Voting for the Steam Awards 2018 will kick off at the same time as the Winter Sale

As expected, Steam’s 12^th Annual Winter Sale will land tomorrow, December 20, bringing with it some of the best price reductions of 2018’s brightest and best games. Valve will also be opening up the ballot for its Steam Awards 2018, which now has a list comprised of the final nominees.

Valve continues its trend of selecting the categories, letting the community at large select from a narrowed shortlist of relevant games. Categories are perhaps the most straightforward they’ve ever been, with Valve ditching “Boom Boom,” “The World is Grim Enough Let’s Just All Get Along” and user-generated categories in favour of more generic groups found in other award programs. That doesn’t mean that the publisher has forgone personality, opting for “Most Fun with a Machine” instead.

Game of the Year Nominees	Nominees for VR Game of the Year
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS	The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD	VRChat
Kingdom Come: Deliverance	Beat Saber
HITMAN™ 2	Fallout 4 VR
Assassin's Creed Odyssey	SUPERHOT VR
Nominees for Labor of Love	Nominees for Best Environment
Dota 2	The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt
Grand Theft Auto V	Subnautica
No Man's Sky	Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Path of Exile	Far Cry 5
Stardew Valley	DARK SOULS™ III
Nominees for Better with Friends	Nominees for Best Alternate History
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	Wolfeinstein II: The New Colossus
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Siege	Assassin's Creed® Odyssey
PAYDAY 2	Hearts of Iron IV
Dead by Daylight	Sid Meier's Civilization® VI
Overcooked! 2	Fallout 4
Nominees for Most Fun with a Machine	Nominees for Best Developer
Euro Truck Simulator 2	CD PROJEKT RED
Rocket League	Ubisoft
NieR:Automata	Bethesda
Factorio	Rockstar Games
Factorio	Digital Extremes Ltd.
	Square Enix
	Capcom
	Paradox Interactive
	BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
	Klei

While Valve has enforced a limit of 5 entries per category, it has made some changes to ‘Best Developer’ due to it being a “highly-contested” title. The publisher has instead expanded the set of nominees to 10, excluding itself from eligibility. “We appreciate the love you’ve shown us, but we want to honor the other awesome developers on Steam, so we have excluded Valve from the final tally,” explains the publisher.

As usual, seasonal Steam Trading Cards will be available throughout the sale period, and voting will remain open until January 3, 2019. Winners are expected to be announced a little later than usual, coming to light in early February.

KitGuru Says: I think it's admirable that Valve would purposefully omit itself from its own awards. Fortunately, fans won't need a whole forum to figure out what “Most Fun With a Machine” pertains to with its nominees. Who do you think deserves Game of the Year?

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