The other day it was announced that The Witcher 3 will finally be released in just over a month’s time, and we will all, to the detriment of our real lives, have another fantasy world to lose ourselves in. CD Projekt RED announced the news the game has gone gold (meaning the game is ready to be pressed onto discs and shipped) via the medium of press release, as you do.

“We worked so damn hard over the past three years to bring you this game,” said Adam Badowski, Head of Studio, CD Projekt RED. “From the corrupt nobles in Novigrad to ancient monsters lurking in deep forests, to the bustling cities, colorful ports and breathtaking vistas; all the people, all the places — we literally spent tens of thousands of hours to turn all that into an adventure that will kick your ass and make you want to come for more,” adds Badowski. “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has gone GOLD and will soon be yours!” he concludes.

Garnering over 200 prestigious awards before launch, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is CD Projekt RED’s most ambitious endeavour up to date. Set within a truly open world, the game puts you in the role of a wandering bounty hunter and monster slayer, Geralt of Rivia. In The Witcher, you take on the greatest contract of your life — tracking down the Child of Prophecy, a living weapon that can alter the shape of the world.“

It’s the first line of paragraph two that has caused a bit of debate among the OnlySP staff; ‘over 200 awards’. 200 awards is impressive, especially for a game that isn’t even out and only went gold yesterday. Of course, the awards are all ‘most looked forward to’-type affairs, with IGN giving the game Best RPG and People’s Choice at E3 for 2013 and 2014.

The question is: should these really be called awards?

It’s exciting to vote in polls for your most-wanted game, and for a website to dub that game people’s choice, but it’s the word award itself. You would think an award would be for a finished (or at least, released) product. Until that game goes gold and ends up in your hands, everything you’ve seen in trailers or played in demos may not end up in the actual release. I can’t imagine Star Wars: The Force Awakens being promoted as ‘award winning’ when it’s only had two teaser trailers, no matter how many websites and their readerships have decided they are better than other trailers. Evolve was another recent title that had won a shed load of pre-release awards and, upon release, was met with a predominant ‘meh’.

In the defense of The Witcher 3‘s developers, they have explicitly stated the game garnered these awards before launch, so anyone should be able to suss out ‘award’ = hype.



But what about once the game does come out? Will CD Projekt RED add the number of awards their game wins post-release to their tally? Because if we do, that’s when we really go into misleading marketing.

It’s that aspect that has started this conversation between the OnlySP team. It’s not at the level of some other bad trends but it’s one that could get annoying. Personally, I don’t object at all to websites slapping a little badge graphic on the game of a game and calling it their Most Wanted, and then using that in marketing. It’s when you use the term ‘award’ you imply that every gaming Tumblr blog has the same level of legitimacy as a BAFTA or SXSW (in which case we award the upcoming PS4 remake of Ratchet & Clank the Only Single Player Award for Most Completely Necessary Remake To Have Ever Been Conceived Because Obviously a Remake of Final Fantasy VII is Not a Conceivable Notion in the Minds of Square Enix. Feel free to use that in your trailer, guys).

So, in summary: the concept is fine, but let’s just all agree on a different choice of words, yes? That’s what I say anyway, feel free to disagree or have your own opinion in the comments below.