Megabonk dev wants their hit title withdrawn from Game Awards consideration: ‘I don’t think it qualifies’

The continuing conversation around yesterday’s The Game Awards nominations added another chapter today with the revelation that the solo dev behind Megabonk wishes to withdraw the title from award consideration.

Megabonk launched to a big amount of concurrent players and glowing reviews in September, and was nominated yesterday for Debut Indie Game at this year’s Game Awards, set to take place in a few weeks on Dec. 11. But the dev behind the action roguelike has since taken issue with the nomination.

“I’m withdrawing from The Game Awards,” the dev said on the official Megabonk X/Twitter account. “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.’ I’ve made games in the past under different studio names, so Megabonk is not my debut game.”

Megabonk’s solo dev, known on Steam simply as “vedinad,” signed their social media posts as “John Megabonk,” furthering the game’s status as a full-fledged meme gone hit Steam sensation. But now, we’re left to wonder what will happen with the award.

“I really appreciate the nomination, support and votes, but it doesn’t feel right in this category,” they said. “You should vote for another one of the amazing debut titles, they are all amazing games! Thanks again! New Megabonk update coming soon.”

Another conversation around The Game Awards that will continue is the forever question of what actually constitutes an indie game? Normally, the title is based on funding behind a project, but the definition has been muddied in recent years.

For example, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was also nominated in the same category as a debut title from Sandfall Interactive. But the game was backed, published, and partially funded by Kepler Interactive, so the question of whether it’s an indie at all is now a point of social media contention.

As of this article’s publishing, The Game Awards has not acknowledged the dev’s announcement.

Update on Nov. 18 at 3:45pm CT: TGA’s Geoff Keighley has responded to vedinad, confirming that Megabonk will be pulled from the category.