Streamer Prestige Is Key was looking for a cool gaming souvenir the other day, but when he tried to buy a Game Awards trophy online, he got a lot more than he was originally expecting.
Having been trying for years to buy a replica Game Award as a trinket he could put on his shelf, and never having any luck, he thought heâd finally found one on eBay a couple of weeks ago. Only this one, weirdly, wasnât a replica; as PC Gamer reports, it was an actual Game Awards trophy, which had been handed out on stage.
Curious to find out what the hell was going on, Prestige asked where exactly the trophy had come from, but the seller of the awardâa retailer that doesnât normally deal with video game merch or collectiblesâcouldnât provide much help other than say it had come from âliquidation sourcesâ. Which suggests that maybe whoever won the award had gone out of business and the trophy had been seized as part of the closure.
Whatever, it was an actual trophy, something even cooler than the replica heâd originally been looking for, so Prestige bid on it and won:
Upon receiving itâand having never seen one this close before, the heft of the thing was very pleasing to meâhe was able to instantly ascertain where it had come from. The base of the trophy had the year, category and winner on it, and huh.
Celeste was developed by Extremely OK Games, and they are very much still in business. Prestige contacted them to let them know heâd just bought their trophy. They were able to partially solve the mystery by saying, surprisingly, that they had never got their award in the first place. Despite receiving it from Ninja live on stage, the shows organisers took the trophy back shortly afterwards and said theyâd mail it to them after the show. But never did.
So whoever was responsible for that fucked up somewhere along the way, meaning for four whole years, Extremely OK Games could say theyâd won a Game Award without ever being able to actually show it (UPDATE: I overlooked that they actually won two that night, this one and âGames For Impactâ).
Seeing as he now owned someone elseâs award, Prestige has decided to send the trophy to Celesteâs developers, who will be reimbursing him the cost of the auction and postage, and sending him some signed copies of Celeste in return.
