Game of the Year (GotY) is an award given to avideo game by various award events and media publications that they feel represented the pinnacle of gaming that year.

TheBritish Academy Games Awards are an annual British awards ceremony honoring "outstanding creative achievement" in the video game industry. First presented in 2004 following the restructuring of theBAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards, the awards are presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and are thus commonly referred to as the BAFTA Games Awards.

TheCzech Game of the Year Awards were annual awards that recognize accomplishments in video game development.^[33] The awards have been dormant since 2021.

TheD.I.C.E. Awards are awarded by theAcademy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), a non-profit organization of industry professionals. The awards were previously known as the Interactive Achievement Awards until 2013.^[41]

The Arcade Awards, also known as theArkie Awards, was one of the first video game awards, dating back to thegolden age of arcade video games and lasting up until thevideo game crash of 1983. It was held since 1980 (for games released in 1979 and earlier) and were announced annually byElectronic Games magazine since 1981, covering several platform categories.^[71] Following the magazine's revival in 1992, it published the Electronic Gaming Awards in January 1993 for the best video games released in 1992.^[72] The 1992 and 1993 award were voted on by readers.^{[citation needed]}

The Grand Prize winners of the annualFamitsu Awards, voted byFamitsu magazine's readers. An annual award ceremony has been held since 2005.^[76] Prior to 2005, the results were published in the magazine's annual "Best Hit Game Awards" feature since early 1987 (for games released in 1986).

Geoff Keighley, producer and host of theSpike Video Game Awards, createdThe Game Awards in 2014. The winners are determined by a blended vote between the voting jury (90%) and public fan voting (10%); the jury panel consists of members from around 100 global media outlets.^[94][95]

TheGame Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year is announced during theGame Developers Choice Awards at theGame Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers.

TheGolden Joystick Awards is the second oldest gaming award ceremony and is the longest-running video game award. The inaugural ceremony took place in 1984 in London'sBerkeley Square.^[122]

The winners of the Grand Award annually given by theJapan Game Awards, formerly known as the CESA Awards, since 1996. There are some years where two games shared the Grand Award.^[154]

TheNew York Videogame Critics Circle hosts an annual award show that recognizes the best contributions to the video game industry from the previous year.^[165]

The winners of theSpike Video Game Awards, hosted by Spike between 2003 and 2013, awarded the Game of the Year using an advisory council featuring over 20 journalists from media outlets.^[181] The show's title was changed to VGX in 2013 before Spike TV dropped the show entirely. Host and producerGeoff Keighley createdThe Game Awards in 2014.

The winners of theSXSW Gaming Awards were judged by the SXSW Gaming Advisory Board, which is composed of over 40 industry members.South by Southwest announced in 2023 that the awards would be discontinued.

TheVideo Software Dealers Association's VSDA Awards for home entertainment handed out awards for the bestvideo games of the year until 2001.^[193]

During their earlier 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. In 2017, they retroactively awarded a GOTY award for each past year that did not have an overall best game.^[285]