Game of the Year

Game of the Year (abbreviated GotY) is a title awarded by various magazines, websites, and shows to a deserving game. Many publications award a single "Game of the Year" to a single title that they feel represents the pinnacle of gaming achievement that year.

Organizations
Organizations and publications who award Game of the Year awards include: • 2

1UP.com
, the winners of 1UP's Game of the Year are chosen by the editors. (In 2009, they also revealed their picks in the Reader's Choice Awards). For the Reader's Choice, see the Reader and gamer polls GOTY Section below.

Academy of Interactive Entertainment
Formerly known as Academy of Video Games. Includes all GOTY Winners picked by AIE staff members. Note: All winners before 1993 were picked in 1993 when AIE was formed.

Amusement Journal Best Income Award
The award for the highest-grossing arcade games in Japan each year.

Arcade Awards / Electronic Gaming Awards
The Arcade Awards, also known as the Arkie Awards, was one of the first video game awards, dating back to the golden age of arcade video games and lasting up until the North American video game industry crash. It was held since 1980 (for games released in 1979 and earlier) and were announced annually by Electronic Games magazine since 1981, covering several different platform categories. Following the magazine's revival in 1992, it published the Electronic Gaming Awards in January 1993 for the best video games released in 1992.

Crispy Gamer
The winners of the Crispy Gamer Game of the Year are chosen by the [http://web.archive.org/web/20080317041543/http://crispygamer.com/GameTrust.aspx? Crispy Gamer Game Trust].

Cheat Code Central
The winners of the Cheat Code Central Game of the Year are chosen by CheatCC editors.

E3
The winners of the annual "Best of E3" awards, chosen annually at the Electronic Entertainment Expo each year.

Edge
The winners of the Edge Game of the Year are chosen by Edge editors.

Electronic Gaming Monthly
The winners of the Electronic Gaming Monthly Game of the Year are chosen by the magazine's editors.


 * Greatest Games (Pre-1990)

Eurogamer (UK)
The winners of the Eurogamer (UK) Game of the Year are chosen by Eurogamer (UK) editors.

Gamasutra
The winners of the Gamasutra Game of the Year are chosen by Gamasutra editors.

Game Informer
The winners of the Game Informer Game of the Year are chosen by Game Informer editors. During their first years of publication they would give awards for the best game on each console available at the time, occasionally giving an award to the overall best game of the year.


 * Greatest Games (Pre-1996)

GamePro
The winners of the GamePro Game of the Year are chosen by GamePro editors.

Game Revolution
The winner of the Game Revolution Editors' Choice Game of the Year award.

Games
The winners of the Games magazine Game of the Year are chosen by Games editors.


 * Starting in 1996, awards were given the title of the coming year. Thus, the December 1995 issue awarded the "Game of the Year 1995", whereas the December 1996 issue awarded the "Game of the Year 1997".

GamesMaster
The winners of the GamesMaster Game of the Year are chosen by Games Master editors.

GamesRadar (UK)
GamesRadar holds a Platinum Chalice Awards feature each year, as part of that, the Game of the Year chosen by the editors are:

GameSpot
The winners of the GameSpot Game of the Year are chosen by GameSpot editors.


 * From 1996 to 2001, console and PC awards were selected separately. There were no console awards given pre-1998.

Console

PC


 * Greatest Games (Pre-1998)

GameSpy
The winners of the GameSpy Game of the Year are chosen by GameSpy editors.

GamesTM
The title chosen by GamesTM as the year's best game.

GameTrailers
The winners of the GameTrailers Game of the Year are chosen by GameTrailers editors.

GDC Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are chosen by registered game developers and unveiled at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

Giant Bomb
The winners of the Giant Bomb Game of the Year are chosen by Giant Bomb editors.

HollywoodChicago
The winners of HollywoodChicago Game of the Year are chosen by the editors.

IGN
IGN's most prestigious game of the year award is chosen by all the editors at IGN and unveiled mid-January.


 * Pre-2001 awards were limited to specific platforms with no overall winner announced.


 * Greatest Games (Pre-2000)

IGN AU (Australia)
In addition, the Australian (Au) team at IGN has been posting a top 10 games of the year since 2008. IGN AU's game of the year is as follows:

Japan Game Awards / CESA Awards
The winners of the Grand Award annually given by the Japan Game Awards, formerly known as the CESA Awards, since 1996. There are some years where two games shared the Grand Award. The awards ceremony is held at the Tokyo Game Show.

Japan Media Arts Festival
Video games are often nominated for awards in the Entertainment/Interactive Art division (which includes several other media as well as games) of the Japan Media Arts Festival, awarded by the Japanese government's Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The games below are the winners of the Grand Prize and the Excellence Prize (runner-up). "N/A" is written for the years where a video game did not win the Grand Prize, but did win the Excellence Prize. Many of the games below have often mainly been awarded for reasons such as originality, innovation, creativity, polish, and artistic achievement.

Joystiq
The winners of the Joystiq Game of the Year are chosen by Joystiq editors.

Kotaku
Over the years, Kotaku has been refining how it selects its Game of the Year. Currently, it involves a debate which starts with the Kotaku editors determining the four most defendable candidates for the award. Editors are then given time to play all the games, and for each of the candidates, an appropriate editor is determined to make his case behind it in front of a panel who also raise questions. The results of these debates are given to the readers, who then also have the chance to make their own opinions felt. To make the final decision, the Kotaku staff members reexamine their arguments, and the winner is determined from a vote between the editors in late January.

LOGiN
Japanese PC game magazine LOGiN handed out Game of the Year awards to the following games.

Los Angeles Times
The winners of the Los Angeles Times Game of the Year are chosen by Los Angeles Times editors.

E!Online
The winners of the E!Online Game of the Year are chosen by E!Online editors.

