Steam's description of the "Labor of Love" award is as follows:

"This game has been on the market for some time. The team is past its creative baby debut, but as good parents, the developers continue to nurture and support their creation. The game continues to provide new content to this day, even after all these years."

"Red Dead Redemption 2" is a game that, by my count, has not had an update since 2020 and is notorious for being rather poorly supported compared to GTA games and their predecessors, and probably should not be nominated for such an award. And yet ......

The same strange phenomenon has been seen throughout this year's Steam awards. In theory, it is just democracy manifested: users nominate games and the nominees are decided by voting. But do you really think FC24 and Hogwarts Legacy deserve to be Game of the Year in 2023?

Atomic Heart and High on Life are nominated for Outstanding Visual Style. Starfield is nominated for Most Innovative Gameplay. The game Love Is All Around, a clunky FMV dating sim, is nominated for Outstanding Story-Rich Game; Overwatch 2 is nominated for Best Games You Suck At," one of the awards, which is described as an award for "a game that rewards perseverance and is not for the faint of heart." What does that mean?

I can see how this sort of thing could happen--after all, when you spread this sort of thing around to the general public, many people will click on just one game on the list that they know, or endorse their favorite, regardless of the wording of the category. Of course, games are subjective, and different people like different things and for different reasons.

But I don't think it's controversial to say that the nominations seem a bit all over the place and out of step with almost all the other awards. To me, it seems a bit pointless. It's a shame, given Valve's obvious focus on presentation, with gorgeous graphics, animated stickers to be earned, and a user-friendly voting interface. Or am I just a cranky old games reporter and these nominations really reflect the will of the people?

Voting closes today and the winners should be announced shortly. The full list of nominations is as follows: