Developer Hello Games is known for creating the action-adventure survival video game "No Man's Sky" won the Innovation Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards and like everyone else, the developer did not expect to have won the said award. In fact, the indie team was absent from the awards ceremony and wasn't able to accept it from host Tim Schafer.

According to Polygon, Hello Games team members actually made a trip to San Francisco for the Game Developers Choice Awards but were somewhere else for dinner and did not bother attending the awards ceremony as explained by Hello Games code lead Innes McKendrick. The "No Man's Sky" developer said on Twitter that they actually did not expect to win anyway.

During Schafer's announcement for the Innovation Award for Hello Games, he tried calling out saying "Going once... going twice..." after it seemed to have no one coming to the stage to accept the neon green robot trophy. When he was certain that no one was actually heading center stage to receive the Innovation Award for "No Man's Sky," Schafer accepted the award instead on behalf of Hello Games.

The Escapist reports that Hello Games' McKendrick later expressed his embarrassment for having been absent from the ceremony, but following the controversial drubbing from consumers as well as critics about the final product of "No Man's Sky," Hello Games' assumption that it won't get any awards is certainly nothing but logical. On Steam, the game currently sits at a Mostly Negative rating and it anyone can't blame the developer for being absent at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Moreover, Hello Game's Sean Murray believes that the Game Developers Choice Awards organizers would have informed them in advance if they were going to win the Innovation Award for "No Man's Sky" but obviously, they did not. According to the Game Developers Choice Awards team, the Innovation Award recognizes games that demonstrate true innovation, advance the state of the art and push the boundaries of games as an expressive medium.