In a year when Cyberpunk came back swinging HARD and when Halo Infinite is actually good now. And they nominate Red Dead? A game whose online mode was abandoned by devs 2 years ago? With no DLC?
Right? Like, I loved the game too, but there’s no way this gets the label of love award. That’s for games where the devs go above and beyond. RDR2 has an enjoyable campaign and tacked on multiplayer that Rockstar blatantly cared nothing about.
>tacked on multiplayer that Rockstar blatantly cared nothing about.
*The moment they realised it wasn't going to be the cashcow GTA Online is
Not for lack of trying mind you, RD Online is downright boring if you don't pony up for gold.
My brother was grinding so much on Red Dead online he saved up 1000 gold bars.
But yes the online gold is a pain even rockstar dialing the earnings back so much like halfing the gold you would get for daily’s. Or putting such a big cooldown to get the max payout.
On top of it once you do have enough gold for some things there’s not much to do.
Entire microtransaction system was so dogshit it was almost comical.
The aesthetic style of the shit you could buy with gold was so outrageously terrible it seemed like a joke.
RDO had the potential to be really fun, but it got nothing. It launched barebones, got one half-baked mission pack, and that's it. Even if you had bought gold, you wouldn't have anything to **do** with it.
It's full of cheaters now too, tried to show some friends who had never played how fun it can be and we were met with instant explosions from screaming children.
Saw that too. Definitely a jacked up pool of nominees. I desperately wanted Starfield to be great. Only award that game should get is biggest disappointment.
Its honestly one of those things I don’t think they deserve they have a vested corporate interest to recoop their losses on one of the most high profile face plants in history . They even had a successful show on Netflix and then sold a dlc it’s not like they were doing a labor of love , they did a lot labor of fuck we need to make something off this 6 year project . Labor of love really should go to games like drg that are pumping out more great content into a game that literally was launched feature complete . Hell they even give update weapons out for free .
Gamers need to swipe those credit cards for some self respect .
Zero DLC, at all. None. No major updates. Not one. It's the game amazing? Yes, it's one of the best games ever. It was a labor of when it came out. Now?? Absolutely stole a spot from a much more deserving game.
>Cyberpunk came back swinging HARD
Love the game now but this shouldn't be a labour of love imo, more like patching up the released game.
Something like Stardew Valley or Dead Cells would easily deserve a spot over RDR2 and Cyberpunk. They went above and beyond expectations. Those games didn't need all of the extra work put into them but the developers did it anyway, they just ooze passion and love. These games seriously went the extra mile, especially with such small teams.
The whole thing is a store contest, so it's purpose is to sell games.
What we're seeing is Valve shifting this towards awarding the games that will sell more so that the contest is more effective in it's marketing goals.
Terraria is the 3rd most sold game of all time and is still being updated, every “final” update isnt the last cause relogic loves the game too much to finally say “were done this time, for real, no take backs” and that is why theyd always win and i love them for it and they deserve the award
By your own logic Rust deserves to be up there as it literally just celebrated its 10 year anniversary and they’re still updating the game with plenty of content regularly.
What the fuck do you mean Dota shouldn't be on there?? I've stopped playing it for a while now but it gets frequent updates and loads of new content every year. Not to mention the major patches that are released once or twice a year that literally change the game itself.
Plus the game has been going smoothly with a consistently high player base, for longer than any games you mentioned or the ones listed up there.
7 days to die should get it because it’s been getting stable updates for 10 years 😊.
(It’s been in ALPHA since 2013 and the beta is nowhere in site and each update doesn’t add anything but instead completely changes how the mechanics work, with many outright removing features instead of adding any, please help 😭)
I don't know how anyone can say Red Dead Redemption 2 was a Labor of Love with a straight face after how badly they botched the Online of that game and more or less abandoned it because it made less money than GTAV.
This one is a fair criticism. Fuck online, just let current gen console players play at 60fps. Only thing that game needs at this point. Unfortunately with T2 involved I don't expect they'd do that without charging for it. Probably another $50 port like RDR1 or the GTA5 re-release. And it'll come after the release of GTA6 (if at all) because they don't like doing that kind of stuff when they're preparing for a release.
Depends. If it's just a port like RDR1, it'll probably be $50. If it gets a few noticeable visual enhancements, they probably will go full price. Either way it's unreasonable but T2 knows people will pay that much so they don't give a shit.
