During the lead-up to The Game Awards 2023, several people became confused by Dave the Diver's nomination for "Best Independent Game" since Mintrocket, the game's developer, is a subsidiary of the much larger Nexon, who had previously claimed that the game was not necessarily an indie. This sparked debates as to what exactly counts as an "indie" video game, as another game that had received nominations, Baldur's Gate 3, was also technically independent, but was likely not counted due to both Larian Studio's employee count and the use of an existing IP. The Game Awards' host Geoff Keighley would later respond that "independent can mean different things to different people", and that it was up to a jury to decide the final decisions. During this, a similar debate arose in regards to the "Games for Impact" nomination: described as "a locker to stuff all the diverse games into", it was noted that five of the six nominees had not received any other nominations, and seemed limited to independent games despite there being other games that fit the criteria.