The GOTY meta-count
8,974 Game of the Year awards, counted
One game wins The Game Awards. 3,358 outlets have picked their own since 1990, and almost nobody adds them up. This does: every Game of the Year award we can document, from 1990 to 2026, with the outlet, the country and the year behind each one.
Track the 2026 season → Read the magazine
Or go straight to every Game of the Year winner or the most awarded games of all time.
- 8,974Awards tracked
- 3,358Media outlets
- 100Countries
- 23Full years
Latest from the magazine
Game of the Year 2026 preview: every show and livestream
The Golden Joysticks stream on 11 November, The Game Awards on 10 December. The Game Awards picked the field's winner in 10 of 12 seasons.
Has a Grand Theft Auto game ever won Game of the Year?
GTA V sold over 230 million copies and won 165 Game of the Year awards, yet the series has won 0 of the 23 seasons counted in full since 2003.
How is Game of the Year decided?
Nobody decides it. 679 outlets each chose their own in 2025 — editors, readers' polls, juries, developers — and the winner is the game most of them named.
Latest fully documented race
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Game of the Year 2025 · 540 awards
Why one show is not the whole answer
The Game Awards crowns one winner in December and the internet treats it as the verdict. But in 2024 the five biggest ceremonies crowned three different games, and in 2022 the BAFTAs went to Vampire Survivors while everyone else went to Elden Ring. Counting every award instead of watching one show gives a different, messier and more honest picture of which game a year actually belonged to.
Most awarded games of all time
Season in progress
Still being filled in, so its total sits below a completed season’s — see coverage per season.
Every fully documented year
- 2025Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- 2024Astro Bot
- 2023Baldur's Gate 3
- 2022Elden Ring
- 2021It Takes Two
- 2020The Last of Us Part II
- 2019Death Stranding
- 2018God of War
- 2017The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- 2016Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
- 2015The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- 2014Dragon Age: Inquisition
- 2013The Last of Us
- 2012The Walking Dead: The Game
- 2011The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- 2010Red Dead Redemption
- 2009Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
- 2008Fallout 3
- 2007BioShock
- 2006The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- 2005Resident Evil 4
- 2004Half-Life 2
- 2003Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Questions this data can answer
The ten awards that decide the season
From Tokyo Game Show in September to the BAFTAs in spring — who votes, when each lands, and the years they could not agree. In 2024 the five biggest awards crowned three different games.
Who does the voting
3,358 outlets from 100 countries — from BAFTA and the Game Developers Choice Awards down to single-country magazines and podcasts.
Updated 5 November 2026 · Source: the Meta Awards database, where every award row cites where it was published.