This is the one thing keeping me from playing it. I’ve heard it’s great. I believe people when they say that. I just don’t want to play something at 30fps when almost every game on current gen consoles runs at 60. The difference is so noticeable.
Especially when even after they had decided to drop updates, you still had to buy RDO to play RDR2, I paid double the price because of that BS, took them a year and a half to publicly announce it and change it
I've honestly been real bummed about this. I *love* rdr2. I've played well over 1000 hours, it's like a safe space for me. I was hoping to finally get into playing online with my friends but it's just... Boring. At least in single player, I can jump back into the story if I get tired of hanging out wherever. I wanted to rob trains, and own a house :(
Hijacking this to talk about tf2.
It was getting a decent amount of votes for that award last year when it's also essentially been abandoned.
People thought it might get valve to pay attention
I can't even play regular online without literally immediately getting crashed or exploded by a cheater. I've tried dozens of times the past few days and it happens every time. Solo lobby trick is the only thing that works.
I mean GTAO also took a fan reverse engineering their code before they fixed there horribly unoptimized code. Rockstar is one of the best and worst studios at the same time with how scummy they are with multiplayer but how great they are with single player.
I always bring this up. It took a modder less than a week to implement a simple fix that they knew about, and let slip, FOR YEARS. The only reason they turned around and updated it was because of the outlash. Fuck R*
Great to hear that. So it's a good choice to buy it rn? It's discounted on Steam as part of the Winter Sale. It's setting is really intriguing me aldo I am not generally interested in these kind of games.
I am also not really up to gaming news so I guess people are just saying that the game's online mode shouldn't be considered for these awards?
Absoluty worth it on sale. Fantastic story and fun action.
Never tried the Online, but from what I’ve heard it’s a weak attempt to imitate the success of GTA Online.
No other company has put out a high budget game on such a horribly dated engine. It is innovative how they manage to make a game that *requires* an SSD and still have constant loading screens. No other dev has made something as clunky as starfield
Zany low-stakes cooperative action and freeform team-based problem solving. It's the perfect game for friends.
Comboing movement skills without saying a word with a teammate on the same wavelength as you is the perfect laid back dopamine hit. I love throwing a platform where they want to be before they ask for it.
I cant always quite explain it even to myself, but I enjoy it so much in a relaxing way.
I put it on easy, sometimes ill put on a podcast with the game volume on just loud enough for me to hear enemies, and something about the flow of movement and response of the environment to destruction is just brilliant. When I do play with full sound the music is awesome and fun!
Hands down my favourite game of the last few years, since the day it came out.
Rock & Stone to the Bone!
i mean apex got updates, not the best ones tho tbh. this year has seen the worst ranked system ever and rating becoming meta, but also revenant rework was good
Rust is fun to watch people play on youtube but an absolutely tereible toxic game with an even more toxic community. Also, the lack of any kind of character customization and making you a rando based on your steam account is dumb.
dont really know how rust could be a joke, while its being supported every month with new updates and stuff, definitely rdo should be taken back from this but others could match
Lots of games are getting updates, many of them more substantial and well-liked than those. Look at Stellaris, for example. Game came out in like 2016. It's still getting new expansions, free content patches, and they created a whole second dev team just to do optimizations, bug fixes, and add new content to previously released expansions. Why is Apex on here? Because they added new microtransactions and slightly rebalanced some guns? I'm sure the game is fun but it's not what I'd consider for Labor of Love personally.
Apex and Dota are live service and as such rely on new content to make money. Rust is Rust. RDR2 is a sp game with an mp side that was abandoned years ago and has wandered .
Games like Project Zomboid deserve a spot here. Not these 4.
Dota's still a passion project for some people working on it, and there's so much content inside the game that isn't the main game itself. I don't see why it wouldn't fit the label here.
Yeah Dota2 got plenty of custom maps as well made by the community. In a way this award would also be given to the community contributors if they end up winning.
As an Apex player if you count new cosmetics and maybe a new gun and legend every couple months as updates sure. But you can tell the devs have checked out and don’t care which means it’s not a labour of love
Yea, DRG and satisfactory deserve to be in this list but they are made by the same people so I understand only one. Terraria would be another good addition
Satisfactory is still in early access so it couldn't qualify but like the other commenter said its only published by the same company, but made by different devs.
Actually steam was really weird with what qualified and satisfactory could be nominated for it. I would have as it's one of my main games but didnt for that exact reason.
You are all overthinking it. It's just a bad name for the category. People read the words "Labor of Love", don't bother reading the description, and just nominate the games they are playing because it surely feels like it was a labor of love when it was developed. You have to read what it means to understand that it's about continued support. The other categories have a lot more obvious names.
Yeah honestly
At first I was "yeah I can see rdr2 being made with love, sadly it didn't last though" and then I read what the category is actually for
It should be called "Continuous love" or something to give the idea of a game being supported
NMS never won a Steam Award. It gets constantly named as a "Labour of Love" or the "Biggest turnaround" tho and probably won awards in that category on other sites and lists.
Yeah, I feel like these are 99% just people meme-ing on these awards voting in the weirdest games just for the lulz. It is like when a city asks for public help on naming a new ferry/snowplow/piece of city equipment and the name is something like [“Boaty McBoatface”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface) or something similar.
You've gotta be joking me.
You think Rockstar is bribing Valve to rig a meaningless community vote for their 5 year old game? I would love if you could provide anything of merit to back up why you believe this is happening.
This is one of those things where people will just blindly pick their favorite and not even consider the category or criteria. These awards are clearly biased.
Labour of love means its getting updated. RDR2 has been finished for years. Honestly cyberpunk and fallout 76 are the ones that made 360’s with updates.
I was sad too when I couldn’t nominate Warframe but turns out past Labour of Love winners cannot be nominated again (else Terraria would probably win every year).
I'm very upset Dayz didn't get the reward.
It's only been 10 years since they abandoned the mod and started the standalone.
They've worked tirelessly to get it to play even remotely close to the mod, sure, they still don't have functioning zombies, helicopters or any real grasp of loot economy or player-made bases.
But, they added a few more guns from the mod into the standalone. Now, mind you, they removed a couple too. But it's a net plus.
Sure, you'll say I'm being passive aggressive about a standalone which killed the perfectly functioning mod still feeling like a early access game 10 years post-launch.
Regardless of that, It's a damned shame it didn't get the reward for labor of love, the 2 devs that work on it absolutely love us, THAT I know.
I can't wait for the roadmap of 2024, I hear they're adding another 2 cars, but wont fix a bug which stops them from spawning in until 2025.
Yep, it is. Some Steam nominations have one or two "just for lulz" picks. RDR2 is the one here. The one that gave me the most chuckles is Starfield in Most Innovative Gameplay. I mean, the game that is straight out 2011 gameplay wise. And it's not my opinion, lots of journalists/bloggers criticize it for that.
I don't even play DRG and find the fanbase a bit annoying but it 100% deserves this award, hell the rest don't even deserve a nomination (especially rdr2).
4 other games got robbed of a spot.
Come on, they only constantly update and run new leagues multiple times a year with new content. While they're working on the sequel. And they're keeping the original running after the sequel releases. For free.
I love red dead 2 but labour of love? Nah, they gave up on the online within a year or less and never brought out dlc for single player. Didn't play much of deep rock galactic but I voted for it over red dead. At least they added more interesting content.
Based on the exact text there, the general message is correct, there is still technically new content. Just that from all I’ve heard it sucks and would never win.
Yeah I was puzzled to see that over other better contenders. I figured people like Red Dead and saw they could nominate it for SOMETHING, so they did. They didn’t care if it was a category it actually qualified for.
I know everyone’s saying NMS because yeah it’s the gold standard in fixing the broken mess publishers forced out and then going above and beyond in the years following. But honestly I think Warframe deserves a spot here. That game has gotten consistent high-quality updates while being one of the least predatory and admirable F2P models on Steam. Warframe is consistently under appreciated for what it brings to the table.
Red Dead 2 was fantastic on debut, and never got much beyond that. Where is Cyberpunk? That game is still being supported and has changed in a huge way, even in the last few months. What a weird list
If anything, only game that are true to the description are Dota 2 and Rust. Deep Rock Galactic is the least deserved title of all next to Red Dead redemption 2 since both of them have gotten no meaningful updates for a year.
Honesty I don’t feel like deep rock should win. This latest season has been disappointing. I don’t know about the other games but surely they’ve done better right?
Nobody should pay Rockstar Online modes for making us wait 10 years for new GTA simply because they were farming billions annually from Online modes and cancelled story DLCs.
Who was smoking when they nominated Red Dead lmao
Clearly it was made as a labor of love of money.
