, I think that MSFS has done some amazing things with graphics and performance (the latter part being important).  My PC is 3.5 years old now and I can easily get 30fps with GA airplanes and even higher.  That's all while being able to visually identify all sorts of real landmarks around my area which was all AI generated (nobody hand crafted anything around my area outside of maybe Niagara Falls).  For many years, we flew around relatively generic landclass and textures.  Maybe the sim knew to put suburban looking textures in one spot, urban ones in the next, and rural textures outside of that, but I've never seen anything like this outside of satellite imagery (which had its own limits). 

The technology is amazing.  As someone who plays a lot of video games along with sims, it has been a long time since something made me say "wow" from a graphics and performance standpoint.  All I know is I uninstalled any other sim I had on my hard drive.  I really liked other sims, but now there's no going back once I've seen what this sim can do.  I love just flying around my home town looking out the window.  I've never been able to do that before.  I would be limited to flying somewhere more interesting with better 3rd party scenery. 

To me, that's revolutionary.