Let's Not Settle on What 'Game of the Year' Means
The challenge of finding new games continues to be the gaming sector's biggest ongoing concern. Despite stressful age of company mergers, rising revenue requirements, workforce challenges, the widespread use of AI, storefront instability, evolving generational tastes, hope in many ways returns to the dark magic of "breaking through."
Which is why I'm increasingly focused in "honors" than ever.
Having just a few weeks left in 2025, we're firmly in GOTY season, a time when the small percentage of gamers who aren't enjoying identical multiple F2P action games each week tackle their backlogs, debate development quality, and understand that they too can't play everything. There will be detailed best-of lists, and anticipate "you missed!" reactions to those lists. An audience broad approval voted on by press, content creators, and fans will be revealed at annual gaming ceremony. (Creators weigh in the following year at the interactive achievements ceremony and Game Developers Conference honors.)
All that recognition serves as good fun — no such thing as accurate or inaccurate answers when naming the best titles of this year — but the importance seem higher. Any vote cast for a "annual best", be it for the prestigious top honor or "Excellent Puzzle Experience" in fan-chosen awards, creates opportunity for wider discovery. A medium-scale game that flew under the radar at release might unexpectedly find new life by competing with more recognizable (specifically extensively advertised) big boys. When last year's Neva appeared in consideration for recognition, I know without doubt that tons of gamers suddenly sought to see coverage of Neva.
Traditionally, recognition systems has made little room for the diversity of games released every year. The challenge to address to consider all seems like climbing Everest; nearly numerous titles came out on Steam in 2024, while merely seventy-four titles — including latest titles and live service titles to smartphone and virtual reality specialized games — appeared across the ceremony selections. While popularity, discussion, and digital availability drive what gamers experience every year, there is absolutely impossible for the scaffolding of accolades to properly represent twelve months of games. However, there's room for enhancement, assuming we acknowledge its importance.
The Expected Nature of Annual Honors
Recently, a long-running ceremony, among interactive entertainment's oldest honor shows, announced its nominees. Even though the decision for Game of the Year itself happens soon, one can see the direction: This year's list made room for rightful contenders — massive titles that garnered praise for refinement and scale, hit indies celebrated with AAA-scale attention — but across numerous of award types, there's a obvious focus of familiar titles. Throughout the enormous variety of creative expression and gameplay approaches, the "Best Visual Design" allows inclusion for two different sandbox experiences set in ancient Japan: Ghost of Yōtei and Assassin's Creed Shadows.
"Were I constructing a future GOTY in a lab," one writer commented in digital observation continuing to enjoying, "it should include a PlayStation sandbox adventure with turn-based hybrid combat, companion relationships, and randomized roguelite progression that embraces risk-reward systems and has modest management base building."
GOTY voting, in all of organized and community iterations, has become foreseeable. Multiple seasons of finalists and honorees has created a pattern for the sort of high-quality 30-plus-hour experience can achieve a Game of the Year nominee. We see experiences that never reach main categories or including "significant" creative honors like Direction or Writing, typically due to formal ingenuity and unusual systems. The majority of titles published in annually are destined to be limited into specific classifications.
Notable Instances
Hypothetical: Will Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, an experience with critical ratings marginally shy of Death Stranding 2 and Ghosts of Yōtei, crack main selection of The Game Awards' GOTY category? Or even consideration for superior audio (since the audio stands out and merits recognition)? Probably not. Top Racing Title? Certainly.
How good does Street Fighter 6 need to be to achieve top honor consideration? Might selectors look at character portrayals in Baby Steps, The Alters, or The Drifter and recognize the best voice work of the year without AAA production values? Can Despelote's two-hour play time have "sufficient" narrative to warrant a (justified) Best Narrative award? (Additionally, should The Game Awards benefit from Top Documentary award?)
Repetition in favorites over recent cycles — on the media level, within communities — demonstrates a system progressively biased toward a certain extended style of game, or independent games that generated sufficient attention to qualify. Problematic for an industry where exploration is everything.