Yahoo! Games
The winners of the Yahoo! Games Game of the Year are chosen by ''Yahoo! Games'' editors.

Metro GameCentral
The top game of each year, chosen by Metro's GameCentral editors.

New York Times
The winners of The New York Times Game of the Year are chosen by New York Times editors.

Nintendo Power Awards
The winners of the Nintendo Power Awards, also known as the Nester Awards, from 1988 onwards.

Oh!X
Japanese PC game magazine Oh!X was active from 1982 to 1995. Game of the Year awards were handed out to the following games.

Omni
The games chosen as the year's best by Omni magazine, which was active from 1978 to 1995.

PlayStation Official Magazine (UK)
The winners of the PlayStation Official Magazine (UK) Game of the Year are chosen by editors.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun
The winners of the Rock, Paper, Shotgun PC Game of the Year are chosen by editors.

RPGamer
The games chosen by role-playing game website RPGamer as Game of the Year.

RPGFan
The games chosen by RPGFan editors as Game of the Year.

Saturn Awards
The winners of the 2006 Saturn Awards, chosen by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.

Sentinel
The highest-ranking games of the year chosen by the Sentinel newspaper. 

Slant Magazine
The winners are chosen by the editors of Slant magazine in a "top 25".

Spike Video Game Awards
The winners of the Spike Video Game Awards Game of the Year are chosen by an advisory council, featuring 25 journalists from various media outlets.

Super Play
The winners were chosen by the editors of Super Play magazine.

The Washington Examiner
The games chosen by The Washington Examiner editors as the best game in their annual "Top 10 video games" list.

Time
The winners of the Time magazine Game of the Year are chosen by Time magazine editors.

VentureBeat
The winners of the VentureBeat Game of the Year are chosen by editors.

X-Play
The winners of the X-Play Game of the Year are chosen by X-Play editors.

VSDA Awards
The Video Software Dealers Association's VSDA Awards for home entertainment handed out awards for the best video games of the year, which are listed here.

Cumulative statistical analysis of critic reviews
Typically, Game of the Year is decided amongst a consensus of video game editors. The following sites provide rankings based on a cumulation of their review scores.

GameRankings
GameRankings ranks games according to an average of their review score across multiple sources. The highest for each year are:

† The Xbox release of Grand Theft Auto Double Pack scored slightly higher than The Wind Waker but was a re-release of both GTA3 & Vice City, which came out in 2001/2002.


 * Prior to 2001, GameRankings statistics are somewhat more patchy, with fewer games making the 20 review cut off. The threshold has been set to a minimum of 10 reviews for titles released between 1992 and 2000, 7 reviews for 1993, 6 reviews for 1991, and 4 reviews for titles before 1991.

GameStats
The GameStats scores are determined by ratings from both critics and readers. These are the games with the highest GameStats scores for each year.

Metacritic
The winners of the Metacritic Game of the Year are determined by the game with the highest score garnered from an average of weighted review scores from various sources. Each year, Metacritic announce the highest in an official award.

Cumulative statistical analysis of all-time greatest rankings
The following lists provide rankings based on a cumulation of their weighted ranking scores from top 10 'all-time greatest games' lists/polls.

Filibuster

 * See also: Filibuster

1UP.com Reader's Choice
In addition to the editor's picks, 1UP.com also hosts a poll for the Readers' GOTYs. Until 2010, this was considered their primary Game of the Year.

Crash
Starting in 1984, the ZX Spectrum magazine Crash published an annual readers awards article, based on votes from the readers.

Electronic Gaming Monthly Readers' Choice Awards
In addition to their Editors' Choice Awards, Electronic Gaming Monthly also handed out Readers' Choice Awards voted by the magazine's readers.

Electronic Games
Along with the Arcade Awards (see above) announced by Electronic Games magazine each year, it also held a regular reader poll for the most popular games among its readers in each issue, from May 1982 to January 1985. The games that topped these polls the most in each year are listed here.

Eurogamer Portugal Reader's Choice
In addition to the editor's picks, Eurogamer Portugal also hosts a poll for the Reader's GOTY.

Famitsu
The Grand Prize winners of the annual Famitsu Awards, voted by the magazine's readers.


 * Greatest Games (Pre-2004)

G4
The winners of G4's annual "Videogame Deathmatch" or "G-phoria" polls. The 2011 "Videogame Deathmatch" poll involved 500,000 votes.

GameFAQs
GameFAQs' annual Game of the Year is chosen by its readers.


 * Greatest Games (Pre-2001)

Game Revolution
The winner of the Game Revolution Community Choice Game of the Year award.

GameSpot Readers' Picks
In addition to the editor's picks, GameSpot also hosts a poll for the Readers' GOTY.


 * Pre-2004

Gamest Awards
The Japanese Gamest magazine was published from 1986 to 1999, and held the Gamest Award ceremonies every year, focusing mainly on arcade games. The winners of the Grand Prize awards were chosen by voters.

Golden Joystick Awards
The Golden Joysticks are the second oldest gaming awards (after the Arcade Awards). The inaugural ceremony took place in 1982 in London's Berkeley Square.


 * Pre-1992

IGN Reader's Choice
In addition to the editor's picks, IGN also hosts a poll for the Readers' GOTY. IGN, considered the world's largest gaming website, attracted 300,000 votes for its "Best of 2011" Readers' Choice awards.


 * Greatest Games (Pre-2002)

MMGN
The winners of MMGN's annual Community Game of the Year poll.

RPGFan
The games chosen by RPGFan's readers as Game of the Year.

RPGamer
The games chosen by RPGamer's readers as Game of the Year.

ScrewAttack
The winners of ScrewAttack's annual Top 10 Games poll.

Softalk
In 1981, Softalk held one of the first reader polls on popular home computer software, released up until 1980.