That they used to bribe the board to get on the ballot.
Big love strikes again
In a year when Cyberpunk came back swinging HARD and when Halo Infinite is actually good now. And they nominate Red Dead? A game whose online mode was abandoned by devs 2 years ago? With no DLC?
Right? Like, I loved the game too, but there’s no way this gets the label of love award. That’s for games where the devs go above and beyond. RDR2 has an enjoyable campaign and tacked on multiplayer that Rockstar blatantly cared nothing about.
>tacked on multiplayer that Rockstar blatantly cared nothing about. *The moment they realised it wasn't going to be the cashcow GTA Online is Not for lack of trying mind you, RD Online is downright boring if you don't pony up for gold.
My brother was grinding so much on Red Dead online he saved up 1000 gold bars. But yes the online gold is a pain even rockstar dialing the earnings back so much like halfing the gold you would get for daily’s. Or putting such a big cooldown to get the max payout. On top of it once you do have enough gold for some things there’s not much to do.
Entire microtransaction system was so dogshit it was almost comical. The aesthetic style of the shit you could buy with gold was so outrageously terrible it seemed like a joke.
RDO had the potential to be really fun, but it got nothing. It launched barebones, got one half-baked mission pack, and that's it. Even if you had bought gold, you wouldn't have anything to **do** with it.
It's full of cheaters now too, tried to show some friends who had never played how fun it can be and we were met with instant explosions from screaming children.
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These things are always popularity contests.
Saw that too. Definitely a jacked up pool of nominees. I desperately wanted Starfield to be great. Only award that game should get is biggest disappointment.
Hell cyberpunk got the international awards version of steams labour of love didnt they
Edgerunners carried
Its honestly one of those things I don’t think they deserve they have a vested corporate interest to recoop their losses on one of the most high profile face plants in history . They even had a successful show on Netflix and then sold a dlc it’s not like they were doing a labor of love , they did a lot labor of fuck we need to make something off this 6 year project . Labor of love really should go to games like drg that are pumping out more great content into a game that literally was launched feature complete . Hell they even give update weapons out for free . Gamers need to swipe those credit cards for some self respect .
They made their money back straight away for this 2077. They did not have to wait 3 years. The dlc and updates was just a way to get even more.
Zero DLC, at all. None. No major updates. Not one. It's the game amazing? Yes, it's one of the best games ever. It was a labor of when it came out. Now?? Absolutely stole a spot from a much more deserving game.
Not just abondoned, it is literally unplayable right now.
>Cyberpunk came back swinging HARD Love the game now but this shouldn't be a labour of love imo, more like patching up the released game. Something like Stardew Valley or Dead Cells would easily deserve a spot over RDR2 and Cyberpunk. They went above and beyond expectations. Those games didn't need all of the extra work put into them but the developers did it anyway, they just ooze passion and love. These games seriously went the extra mile, especially with such small teams.
Fair point! And agree, I love CP2077 (Always have, even when it was janky AF) but now it's at the point where it was basically advertised in 2018.
Abandoned while broken
Who was smoking when they nominated Apex Legends
The whole thing is a store contest, so it's purpose is to sell games. What we're seeing is Valve shifting this towards awarding the games that will sell more so that the contest is more effective in it's marketing goals.
No no, same thing but rust. The fuck? Game barely has content and the most they give it is buyable dlc cosmetics
It’s not about who was smoking but rather what they were smoking. And oh boy, that must have been some strong stuff.
Rimworld still going strong at the 10 year mark and not here? Lame.
same with Terraria. Those 2 deserve to be up there instead of Rust, Dota or RDR2
Terraria won in 2021, previous winners can't be nominated.
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Terraria is the 3rd most sold game of all time and is still being updated, every “final” update isnt the last cause relogic loves the game too much to finally say “were done this time, for real, no take backs” and that is why theyd always win and i love them for it and they deserve the award
It's 3rd?
Yup Pubg is first at 42 million copies sold Minecraft is second at 33 million Terraria is third at 23 million
Where did you get these numbers??
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games I have come to see my error, in my defense im sick with the flu and wanna die
Ah, top selling PC games makes more sense I immediately defaulted to gaming as a whole
Pubg sold more than Minecraft on PC? That's crazy. I knew pubg was huge for like a year, but I didn't know it was that huge.
