We Should Not Settle on the Meaning of 'Game of the Year' Means

The challenge of uncovering fresh titles continues to be the gaming sector's most significant existential threat. Despite the anxiety-inducing age of company mergers, growing profit expectations, workforce challenges, extensive implementation of AI, digital marketplace changes, changing player interests, progress in many ways returns to the elusive quality of "breaking through."

That's why I'm more invested in "honors" than ever.

With only several weeks remaining in the calendar, we're deeply in annual gaming awards season, a period where the small percentage of players not enjoying identical six no-cost shooters every week tackle their unplayed games, debate game design, and understand that even they won't get everything. There will be comprehensive annual selections, and there will be "but you forgot!" responses to those lists. A gamer consensus-ish voted on by journalists, streamers, and followers will be issued at The Game Awards. (Industry artisans weigh in the following year at the interactive achievements ceremony and GDC Awards.)

This entire sanctification is in entertainment — there aren't any accurate or inaccurate answers when naming the top titles of this year — but the stakes do feel greater. Any vote selected for a "game of the year", whether for the major GOTY prize or "Excellent Puzzle Experience" in community-selected recognitions, opens a door for wider discovery. A mid-sized experience that flew under the radar at debut could suddenly attract attention by rubbing shoulders with higher-profile (specifically heavily marketed) big boys. Once the previous year's Neva appeared in the running for a Game Award, I know for a fact that tons of gamers immediately sought to see coverage of Neva.

Historically, award shows has established limited space for the breadth of games published every year. The challenge to clear to review all feels like an impossible task; about 19,000 titles came out on PC storefront in last year, while just 74 releases — including recent games and live service titles to mobile and VR platform-specific titles — were represented across the ceremony finalists. When popularity, discourse, and digital availability drive what gamers choose annually, there is absolutely impossible for the structure of accolades to properly represent twelve months of releases. Nevertheless, there exists opportunity for progress, provided we accept it matters.

The Familiar Pattern of Industry Recognition

Earlier this month, the Golden Joystick Awards, among interactive entertainment's most established honor shows, published its finalists. Even though the decision for Game of the Year proper takes place early next month, it's possible to notice the direction: The current selections made room for rightful contenders — massive titles that have earned recognition for refinement and scale, popular smaller titles received with AAA-scale excitement — but throughout multiple of categories, there's a noticeable predominance of repeat names. Across the enormous variety of visual style and gameplay approaches, top artistic recognition makes room for several open-world games taking place in historical Japan: Ghost of Yōtei and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

"Were I designing a future GOTY theoretically," one writer commented in online commentary I'm still chuckling over, "it would be a PlayStation open world RPG with turn-based hybrid combat, character interactions, and RNG-heavy replayable systems that leans into chance elements and includes basic building development systems."

Industry recognition, across official and community iterations, has turned expected. Multiple seasons of finalists and victors has established a formula for which kind of refined extended game can achieve award consideration. There are experiences that never break into GOTY or including "major" technical awards like Game Direction or Writing, thanks often to innovative design and quirkier mechanics. Most games published in a year are destined to be ghettoized into genre categories.

Specific Examples

Consider: Will Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, a title with a Metacritic score only slightly below Death Stranding 2 and Ghosts of Yōtei, reach main selection of The Game Awards' Game of the Year category? Or even consideration for superior audio (because the music is exceptional and merits recognition)? Unlikely. Excellent Driving Experience? Certainly.

How outstanding should Street Fighter 6 have to be to achieve top honor recognition? Might selectors evaluate character portrayals in Baby Steps, The Alters, or The Drifter and acknowledge the best voice work of 2025 without a studio-franchise sheen? Does Despelote's brief play time have "sufficient" narrative to merit a (earned) Top Story award? (Also, should industry ceremony need a Best Documentary classification?)

Repetition in choices throughout multiple seasons — on the media level, within communities — demonstrates a system progressively biased toward a specific lengthy style of game, or smaller titles that landed with sufficient attention to check the box. Problematic for a sector where finding new experiences is everything.

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