The Game Awards is arguably the most-anticipated gaming event of the year, with major game titles vying for the coveted Game of the Year Award.

With that much prestige on the line, different publishers and developers do their best to produce high-quality video games and content throughout the year. This effort has led to milestones like Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree, which is now considered one of the greatest DLCs in gaming history.

It was so good that The Game Awards even contradicted themselves when the DLC was nominated as Game of the Year. Whether the community and the juries agree to The Game Awards' definition of a DLC will be revealed on December 12, 2024.

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Credit: The Game Awards

Shadow of the Erdtree isn't the only game stirring up drama in this year's The Game Awards. Sonic and Genshin Impact are both back for the Players' Voice Award, prompting a possible part two of the 2022 fandom wars.

What and how did this Genshin Impact vs Sonic fandom war start? Wear your hazmat suits and take a deep breath as we dive into gaming's most ridiculous fandom wars.

Genshin Impact vs Sonic Frontiers

Genshin Impact and Sonic Frontiers once went face-to-face against each other for the Players' Voice Awards way back in The Game Awards 2022. Other titles such as Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok, and Stray were also nominated but these two titles clashed the most, and it all began when the voting opened.

Voting started and Sonic Frontiers had a sizeable lead. This then led to many toxic exchanges between the fandoms, with many Sonic fans accusing Genshin Impact of bribing its community to which the Genshin Impact fandom replied with bot usage accusations for the Sonic fandom.

Eventually, Genshin Impact caught up with the voting scores, which triggered many Sonic fans, further pushing their accusations of bribery while referencing what Genshin Impact did after winning the Best Mobile Game Award during The Game Awards 2021.

The squabble between the fandoms blew out so big that this prompted Geoff Keighley to conduct a Reddit AMA, where one fan questioned the awarding body about the bribery and bot usage accusations. Geoff then proceeded to confirm that they would start looking into these accusations.

In the end, Genshin Impact won which left a bitter taste in many of Sonic fans' mouths. Now that both games are nominated again, it appears that history is inevitably repeating itself.

Yearly Controversies

The Game Awards isn't new to different controversies. From massive title snubs in the previous years to the most recent DLC GOTY for Elden Ring, The Game Awards is always haunted by different forms of controversies. Now that Genshin Impact and Sonic are at it again for the same exact award, who'll know what kind of chaos that'll bring again this year?

Genshin Impact and Sonic aren't newbies to The Game Awards too. However, if another community member chooses toxicity and bot votings over celebrating games and fandoms together, The Game Awards could find itself embroiled in yet another controversy—one that might gradually impact its credibility as an awarding body.

All Is Fair in Love and War: The Player’s Voice Award

The Players' Voice Award is the same exact award that the Genshin Impact and Sonic fandom fought over. Unlike the major category awards where the winners are decided by the majority of the jury votes and the community (90% and 10%, respectively), The Players' Voice Award counts 100% of the community votes.

This means that every single vote matters. The Game Awards hasn't changed anything about voting for The Players' Voice award, so anything can happen again at this point.

Whether bribery accusations or bot voting will happen again this year will depend on the community members themselves. After all, all is fair in love and war, and that includes The Player's Voice Award.

Genshin Impact is already four years old while Sonic x Shadow Generations is the latest game for Sonic fans. It'll be the classic rivalry again between these two fandoms as the first round of voting goes underway.

There's less than a month until 2024 ends and we might see some fandom skirmishes here and there, but it's never too late to stop history from repeating itself if fandoms will just think before they click.

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