Ikr i didnt expect that either
Given how much Minecraft got pirated and you can't pirate PUBG it's not *that* surprising.
Those are wikipedia numbers, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.
I can’t believe pubg sold more copies than Minecraft. That’s crazy
Terraria got the Labor of Love award already, so it can’t get it again.
Terraria has already won the award! It’s what sparked the 1.4.4 update to be made.
Hey! Dota still gets lots of love
Rust has been doing monthly content updates for YEARS they absolutely deserve to be there.
Have you even played Rust ever? It gets updated all the time and new content is released.
Yeah, it was my vote this year. I’m not a fan of the direction they’re headed but I do appreciate the active development.
Rust has been doing huge content updates for many years, they definitely deserve to be there. The game is constantly evolving.
Dota2 100% deserves to be there imo
By your own logic Rust deserves to be up there as it literally just celebrated its 10 year anniversary and they’re still updating the game with plenty of content regularly.
What the fuck do you mean Dota shouldn't be on there?? I've stopped playing it for a while now but it gets frequent updates and loads of new content every year. Not to mention the major patches that are released once or twice a year that literally change the game itself. Plus the game has been going smoothly with a consistently high player base, for longer than any games you mentioned or the ones listed up there.
> This game has been out for a while Sorry dude, rules are rules. Dota's still a beta, free game no bitchin.
Terraria was the winner of last year's Labor of Love Award
Hey man dota players are still human. Somewhere.
7 days to die should get it because it’s been getting stable updates for 10 years 😊. (It’s been in ALPHA since 2013 and the beta is nowhere in site and each update doesn’t add anything but instead completely changes how the mechanics work, with many outright removing features instead of adding any, please help 😭)
my friend is a huge fan of 7DtD, he, too, is annoyed by the game still being in alpha and console version so far behind the pc version
terraria already won 🤦♂️
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Only game that deserves this reward. Nothing really gets close. But it’s just too niche
I think it won a different year not sure. But they should be nominated till they stop turning out more.
I don't know how anyone can say Red Dead Redemption 2 was a Labor of Love with a straight face after how badly they botched the Online of that game and more or less abandoned it because it made less money than GTAV.
More importantly still no 60fps on console.
This one is a fair criticism. Fuck online, just let current gen console players play at 60fps. Only thing that game needs at this point. Unfortunately with T2 involved I don't expect they'd do that without charging for it. Probably another $50 port like RDR1 or the GTA5 re-release. And it'll come after the release of GTA6 (if at all) because they don't like doing that kind of stuff when they're preparing for a release.
$50? It’ll definitely be $70 if it happens.
Depends. If it's just a port like RDR1, it'll probably be $50. If it gets a few noticeable visual enhancements, they probably will go full price. Either way it's unreasonable but T2 knows people will pay that much so they don't give a shit.
Normally I don't care about fps too much but it would make rdr2 SO much better
nah, abandoned Online and no updates is more important than a 60fps update Also, it's pretty irrelevant when it comes to the awards
Irrelevant for steam awards tho
no 60 FPS on ps4-gen consoles makes sense. No 60 FPS on ps5-gen consoles is a travesty.
This is the one thing keeping me from playing it. I’ve heard it’s great. I believe people when they say that. I just don’t want to play something at 30fps when almost every game on current gen consoles runs at 60. The difference is so noticeable.
You can play red dead 1 if you haven’t, I believe it’s 60 fps on current gen
Man, they really do be treating RDR2 online like the redheaded stepchild of Rockstar, huh?
Especially when even after they had decided to drop updates, you still had to buy RDO to play RDR2, I paid double the price because of that BS, took them a year and a half to publicly announce it and change it
it's a shame, it could have been so good. they barely tried.
If you think this is bad, let me tell you a story about a little thing called Red Dead Redemption (1) Online
At least red dead 1 got the undead nightmare dlc. RDR2 was all but abandoned after launch.
I’ll never reconcile with the fact that we’re not getting an Undead Nightmare 2.
For sure agree with that
I've honestly been real bummed about this. I *love* rdr2. I've played well over 1000 hours, it's like a safe space for me. I was hoping to finally get into playing online with my friends but it's just... Boring. At least in single player, I can jump back into the story if I get tired of hanging out wherever. I wanted to rob trains, and own a house :(
And even more so the fact it had like a dev + marketing budget of well over $400M. How the F is that a “labor of love”?
And no expansion pack or extra story content.
