An indie developer has taken the unprecedented step to withdraw their game from The Game Awards, after they said it was incorrectly nominated for Best Debut Indie Game.
Vedinad, solo developer of Vampire Survivors-style rougelike, Megabonk, shared the news on the game’s social channels on Tuesday, noting that they’d previously worked on games under a different name, so they feel their nomination shouldn’t qualify.
“I’m withdrawing from The Game Awards [423 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/events/the-game-awards/”>The Game Awards,” they wrote. “It’s an honor and a dream for Megabonk to be nominated for TGA, but unfortunately, I don’t think it qualifies for the category ‘Debut Indie Game’.”
They added: “I’ve made games in the past under different studio names, so Megabonk is not my debut game”.
At the time of publication, Megabonk is still listed as a Best Debut Indie Game nominee on The Game Awards website. Organisers say the category is for “recognizing an independent studio that produced and shipped its first game in 2025”.
The nominees for The Game Awards 2025 were revealed earlier this week, with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 [33 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/clair-obscur-expedition-33/”>Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is up for 12 awards, making it the most nominated game in the awards’ history.
The RPG is followed by PlayStation [11,260 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/”>PlayStation titles Death Stranding [289 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/death-stranding/”>Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei [42 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/ghost-of-yotei/”>Ghost of Yotei with eight nominations each, and Hades 2 [21 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/hades-2/”>Hades 2 with six. Sony Interactive Entertainment [4,371 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/sony/”>Sony Interactive Entertainment is The Game Awards’ most nominated publisher in 2024 with 19 nominations, followed by Kepler Interactive [31 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/kepler-interactive/”>Kepler Interactive with 13 nominations
