Megabonk dev withdraws from The Game Awards over 'unqualified' nomination
Vedinad, which stands as both the studio name and pseudonym for the main developer of breakout indie Megabonk, has withdrawn an award nomination for 'Best Debut Indie Game' by The Game Awards.
The withdrawal was announced via the Megabonk account on X. "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," the developer wrote.
In a follow-up post, Vedinad said he appreciates the nomination, support, and votes, but that ultimately, the nomination "doesn't feel right in this category." He then encouraged people to vote for another game in the award category, which includes Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Despelote, and Dispatch.
Geoff Keighley, organizer of The Game Awards, posted about the withdrawal on his personal account hours later, acknowledging Vedinad's decision. "[Vedinad], a nominee for Best Debut Indie Game, reached out to clarify that he is an established solo developer who had been presenting himself as a new creator under the name Vedinad," Keighley wrote. "Were grateful for his honesty. As a result, MegaBonk will be removed from the category."
Keighley then said Vedinad will "share more about his story when he's ready," while adding that The Game Awards respects his decision not to want to take recognition away from other debut teams. Megabonk launched on September 18 and went out to sell over a million copies in the following two weeks.
Once again, the term 'indie' in The Game Awards is fuzzyWhile a nominee withdrawing from The Game Awards isn't common, the past few years have seen the game industry arguing about some of the nominees for indie categories.
A notable example includes The Game Awards 2023, in which Dave the Diver was nominated for Best Indie Game. The term "indie" was fuzzy at best, considering the game's developer, Mintrocket, is a subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate Nexon, which owns a myriad of studios and has published massive series like Maple Story.
At the time, Keighley weighed into the debate, saying that independent is "sort of a broad term" that can mean different things to different people (via VGC).
"You can argue, does independent mean the budget of the game, does independent mean where the source of financing was, does it mean the team size? Is it the kind of independent spirit of the game, meaning a smaller game that's sort of different? I think everyone has their own opinion about this, and we really defer to our jury of 120 global media outlets who vote on these awards, to make that determination of 'is something independent' or not," Keighley said during an interview panel on Twitch.
In July of this year, Dave the Diver director Hwang Jae-ho told 4gamer that "there's nothing indie" about the game (as translated by Automaton).
"I wonder if people mistook us for an indie studio just because we're developing games as a small team, or just because our art styles and game systems tend to be unique," the director said. "For some reason, we also ended up getting nominated for the Best Indie Game award, which caused some people to go, 'hey, isn't that a Nexon game?', but it's not like we applied for the award ourselves."
Approaching the end of 2025, the definition of "indie" has been vague for so long that almost every one of the nominees could be criticized for not being truly indie. Going back to this year's Best Debut Indie Game category, both Blue Prince and Despelote have clear indie credentials, but were published by larger studios (Raw Fury and Panic, respectively). Meanwhile, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been publicly heralded as the work of around 30 people, a narrative that, as PC Gamer dove into, excludes all the external partners and outsourcing work that contributed to the game, with the needed funding to support the game's own development notwithstanding.
Ironically the self-published, small-team-made Megabonk may have the greatest claim to being "indie" of the bunch. But Vedinad has made clear it is certainly not a debut game.