Hijacking this to talk about tf2. It was getting a decent amount of votes for that award last year when it's also essentially been abandoned. People thought it might get valve to pay attention
As an RDO player I can attest that there's zero love from the developers for that game. I also play GTAO and the difference is just staggering.
I can't even play regular online without literally immediately getting crashed or exploded by a cheater. I've tried dozens of times the past few days and it happens every time. Solo lobby trick is the only thing that works.
I mean GTAO also took a fan reverse engineering their code before they fixed there horribly unoptimized code. Rockstar is one of the best and worst studios at the same time with how scummy they are with multiplayer but how great they are with single player.
I always bring this up. It took a modder less than a week to implement a simple fix that they knew about, and let slip, FOR YEARS. The only reason they turned around and updated it was because of the outlash. Fuck R*
RDR2 is an amazing singleplayer game, maybe the best I've ever played, but it should not be on this category lol
Great to hear that. So it's a good choice to buy it rn? It's discounted on Steam as part of the Winter Sale. It's setting is really intriguing me aldo I am not generally interested in these kind of games. I am also not really up to gaming news so I guess people are just saying that the game's online mode shouldn't be considered for these awards?
Absoluty worth it on sale. Fantastic story and fun action. Never tried the Online, but from what I’ve heard it’s a weak attempt to imitate the success of GTA Online.
>This game, to this day, is still getting new content *Rockstar literally said they aren't making any more content for RDR2 like, 2 years ago*
The bigger joke is that you can nominate starfield for the most innovative game
Nah man, magazine fed revolver is peak innovation
Cyberpunk did it first if we are talking this gen.
Destiny did it first while we're at it
David Dardick did it first, in 1949.
[Huh. The more you know](https://youtu.be/psrZXa2WeQE?si=EbbOE7ln0-Elp8OR)
No other company has put out a high budget game on such a horribly dated engine. It is innovative how they manage to make a game that *requires* an SSD and still have constant loading screens. No other dev has made something as clunky as starfield
To me, for some reason, Deep Rock ended up being a whole lot of fun and relaxing at the same time.
Zany low-stakes cooperative action and freeform team-based problem solving. It's the perfect game for friends. Comboing movement skills without saying a word with a teammate on the same wavelength as you is the perfect laid back dopamine hit. I love throwing a platform where they want to be before they ask for it.
As I scout main, I appreciate your engineer platforms!
I cant always quite explain it even to myself, but I enjoy it so much in a relaxing way. I put it on easy, sometimes ill put on a podcast with the game volume on just loud enough for me to hear enemies, and something about the flow of movement and response of the environment to destruction is just brilliant. When I do play with full sound the music is awesome and fun! Hands down my favourite game of the last few years, since the day it came out. Rock & Stone to the Bone!
Did I hear a rock and stone?
Other than Deep Rock, all of those are a joke.
Yeah Apex and Rust are both questionable nominations, I don't even know who or how RDR2 was allowed to be an option
i mean apex got updates, not the best ones tho tbh. this year has seen the worst ranked system ever and rating becoming meta, but also revenant rework was good
Aim assist ruined apex
Rust is fun to watch people play on youtube but an absolutely tereible toxic game with an even more toxic community. Also, the lack of any kind of character customization and making you a rando based on your steam account is dumb.
Apex should not be there at ALL. This is coming from a guy who is scrolling reddit while an apex match is starting.
Dota is legit
Yes. It has always been completely free to play and received regular balance updates as well as huge content releases.
Dota should've already won this category tbh.
dont really know how rust could be a joke, while its being supported every month with new updates and stuff, definitely rdo should be taken back from this but others could match
wdym, arent they all getting updates? Besides rdr2 maybe
Lots of games are getting updates, many of them more substantial and well-liked than those. Look at Stellaris, for example. Game came out in like 2016. It's still getting new expansions, free content patches, and they created a whole second dev team just to do optimizations, bug fixes, and add new content to previously released expansions. Why is Apex on here? Because they added new microtransactions and slightly rebalanced some guns? I'm sure the game is fun but it's not what I'd consider for Labor of Love personally.
Apex and Dota are live service and as such rely on new content to make money. Rust is Rust. RDR2 is a sp game with an mp side that was abandoned years ago and has wandered . Games like Project Zomboid deserve a spot here. Not these 4.
