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Comparison of D.I.C.E., TGA, BAFTA and Golden Joystick awards GOTY winners (and voting processes) from the past 16 years

Which of these industry ceremonies has most aligned with your personal goty over the years?

  • DICE

    Votes: 4 16.7%
  • BAFTA

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • TGA

    Votes: 6 25.0%
  • Golden Joystick

    Votes: 4 16.7%
  • None of them

    Votes: 7 29.2%

  • Total voters
    24

kicker

Banned
I think these are the 4 most recognized awards ceremonies in the industry, right?

Yes, yes, game awards are popularity ceremonies and exist for industry self-validation since the categories don't reflect gameplay enough and tend to homogenize some unique categories while delivering them as side notes.
Regardless, they're used in some manner to recognize excellent games. Maybe not the *most* excellent games in a given year by my (nor your) taste, but excellent games nonetheless.
I would say it is the most prestigious accolade an independent developer can put on their marketing poster or trailer (I believe AAA devs and publishers don't really care)

Let's look at the results from the past 16 years.

Year
D.I.C.E
TGA (spike vga pre-2014)
BAFTA
Golden Joystick
2007COD 4: Modern WarfareBioshockBioshockGears of War (released 2006)
2008LittleBigPlanetGTA IVSuper Mario GalaxyCOD 4: Modern Warfare (released 2007)
2009Uncharted 2Uncharted 2Batman Arkham AsylumFallout 3 (released 2008)
2010Mass Effect 2Red Dead RedemptionMass Effect 2Mass Effect 2
2011TESV: SkyrimTESV: SkyrimPortal 2Portal 2
2012JourneyThe Walking DeadDishonoredTESV: Skyrim (released 2011)
2013The Last of UsGTA VThe Last of UsGTA V
2014Dragon Age: InquisitionDragon Age: InquisitionDestinyDark Souls II
2015Fallout 4The Witcher 3Fallout 4The Witcher 3
2016OverwatchOverwatchUncharted 4: A Thief's EndDark Souls III
2017BOTWBOTWWhat Remains of Edith FinchBOTW
2018God of War 18God of War 18God of War 18Fortnite Battle Royale
2019Untitled Goose GameSekiro: Shadows Die TwiceOuter WildsResident Evil 2 Remake
2020HadesThe Last of Us Part IIHadesThe Last of Us Part II
2021It Takes TwoIt Takes TwoReturnalResident Evil Village
2022Elden RingElden RingVampire SurvivorsElden Ring


D.I.C.E
- First hosted in 1998.
- Awards ceremony holds in February
The nominees in each category are selected by a peer panel, assembled by AIAS, of over 100 video game professionals across several facets of the industry, including developers, programmers, artists, and publishers, which is published on the AIAS website each year. The nominees are then voted on by the full membership of AIAS (over 33,000 members) via a confidential and secured voting system, and winners are subsequently announced during the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, typically the February of that year

TGA
- First hosted in 2014 (Spike VGA first hosted in 2003).
- Awards ceremony holds in December.
The Game Awards has an advisory committee which includes representatives from hardware manufacturers Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and AMD, along with several game publishers. This committee selects around thirty influential video game news organizations that are able to nominate and subsequently vote on the video games in several categories. The advisory committee otherwise does not participate in the nomination or voting process. During the nomination round, each of the news outlets provides a list of games in several categories. The committee compiles the nominations and selects the most-nominated games for voting by these same outlets. Prior to 2017, there were 28 industry experts and representatives that selected the winners, while the awards from 2017 onwards have used over 50 such experts. In 2019, non-English media publications were added to the jury. Winners are determined by a blended vote between the voting jury (90%) and public fan voting (10%) via social platforms and the show's website.

BAFTA
- First hosted in 2004.
- Awards ceremony holds in March/April.
BAFTA outlines the eligibility and entry process for the British Academy Games Awards. Games released in 2014 will be eligible for the 2015 awards, and entries can be made via the BAFTA entry website. The judging process consists of two stages, with games initially voted on by the Games-voting BAFTA members and then judged by a jury of industry practitioners chaired by a member of the BAFTA Games Committee. BAFTA aims for each jury to be balanced in age and experience, and jurors with a direct association with a short-listed game will not be permitted to sit on the jury. The jury selects nominations and a winner by secret ballot. Games originally released prior to the eligibility period may be entered if they have received a significant update or alteration

Golden Joystick
- First hosted in 1983.
- Awards ceremony holds in October/November.
The voting process for the Golden Joystick Awards is open to the public and takes place online. Fans and gamers from around the world are invited to cast their votes for their favorite games across various categories, including Game of the Year, Best Multiplayer Game, Best Indie Game, and more. The voting period typically lasts for 5 days.
Once the voting period is over, the results are collated, and the games with the most votes in each category are announced as winners.

