for a small operation like iron galaxy having awards for your studio probably looks very good when trying to court investors.
but yeah, giving best fighting game to a title that launched halfassed, was and is still broken in many ways, and even installed a rootkit on people pc's is a bit ridiculous. it is kind of interesting that all the other catagories had 5 noms and fg had 4. couldn't find room for gg or mkxl on there?
It was on the Giant Bombcast on Tuesday but Jeff and Jason were discussing they were trying to put Xrd Relevator and Nitroplus Blasterz on the ballot and a number of publications wanted Relevator in as well, but it never happened and they were really confused on the criteria because not a lot of judges wanted SF V on there because it was broken and has been in and out of a playable state for the last while (Depending on if the patch breaks CFN etc). And yeah for a small studio like Iron Galaxy or a small publisher like XSEED. Getting a big stage award would be big for them and looks good to investors.
But it's really a case if you want the awards to be taken seriously. Don't give it to a game that the community is continually roasting for being a broken mess because it's the biggest name in the genre and it's a huge oversight. If they really wanted to be serious, they should have dropped SF V and put Relevator on the ballot instead. Relevator would have more than likely won, and it would have looked good for legitmacy if SF V wasn't on the ballot in the first place.
What's done is done but if Geoff wants to legitimize this thing. Even small things on awards that are not on screen add up.