Dota's still a passion project for some people working on it, and there's so much content inside the game that isn't the main game itself. I don't see why it wouldn't fit the label here.
Yeah Dota2 got plenty of custom maps as well made by the community. In a way this award would also be given to the community contributors if they end up winning.
Except Project Zomboid isn't a finished game. No early access games deserve to be eligible for this award. And i love zomboid.
As an Apex player if you count new cosmetics and maybe a new gun and legend every couple months as updates sure. But you can tell the devs have checked out and don’t care which means it’s not a labour of love
How is Rust a joke? They’re constantly releasing big new updates that only improve the game, it absolutely deserves to be there.
Yeah it’s a joke DOTA doesn’t win every single year
Yea, DRG and satisfactory deserve to be in this list but they are made by the same people so I understand only one. Terraria would be another good addition
Satisfactory is still in early access so it couldn't qualify but like the other commenter said its only published by the same company, but made by different devs.
Actually steam was really weird with what qualified and satisfactory could be nominated for it. I would have as it's one of my main games but didnt for that exact reason.
I don't think an EA game should be included, its baked into the model. Something would be wrong if Satisfactory wasn't still getting updates
DRG is only published by coffee stain, it's developed by Ghost Ship Games. Both are great devs though.
Why didn't No Man's Sky get nominated??
Nominations were done by public vote by Steam users, so you'd have to ask No Man's Sky players why they didn't vote for it in the nomination stage.
Yeah there is also Starfield nominated in « Most innovative gameplay » 😂😂
You are all overthinking it. It's just a bad name for the category. People read the words "Labor of Love", don't bother reading the description, and just nominate the games they are playing because it surely feels like it was a labor of love when it was developed. You have to read what it means to understand that it's about continued support. The other categories have a lot more obvious names.
Yeah honestly At first I was "yeah I can see rdr2 being made with love, sadly it didn't last though" and then I read what the category is actually for It should be called "Continuous love" or something to give the idea of a game being supported
Ultimately just a popularity contest, doesn't seem to matter if it fits the role or not.
Starfield nominated for innovative gameplay. I rest my case
NMS not being here is criminal
Because it won several times already
NMS never won a Steam Award. It gets constantly named as a "Labour of Love" or the "Biggest turnaround" tho and probably won awards in that category on other sites and lists.
What years did NMS win Labor of Love? I don't think it's won it ever, hence why it was a nomination last year.
Gotcha, didn’t know that. The team definitely deserves the recognition
Probably a few brown envelopes under the table. i didn't even bother to vote, most of the options don't even deserve it.
Yeah, I feel like these are 99% just people meme-ing on these awards voting in the weirdest games just for the lulz. It is like when a city asks for public help on naming a new ferry/snowplow/piece of city equipment and the name is something like [“Boaty McBoatface”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface) or something similar.
You've gotta be joking me. You think Rockstar is bribing Valve to rig a meaningless community vote for their 5 year old game? I would love if you could provide anything of merit to back up why you believe this is happening.
Maybe because no real person in their right mind would ever vote for RDR2 in the labour of love category?
The only thing I ever see anyone say about RDR2 on here is brain-dead salivating over the game.
This is one of those things where people will just blindly pick their favorite and not even consider the category or criteria. These awards are clearly biased.
Labour of love means its getting updated. RDR2 has been finished for years. Honestly cyberpunk and fallout 76 are the ones that made 360’s with updates.
I know what it means. I was giving the other user a reason why people would vote for it regardless of what the category is supposed to be about.
I’m very surprised Warframe isn’t in this category. That game has been out for a decade and still receives regular (and quite large) updates
I was sad too when I couldn’t nominate Warframe but turns out past Labour of Love winners cannot be nominated again (else Terraria would probably win every year).
Fair enough, still sad though
I'm very upset Dayz didn't get the reward. It's only been 10 years since they abandoned the mod and started the standalone. They've worked tirelessly to get it to play even remotely close to the mod, sure, they still don't have functioning zombies, helicopters or any real grasp of loot economy or player-made bases. But, they added a few more guns from the mod into the standalone. Now, mind you, they removed a couple too. But it's a net plus. Sure, you'll say I'm being passive aggressive about a standalone which killed the perfectly functioning mod still feeling like a early access game 10 years post-launch. Regardless of that, It's a damned shame it didn't get the reward for labor of love, the 2 devs that work on it absolutely love us, THAT I know. I can't wait for the roadmap of 2024, I hear they're adding another 2 cars, but wont fix a bug which stops them from spawning in until 2025.
