Dave The Diver Director Says “There’s Nothing Indie” About Hit Game

Dave The Diver is undoubtedly probably the greatest video games of 2023, but it surely discovered itself caught in a little bit of a storm throughout awards season as at The Sport Awards of that yr, the improbable diving sport and restaurant administration sim was nominated for Finest Unbiased Sport, regardless of it being created by a subsidiary of the massive South Korean developer and writer Nexon.

Now Mintrocket CEO and author and director on the sport, Jaeho Hwang, has immediately addressed the controversy in an interview with 4Gamer (translated by Automaton Media), stating that “it’s not like we utilized for the award ourselves.”

Hwang emphasises that the nominees for Finest Unbiased Sport are picked primarily based on nomination system that builders can’t nominate themselves for. The Sport Awards web site states that each one nominees, no matter classes, are “chosen by a world jury of over 100 international media and influencer shops, chosen for his or her historical past of important online game analysis”, with specialised juries arrange for explicit classes.

“We didn’t intend for it to have an indie sport really feel” Hwang tells the publication, saying that “it is made by Nexon, so there’s nothing indie about it”.

“I ponder if folks mistook us for an indie studio simply because we’re growing video games as a small workforce, or simply as a result of our artwork kinds and sport methods are usually distinctive.” It’s, admittedly, fairly exhausting to place Dave The Diver in a labelled field like many different video games, however simply because one thing makes use of pixel artwork and has a unique premise and gameplay loop, doesn’t suggest it is unbiased.

Again when the dialogue was rumbling, The Sport Awards host Geoff Keighley shared his ideas on the controversy throughout a Twitch stream, the place he stated “unbiased can imply various things to totally different folks,” and that “we defer to our jury” on making these judgments. He did acknowledge that the studio itself comes from a “bigger entity” however was (most likely) created with a “comparatively small finances”.

All we’ll say is that Dave The Diver is a improbable sport, and we liked it again on Change. And we could be revisiting it once more quickly as Mintrocket has confirmed that the sport is getting a free Change 2 replace “quickly”. It is also getting some DLC, however that is just lately been delayed to 2026.

What do you consider Jaeho Hwang’s feedback? Tell us down beneath.