Parallel World Game Developer

Chapter 42: Chapter #42: TGA

[Bonus Chapter!!!]

The outside world was incredibly noisy, but the strategic partnership between Xbox and Sprout Studio remained completely unaffected by the media storm.

Sprout Studio had gone completely radio silent, diving deep into development, while Xbox continuously pushed out promotional marketing for their upcoming ecosystem updates.

The Game Awards was universally hailed by the player base as the absolute Oscars of the gaming industry.

It was the premier annual video game selection event for the entire globe.

The official award winners would only be announced after the massive global player base and the exclusive media jury cast their final votes.

The general rules of the awards were similar to what Ethan Vale remembered from his previous life, but with one massive, fundamental difference.

Back on his original Earth, TGA outcomes were never truly dictated by the players.

No matter how many official voting portals were opened to the public, the community vote only ever accounted for ten percent of the final weight, while the media jury controlled a staggering ninety percent.

In this world, Terra, those two metrics were completely reversed. The players’ popular vote accounted for an overwhelming ninety percent of the final result, leaving the media critics with only a ten percent sway.

Furthermore, every single community vote was heavily authenticated. First, the system automatically filtered out duplicate votes from the same IP address.

Secondly, the linked gaming account had to demonstrate active playtime over the corresponding calendar year, entirely eliminating the threat of bot farms and coordinated vote-manipulation campaigns.

The entire system was meticulously engineered to extract the most authentic, unbiased results possible.

The preliminary voting tallies were synchronized in real-time across the internet.

From the very second the polls opened, Dead Cells had taken a massive, insurmountable lead in the Best Independent Game category.

This specific award was designed to recognize outstanding titles that lacked the massive R&D and marketing budgets of AAA studios, but delivered unparalleled innovation and mechanical fun.

The Game Awards divided the industry into thirty-two distinct categories, including Game of the Year, Most Anticipated Game, Best Action Game, and Best Independent Game.

The sheer volume of categories ensured that games of all different genres and production scales had a fair shot at industry recognition.

Due to the relatively small production scale of his released titles, Ethan didn’t qualify for the ultimate Game of the Year award during this specific cycle.

But to the absolute shock of the entire industry, it wasn’t just Dead Cells dominating the charts; several of his other projects were pulling staggering vote counts across multiple categories.

Best Narrative Game — This War of Mine.

Best Family Game — Overcooked.

Best Action Game — Dead Cells.

Best Independent Game — Dead Cells.

Before the preliminary shortlists were published, absolutely no one could have imagined that a tiny, independent studio could command such a massive, suffocating presence at the awards.

The exact moment Ivan saw the live leaderboards, a massive smile broke across his face.

He immediately copied the URL and forwarded the web page directly to Lambert’s corporate inbox. There were thirty-two total awards available, and no single studio had ever managed to dominate four of them simultaneously.

Actually, wait. It wasn’t four. It was five.

Ivan scrolled down to the Most Anticipated Game category. Bloodborne was currently sitting in second place in total votes, but its upward momentum was violently aggressive.

Without a single second of hesitation, Ivan cast his own executive vote for Bloodborne.

Watching the live vote counter rapidly tick upward, tracking a growth curve more thrilling than the stock market, he couldn’t help but mutter to himself.

"Carter, you really introduced me to an absolute legend".

"Vote! Get in there and vote! Everyone drop your votes for the sadist right now!" Silver yelled into his microphone, fully leveraging his massive platform as a top-tier streamer to aggressively rally votes for Ethan Vale.

"One guy is literally monopolizing half the entire industry right now! Who else is doing it like him?! Nobody!" Silver shouted, completely unable to restrain his inner hype.

In previous years, he had never bothered participating in these massive award campaigns because the domestic region rarely had any local developers worth cheering for.

It was an embarrassing reality, but it was the absolute truth.

"Wait, vote manipulation? Are you guys in chat seriously asking if I’m organizing a bot farm to manipulate the polls?" Silver paused, his eyes locking onto a specific comment in the stream chat, feeling a sudden surge of defensive anger.

"Look, I absolutely have the mindset of someone who wants to spam votes, but I can guarantee you right now that his massive lead has absolutely nothing to do with manipulation." After shutting down the accusation, Silver pulled up the regional analytics of the voting pool.

