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You'd think that most game developers would be rooting for their own work to win a Game of the Year award, but that's apparently not the case for Tom Guillermin, Sandfall Interactive co-founder and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's chief technical officer. He's been spending his time hoping for other games to take home those big GOTY awards because he wants to help celebrate the creative – and weird – work of other devs.
"I was crossing fingers that we wouldn't get [Game of the Year] because there are so many super creative games and weird games," Guillermin told Game Informer at the Game Developers Choice Awards, as published in issue 377 of the magazine.
"It's great that there is room for all of that to exist with, of course, the big blockbusters that also have a role to play in the industry in moving technology forward," he continues. "For me, it's a sign of health in the industry that we can express our creativity and try something a bit unexpected, and have people react positively to that."
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 did, naturally, take home the GOTY honor at the Game Developers Choice Awards – on top of winning for Best Audio, Best Debut, Best Narrative, and Best Visual Art. Shortly afterwards, it would secure the BAFTA award for Best Game, making it just the second title ever to secure all five major Game of the Year awards.
Expedition 33 also offered a rare example of a game competing for "best debut" at various awards ceremonies alongside the biggest Game of the Year races. Normally, it takes a few tries before a studio builds something that can stand up among the year's absolute greats, you know? For Guillermin, Sandfall's dual race suggests that there's room – maybe even a hunger – for fresh ideas from new studios.
"It's really interesting to see this duality between winning Best Debut game and also Game of the Year in different awards ceremonies," Guillermin says. "But I think it's great because maybe it's a signal that there is room in this industry for a great variety of people that are maybe not all triple-A, or not coming from a genre that's expected by players, because a lot of people, when we were at the beginning, when we were saying that we were working on a JRPG turn-based game, [they were like,] 'No, that's not my jam.' Seeing such openness and having our game embraced by such a large group of players, I think it's a great signal that we can be innovative."
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