The Game Awards season is over again, and the drama again has transferred to social networks rather than being staged. A community of players from the game ‘Dispatch‘ is very loud about their protests this time, and they claim that all gacha games should be disqualified at once from The Game Awards and that their game has been robbed of the ‘Players’ Voice’ award by ‘Wuthering Waves’ due to ‘bribery’ also called ‘genuine bribing.’
Bribery, did you catch that? The primary complaint, which has spread from a famous tweet and is now everywhere, is that the creators of gacha games—like Wuthering Waves and the ever-present Genshin Impact—facilitate voting by offering their users free in-game pulls or currency if they vote and the game wins. “These developers typically proclaim: free pulls for votes and wins. It is real bribery,” echoed the original tweet. It certainly is a powerful opinion that has split the entire gaming internet community into different factions of thought.
Now, let’s scrutinize it more. The Players’ Voice award is the only one that is 100% voted for by the public, with no jury involved. This means it is purely a popularity contest. In such instances, when a game with a large and devoted fan base like a popular gacha game enters, it is like they have a voting army that is always ready to click that vote button. The accusation against such studios is that they send out more votes by stating, “If we win, everyone gets 10 free pulls!” Is this a method of encouraging votes? For sure. Is it bribery? That is the very place where the argument begins.
The answers to the original tweet are a complete warzone, and to tell you the truth, it is somewhat amusing to scroll through it. There are the irritated Dispatch fans, for example, a player said, “I’m not against Gacha games being nominated, yet they should only be contenders in the year when the game is released. Genshin and Wuthering Waves were released years ago and ought to be disqualified.” So, not only the pulls but also the eligibility is a problem. Another user came back with so-called cold and hard logic: “Dispatch fans believing they had a chance to win if WuWa and Genshin were around is funnier than calling for a DQ.” Ouch! Another person declared, “I understand what they are saying, but they didn’t lose just to Withering Waves… If gacha games weren’t there, they would have lost to Expedition lmao.” So, perhaps the problem is not with the opponent, but with the competition itself.
Moreover, this entire discussion has centered around whether this is even a specific issue. One poster countered, “live service game gave out something to their players, when they win something big… wooow its so shocking. funny things is you ppl acting like only gacha games do this, no every live service game does that when they win something big.” And they have a strong argument! Do you remember when ‘Expedition 33’ was honored Game of the Year not long ago and was giving out free DLC? It is quite normal to do such a thing as a celebration. Critics, however, argue that the distinction lies in the promise made before the voting ends. It is the pre-emptive “vote for us and get loot” versus the post-victory “we won, here is a thank you gift.”
But let’s be fair for a second—does this really work? A user backing Wuthering Waves questioned, “You really think TGA dont have that kind of security? Detecting bot voting? Otherwise Genshin will win, considering their fandom will do anything even creating 50accounts. Its not surprising to win a game that is most popular in asia considering it holds largest population.” So, it is a mix of the sheer size of population, fervent supporters, plus maybe just a little bit of incentive. Is that unethical, or is it just a smart way to interact with the community? The distinction is finer than what a low-res texture can reveal.
Some comments simply turn into pure chaos, which is one of the reasons it is so fun. “The hell is skong?” a user literally asks, lost in the overwhelming comments. Another Dispatch supporter tried out the game on Steam and then refunded it saying it was “NOT GOOD ENOUGH,” a line that is just a brilliant, subjective mic drop. And of course, those who dislike it the most have the loudest voices with comments like “Gacha garbage shouldn’t be even considered for the Game Awards 😒.”