"You guys clearly haven’t looked at the backend metrics. Click on the detailed breakdown and look at the IP distribution for those votes," Silver instructed, tapping his monitor.

"Out of all the votes the sadist has received so far, only seven percent are from our local domestic region. The other ninety-three percent are pouring in from international players overseas."

"You think we’re botting? You think a streamer my size is somehow coordinating millions of international gamers to manipulate a global poll? I’m just a gaming content creator, I don’t have that kind of geopolitical pull," Silver laughed, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction.

"I don’t want to waste my breath arguing with you guys. If you actually doubt the quality of his games, just buy them and play them yourself," Silver snapped, his tone darkening.

The games had been out for months, their absolute brilliance was undeniable, yet there was still a vocal minority of skeptics desperately trying to discredit the studio.

His fans had rarely seen Silver get this genuinely frustrated on stream.

[GoonSlayer99: I still refuse to believe his game is actually that good unless someone gifts it to me.]

[xX_Thot_Patrol_Xx: Bro we can hear your broke-ass scheme from a mile away.]

[Trauma_Wagon: oh my god Overcooked is actually on the list. my chest physically hurts just seeing the title.]

[LoreMaster: honestly I keep wondering... is five nominations the absolute limit for the sadist?]

Silver caught the last comment with his sharp eyes.

He pulled up the rest of the TGA categories and couldn’t help but take a slow, deep breath.

"Honestly, the developers taking home trophies this year should count their lucky stars that they released their games when they did. If they try to compete next year, they might get completely shut out," Silver said, making absolutely no secret of his blatant bias toward Ethan.

"Don’t just look at the nominations; look at how insanely hard the sadist works. Sprout Studio has only existed for half a year, and they’ve already shipped four massive hits," Silver laughed, counting the titles off on his fingers.

"If you extrapolate that math, he’s going to drop eight absolute bangers next year." He knew that game development mathematics didn’t actually scale like that, but he just couldn’t help but hype it up.

"I don’t even care about the genre awards anymore. I just want him to absolutely nail Bloodborne, and then sweep Game of the Year in the next cycle," Silver declared, staring at the GOTY category on his screen.

That specific trophy was the undisputed crown jewel of the entire industry.

Just as the words left his mouth, a massive, top-tier superchat animation exploded across his broadcast overlay.

"Thank you to Nova for the max donation!" Silver read the alert out of pure muscle memory.

But a second later, his brain finally processed the username, and his eyes went wide.

Nova?

Is that actually him?

He hastily clicked on the donor’s profile. The verified Sprout Studio developer badge was sitting right there, clear as day.

"You absolute sadist! Holy shit!" Silver screamed, instantly dropping all pretense. Without hesitating for a single second, he sent a direct Discord voice call request to the developer.

"Dude, are you confident you can take Game of the Year next cycle? As long as you actually ship the game, I promise I will run a massive campaign for you! Every single vote from me and my community will go straight to your studio!" Silver babbled the second the call connected.

Ethan just laughed over the line. "How many trophies do you think I can actually take home next year?"

Silver paused, momentarily caught off guard by the question. "I just hope you deliver on Bloodborne. Taking home Game of the Year is more than enough to cement your legacy".

"The rest of the awards are great for marketing, but they’re really just icing on the cake," Silver added practically.

"Then you’re going to be a little disappointed," Ethan replied, shaking his head even though Silver couldn’t see him. "I already have my personal Game of the Year lined up in my head, but it isn’t Bloodborne".

"As for how many awards I can win next year?" Ethan paused, letting the silence hang over the live broadcast. "It’s hard to put an exact number on it. I think thirty-two awards is the structural limit of the TGA selection pool. But it definitely isn’t my limit".

The exact moment Ethan finished his sentence, the incredibly chaotic, fast-moving stream chat went dead silent.

Every single viewer was having the exact same thought: Is Nova actually losing his mind? What did he mean by that? Was he seriously threatening to sweep a grand slam across the entire awards ceremony?

But how was that even mathematically possible? It was currently November, meaning there was only one month left before the new calendar year began. Sweeping every single category in a single twelve-month cycle was impossible.

"Don’t get too arrogant, you sadist!" Silver finally roared, breaking the stunned silence.

"I’m just kidding," Ethan laughed smoothly. "But then again, I am a very hard worker."

— — — — —

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