The 2018 BAFTA awards have revealed their top games of 2017. The winner of five BAFTA awards – for Game Beyond Entertainment, Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, British Game, and Performer – all went to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild also won awards, with Mario picking up Game Design and Family and Zelda taking Game Innovation. Best game of the night, however, went to What Remains of Edith Finch.

The big question, though, is if the BAFTA’s even represent gamers. Most gamers have not even heard of – let alone played – What Remains of Edith Finch, and the game is far more of a visual novel than it is an actual game. So what are the BAFTAs, and why should gamers care what they think is the best game?

The BAFTAs stand for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. It is a British charity that promotes art in motion, which started first with film and added television in 1953 and video games in 1998. It is the largest award ceremony in Britain and is often hosted by British celebrities, comedians, and personalities, making it akin to the Golden Globes or Academy Awards. Like those other major award ceremonies, there can be disagreement with their selections; however, some seem particularly suspect.

In 2017, the BAFTAs presented the Esports Audience award to Clash Royale, a mobile phone game that most esports fans wouldn’t recognize. Instead of going to League of Legends – with the largest fanbase of any esport the entire world over – or to DOTA 2 – which consistently had the largest prize pool due to fan contributions – the award went to a mobile game. While there is certainly no disputing taste, what does raise eyebrows is the fact that vice president of games at the BAFTAs, David Gardner, was a huge investor in Clash Royale in 2011, meaning he had a vested interest in its success.

There are also certain choices that don’t make a terribly large amount of sense. In 2017, Inside won the award for Game Design, which seems odd considering that the game is an extremely rudimentary side-scroller. The artistic direction and storytelling have been heavily praised, but the actual mechanics of the game and the level design are certainly nothing to write home about. Meanwhile, games like Dark Souls 3 didn’t make an appearance at all, despite From Software being recognized as one of the best level and game designers of all time. And in 2012, Dark Souls appeared under the category ‘Strategy’, as did Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Football Manager. While one could argue strategy is certain in all these games, one could argue that about any game. Strategy generally represents something else in gaming.

There are other decisions from their most recent awards that certainly don’t make sense. Cuphead took only the award for music home, despite being one of the most original titles in the last decade with animation and gameplay blended more seamlessly than any game. It was beat out as a ‘Debut Game’ by Gorogoa, a puzzle game with nowhere near the complexity of Cuphead and that also only runs about an hour from start to finish. ‘Evolving Game’ went to Overwatch, which seems like a bit of surprise because it hasn’t evolved nearly as much as at least two other titles in the same category: Fortnite (which went from tower defense to Battle Royale) and Final Fantasy XV (which went from RPG to spawning piles of other games and properties).

While arguments could be made in defense of their decisions, the fact is, the awards hardly seem to reflect the opinions or language of the gaming industry. The BAFTAs care primarily about what is British (obviously), and often what is artsy, which usually means indie. That is at the very least a nice departure from Game of the Year Awards, which often seem to be merited out to whatever game made (or paid) the most money, but it also means the award has about the same merit, which is to say, none.

Compare the BAFTA’s to the Steam Awards, and the results are night and day. Many games that fans and critics praised equally as some of the greatest – like Witcher 3 – took easy wins in the Steam Awards while making no splash at the BAFTAs. Despite most of the games the BAFTA’s nominated appearing in Steam’s library, very few shared similar results. The only point everyone can agree on is that Cuphead’s soundtrack was stellar, but that one was kind of hard to ignore. Aside from that, the BAFTAs seem more self-indulgent than actually trying to portray gaming.