Dave the Diver’s director has acknowledged the game’s controversial nomination for best indie game at The Game Awards 2023, admitting Mintrocket is not an indie studio.
Mintrocket is a subsidiary of South Korean developer and publisher Nexon, but its game was nominated for the Best Independent Game award, ultimately missing out to Sea of Stars.
Now, in an interview with Japanese site 4gamer, director Hwang Jae-ho stated “there’s nothing indie about [Dave the Diver]” considering it was made at Nexon.
“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,” he said (translated by Automaton). “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 (laughs).”
Nominees for The Game Awards are chosen by an international jury of global game media outlets. As Hwang noted, Nexon therefore had nothing to do with the nomination.
Essentially, the media got it wrong, perhaps due to Mintrocket being considered a small team, or due to the pixel art style.
Back in 2022, ahead of the game’s release, Nexon vice president Dae-Hwon Kim stated in an interview Dave the Diver isn’t an indie game, despite appearances.
Later, The Game Awards producer Geoff Keighley confused matters. “Independent can mean different things to different people, and it’s sort of a broad term,” he said (as reported by 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?”
He then deferred to the 120 global media outlets that voted to determine the interpretation. Now, Hwang is finally ending the debate.
Dave the Diver received widespread critical acclaim and is still receiving updates two years after its release. Its In The Jungle DLC starring Godzilla has been delayed into next year, however, after first being revealed in 2024.