It seems like the specific winners themselves completely depend on the jury selected and a separate combination in any given year would probably give slightly different results.

Any thoughts? Is there hope for a future games award event that is more open and representative of the best games in proper categories a given year? Or is entertainment appraisal completely subjective making awards events like these pointless?
 
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I lost a lot of faith in the entire process after this last year at TGA and even here on the NeoGAF GOTY voting. It feels like money, and general production values crowd out a lot of the rest of the discussion. It's kind of the inverse of the Oscars where you expect highly pretentious movies to win that few have heard of. In gaming it's often the biggest, most mainstream blockbuster winning in every category.

I still enjoy the overall discussion around it. It's ultimately a chance for me to try and tell people what games I enjoyed and maybe turn some people on to new things they may have overlooked or gotten a negative impression about. But I don't put much stock in a lot of the awards since I don't agree with it in a ton of cases.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
User scores are what matters.
yes, it has the issue of once in a while a game getting review bombed for some stupid reason.
But overall, it's a much better indication of a game's quality than "professional" gaming journalists.
 
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Reactions: Fuz

Topher

Gold Member
I lost a lot of faith in the entire process after this last year at TGA and even here on the NeoGAF GOTY voting. It feels like money, and general production values crowd out a lot of the rest of the discussion. It's kind of the inverse of the Oscars where you expect highly pretentious movies to win that few have heard of. In gaming it's often the biggest, most mainstream blockbuster winning in every category.

I still enjoy the overall discussion around it. It's ultimately a chance for me to try and tell people what games I enjoyed and maybe turn some people on to new things they may have overlooked or gotten a negative impression about it. But I don't put much stock in a lot of the awards since I don't agree with it in a ton of cases.

What about the NeoGAF GOTY process made you lose faith?
 
What about the NeoGAF GOTY process made you lose faith?
The absurd results in most categories. The fact that it was incredibly obvious that some people only even played 3 or so games the whole year. Those people obviously have a right to their opinion, but if you barely even know about most of the games that came out in a year, you don't really have an informed opinion on what is the best in a certain category, and the results reflect that lack of information. Also very evident that people weren't able to separate themselves from their favorite game overall, and instead think on each category objectively and assess what is being asked in each category. Just repeatedly putting down their favorite thing overall.
 

Three

Member
I would have usually chosen Bafta but when they voted the built for addiction Vampire Survivors over Elden Ring it kind of diverged from my tastes. I would say it's a toss up between Bafta and DICE for me.
 

kicker

Banned
Also very evident that people weren't able to separate themselves from their favorite game overall, and instead think on each category objectively and assess what is being asked in each category. Just repeatedly putting down their favorite thing overall.
I've come to accept that this is true for every single public poll on entertainment products that I've ever seen. Though like you mentioned, there's still information to be taken from popularity polls, so, eh
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
DICE and GDC.
I only watch TGA for "world premiere" announcements, otherwise I wouldnt bother with that award show at all.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
User scores are what matters.
yes, it has the issue of once in a while a game getting review bombed for some stupid reason.
But overall, it's a much better indication of a game's quality than "professional" gaming journalists.
house of cards netflix GIF by Alex Bedder
 
The last time my personal GOTY won GOTY from any of these outlets was 2017 (Breath of the Wild). So I don't really pay it too much attention these days,
 

kicker

Banned
Eyeballing this list it looks like the early years of Golden Joystick awards are given to games a year after launch.
It's weird. That happened 2 or 3 times in the late 2000s (apparently the award has been going for 40 years so not exactly early year) and then it suddenly stopped.

My theory is that since it's a primarily british public vote (and used to be very pc-focused), the voting demographic might have seen later physical releases? or maybe some pc versions came out in the uk after the console versions? I don't know, it's weird
At least BAFTA is consistent with their previous year/current year voting
 

kicker

Banned
Agreed. And yet the OP singles out Fallout 3 with a snarky parenthetical. Does not compute.
To be fair, the (somehow) attachment is due to the fact that those games were awarded GOTY for the year after their release.
Imagine Elden ring winning GOTY in 2023 in a ceremony that takes place november 2023

Should probably make that more clear in the op though. GJ is just a weird award sometimes.
 
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