Game Scoop! 869: GTA 6 and Those Game of the Year Awards

The hosts of Game Scoop! are about to board flights to Gamescom, but before they leave, they tackle a mailbag episode that winds up covering three interlocking questions about the video game industry's biggest recurring debate: how to think about Game of the Year. The conversation starts with Grand Theft Auto VI and spirals outward into fighting games, the nature of remakes, and the strange social dynamics of competitive genres. Along the way, Sam Clayborn brings back photos from California Extreme, a massive retro arcade convention, and the crew plays a round of Video Game 20 Questions that ends with a pandemic-era relic.

What Could GTA VI Do Wrong?

A listener named Who asks a pointed question: given all the hype for GTA VI, what could actually kill the excitement? The panel largely agrees that Rockstar has earned the benefit of the doubt. Sam Clayborn points to the evolution from GTA V to Red Dead Redemption 2, calling Red Dead 2 his favorite Rockstar game and saying "the more Red Dead 2 this game will be, the more I will be into it." Mark Medina admits he is not a GTA fan — he has "no good memories" of playing GTA V and no desire to revisit it — but he loves Vice City and respects Red Dead 2's story, so those two things combined have him interested. Damon Hatfield notes that a game this big naturally creates underdogs, and the show often champions those, so there wil