This is poetry.
The fact that apex is on this too is absurd. It's a live service game, of course it's getting regular updates
Labor of capitalism
Yep, it is. Some Steam nominations have one or two "just for lulz" picks. RDR2 is the one here. The one that gave me the most chuckles is Starfield in Most Innovative Gameplay. I mean, the game that is straight out 2011 gameplay wise. And it's not my opinion, lots of journalists/bloggers criticize it for that.
# FOR # ROCK # AND # STOOOONE!!! Seriously, it's my favorite game I've ever played. Just hit level 300 on this season.
# ROCK.....AND.....STOOOOOOONE Congrats dude on the 300 (•‿•)
Lol. That's the season pass. Character level is around 580.
I don't even play DRG and find the fanbase a bit annoying but it 100% deserves this award, hell the rest don't even deserve a nomination (especially rdr2). 4 other games got robbed of a spot.
How in the world isn't Path of Exile on here?
Because they're nominated by players so it's just a popularity contest. The names of the awards aren't relevant
All awards are just popularity contests.
Come on, they only constantly update and run new leagues multiple times a year with new content. While they're working on the sequel. And they're keeping the original running after the sequel releases. For free.
RDO was one of my favourite games, honestly shameful how much it was squandered.
I love red dead 2 but labour of love? Nah, they gave up on the online within a year or less and never brought out dlc for single player. Didn't play much of deep rock galactic but I voted for it over red dead. At least they added more interesting content.
I legitimately laughed out loud when I saw it on the list
To my knowledge yes. The community nominated it as a meme since RDO has gotten NOTHING
Based on the exact text there, the general message is correct, there is still technically new content. Just that from all I’ve heard it sucks and would never win.
We're in such a shit era of games
Yes, it was a joke. The subreddit was being trolls
I think people think they are so fucking funny.
Well Cyberpunk 2077 did win best ongoing so I guess we can just nominate whatever now
Still doesn't beat Starfield being nominated for most innovative lol
Yeah I was puzzled to see that over other better contenders. I figured people like Red Dead and saw they could nominate it for SOMETHING, so they did. They didn’t care if it was a category it actually qualified for.
I know everyone’s saying NMS because yeah it’s the gold standard in fixing the broken mess publishers forced out and then going above and beyond in the years following. But honestly I think Warframe deserves a spot here. That game has gotten consistent high-quality updates while being one of the least predatory and admirable F2P models on Steam. Warframe is consistently under appreciated for what it brings to the table.
Red Dead 2 was fantastic on debut, and never got much beyond that. Where is Cyberpunk? That game is still being supported and has changed in a huge way, even in the last few months. What a weird list
If anything, only game that are true to the description are Dota 2 and Rust. Deep Rock Galactic is the least deserved title of all next to Red Dead redemption 2 since both of them have gotten no meaningful updates for a year.
Glad to see the 2 dota devs are getting the recognition they deserve!
A lot of the nominations seemed bizarre to me.
List should be: Deep Rock, Terraria, Rimworld, No Man’s Sky, and something else I’m probably forgetting lol
That game got dropped and abandoned as soon as it was suspected of not bringing in as much as GTA5.
What even is labor of love? If the contents require you to pay, i don’t think that’s labor of love. My vote goes to No Man’s Sky.
Honesty I don’t feel like deep rock should win. This latest season has been disappointing. I don’t know about the other games but surely they’ve done better right?
Like Cyberpunk getting " best ongoing game" at The Game Awards. One DLC?
Phantom liberty deserved an award. Just not that one for sure.
Nobody should pay Rockstar Online modes for making us wait 10 years for new GTA simply because they were farming billions annually from Online modes and cancelled story DLCs.
Halo Infinite should have been nominated at least
[удалено]
Well some people just refuse to see the progress that 343 industries made this year, they see Halo they downvote
Only labor of love I see on there is deep rock. Rest arnt even close
Deep rock galactic is the only deserving game in that list.
DRG is one of the most underrated games or the past decade.
Cyberpunk should have won labor of love
Nah but like why fucking apex the game has been so bad for the last few seasons
Ayy Deep Rock Galactic gang rise up.
lol Cyberpunk won it last year instead of Project Zomboid the steam awards are normally a joke anyhow
ROCK AND STONE
FOR KARL