Chapter 42

The outside world was in an uproar, but the collaboration between Xbox and Sprout Studio remained completely unaffected.

Sprout Studio had gone silent, but Xbox continued working on related content.

The Game Awards was hailed by players as the Oscars of the gaming world. It was an annual global video game awards event. After players and media juries voted on the games, the official organizers announced the winners of each category.

The general rules were similar to those of the TGA in Ethan Vale's previous life, though there were some differences.

In his previous life, the TGA had not been an awards ceremony where player votes determined the final results. No matter how many voting channels the organizers opened across portal sites, player votes had always accounted for only 10%, while media juries held a staggering 90%.

In this world, those proportions had been completely reversed.

Player votes accounted for 90%, while media reviews made up 10%.

All player votes were genuine. Votes from the same IP were filtered out first, and game accounts needed a corresponding amount of annual activity, eliminating vote-rigging and score manipulation.

The purpose was to select the most authentic results.

Vote counts were updated live online. From the very beginning, Dead Cells had been far ahead in the Best Indie Game category.

This award was meant to recognize outstanding games that could not afford massive investments in development and marketing, yet were full of innovation and fun in their gameplay.

TGA had divided its awards into thirty-two categories, including Game of the Year, Most Anticipated Game, Best Action Game, Best Indie Game...

There were many categories, giving games of different genres and scales a chance to win.

Because his games were too small in scale, the games under Ethan Vale's name could not win Game of the Year in this selection.

But unexpectedly, aside from Dead Cells, several of his other games had also received considerable votes in other categories.

Best Narrative Game—This War of Mine

Best Family Game—Overcooked

Best Action Game—Dead Cells

Best Indie Game—Dead Cells

Before the award rankings came out, no one had expected such a small studio to hold so much weight on the list.

The moment Evan saw the rankings, he smiled.

He immediately shared the webpage link with Lambert. There were thirty-two awards in total, and no one had ever occupied four of them alone.

No, that was wrong. It was five.

Evan looked at the Most Anticipated Game category. Bloodborne was currently second in votes, but its momentum was incredibly fierce.

Without any hesitation, he cast a vote for Bloodborne.

Watching the vote count rise on the screen, the upward trend was more captivating than any stock chart. He could not help muttering, "Carter, you really introduced me to a legend."

"Vote, vote! Vote for the old thief!" Yinzi fully exploited his advantage as a streamer, crazily canvassing votes for Ethan Vale in his livestream.

"One man taking up half the field—who else? Who else!" Yinzi could not contain his excitement.

In the past, he had never participated in this kind of ranking battle, because these award selections had never had much to do with game designers from Great Xia.

It was embarrassing to say, but that was simply the truth.

"Vote-rigging? Me encouraging players to rig the votes?" Yinzi saw a barrage comment accusing him of vote-rigging, and emotion immediately surged up in him.

"I did have the urge to rig votes, but I can say with certainty that the old thief's results have absolutely nothing to do with vote-rigging." After saying that, Yinzi opened the breakdown of the votes.

"You probably haven't noticed, but if you click on the vote details, you can see the IP composition of the voters. Of the votes the old thief received, only 7% came from Great Xia players. The other 93% came from overseas players."

"You say we rigged the votes? You say I mobilized foreign players to rig them too? I'm just a small streamer. I don't have that kind of influence." Yinzi looked at the vote count and spoke sarcastically, though there was a trace of pride in his voice.

"I don't want to say much more. If you question whether his games are any good, you can just buy them and try them yourself." Yinzi was somewhat angry as he said this. The games had been out for so long, and their quality was plain for all to see, yet there were still so many voices questioning them.

The fans had never seen Silver this furious before.

'I still don't believe his games are that good unless you gift me one.'

'I can practically hear the abacus clicking in your head.'

'Oh my god, even Overcooked made the list. My chest started hurting the moment I saw that name.'

'Sometimes I wonder, are five awards really the old thief's limit?'

Yinzi spotted that comment with his sharp eyes. Looking at the other game award categories, he could not help taking a deep breath.

"The people winning awards this year should really be grateful they released early. If their games were made next year, they might not necessarily win anything." Yinzi made no effort to hide his intention to speak up for Ethan Vale.

"Don't be fooled by how many awards there are. The old thief is seriously hardworking.

"The studio has only existed for half a year, yet it has already made four games. After another full year, that'll be eight games." Yinzi laughed as he joked, counting on his fingers.

He knew he could not calculate it that way, but he just could not help himself.

"I'm not even thinking about the other awards. I just want the old thief to make Bloodborne properly, then take next year's Game of the Year." Yinzi looked at the top award. This prize was absolutely the Oscars of the gaming world.

As he spoke, a rocket shot across the livestream room.

"Thanks to Black Star for the rocket."

Yinzi thanked the gift as usual, but the moment he finished reading the name, he froze.

Black Star? Was that the real person?

When he clicked into the user's profile, the Sprout Studio verification was clearly visible.

"Old thief! Holy shit!"

Without hesitation, Yinzi immediately chose to connect with him.

"Old thief, are you confident about winning Game of the Year next year? As long as you make the game, I guarantee I'll canvass votes for you. My vote, my fans' votes, all of them will go to you."

Ethan Vale smiled. "How many awards do you think I can win next year?"

Ethan Vale's question made Yinzi fall silent instead. "I just hope you focus on making Bloodborne well. Winning Game of the Year will be enough."

"The other awards may be tempting, but they'd only be icing on the cake."

"Then you're going to be disappointed." Ethan Vale shook his head. "I do have Game of the Year in mind, but it isn't Bloodborne."

"As for how many awards I can win next year?"

"That's hard to say. I think thirty-two awards are the limit of the annual event, but they definitely aren't my limit."

The moment Ethan Vale finished speaking, the livestream room fell silent.

They only felt that Ethan Vale was a little crazy. Did he mean he wanted to sweep every award?

But how was that possible?

It was already November. There was only one month left until the new year, and winning every award within a single year was impossible.

"Don't get carried away!" Yinzi could not help roaring.

"I'm joking." Ethan Vale laughed. "But I'm very hardworking."