u/benedictcumberpatch

Like many here and elsewhere, I love attempting to predict which games we'll see nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards. Most of the time, people are going off hype/buzz, which games they personally loved most or Metacritic scores. All these come with flaws when predicting GOTY though...

1. People are biased af, whether it be love for a game that didn't share the same belovedness among others or disdain for another that are at the top of lists. And...

2. Most importantly, Metacritic/OpenCritic scores don't tell the whole story. Votes aren't made on what games had the highest average score, they're made on the games that people felt most strongly about, the games that people handed out 10's and 9's to.

Let's say you have two games that both averaged out around 80. On the surface they seem to have the same critical appeal but one game received 8's across the board while the other was a mix of 10's, 9's, 8's, 7's and 6's. So despite the same average, the latter game is far more likely to receive GOTY nominations due to those high scores, people who loved the game and could place it amongst the best of the year.

So the idea I had... let's attempt to make a scoring metric that measures top scores rather than just total averages.

Last year I started putting together a spreadsheet to count how many high scores a game got (10, 9.5 and 9, rounded to nearest) vs. how many total reviews the game received. I wanted to measure how many TOP scores a game received rather than just an average, as these high markings are the better indicator of what could get nominated. Using some mathematical magic within Excel, I came up with this thing I'll call the "GOTY Index". It counts how many top scores a game recieved and how many total scores amongst the entire field to spit out a number in an attempt to help measure this all with a Bayesian approach (helps lightly reviewed games pull toward the average so a 55-review indie doesn't swing as hard as a 200-review blockbuster).

I used a self-imposed cutoff of games with a minimum review count of 50 on OpenCritic (easier to pull from than Metacritic) and a minimum average score of 80, otherwise going beyond that just makes the data too noisy. There is also a penalty for games that are either remakes, sports, sim/strategy or fighting games as history tells us TGA voters don't put those as in high regard for GOTY.

So what does this all look like? Below is the table of all currently released games that would qualify for this voting period. I've also ran this same table for every year of TGA (this took a very very long time lol) and typically games with an index of 90+ are the stronger contenders, not many games below that made it. There have been some oddballs though, more on that later.

RANK	TITLE	GOTY INDEX
1	Resident Evil Requiem	129.9
2	Mina the Hollower	106.7
3	Pokémon Pokopia	76.4
4	Pragmata	53.7
5	Saros	47.8
6	Dispatch	47.2
7	007 First Light	47.1
8	Denshattack!	43.5
9	Mixtape	39.1
10	Nioh 3	34.8
11	Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection	34.2
12	Forza Horizon 6	32
13	Esoteric Ebb	24.6
14	Cairn	24.5
15	Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced	18.2
16	Octopath Traveler 0	14.9
17	Mewgenics	14.7
18	MOUSE: P.I. For Hire	12.8
19	LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight	12.4
20	Dragon Quest VII Reimagined	12
21	Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors	10.2
22	Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf	8.6
23	Splatoon Raiders	7.9
24	Reanimal	7.5
25	MARVEL Cosmic Invasion	7.4
26	Metroid Prime 4 Beyond	7.1
27	ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies	6.8
28	Crimson Desert*	6.7
29	Constance	6.3
30	MIO: Memories in Orbit	6.1
31	Halo: Campaign Evolved	5.3
32	Star Fox	5.1
33	Scott Pilgrim EX	4.5
34	The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales	4.4
35	Yoshi and the Mysterious Book	4.1
36	People of Note	4.1
37	Marathon	3.2
38	Rhythm Heaven Groove	3
39	Skate Story	2.3

*Crimson Desert does not meet the minimum OpenCritic score (sitting at 79), only including it to show where it lands since many people consider it a contender despite the lower scores

By looking at these, Resident Evil Requiem appears to be as close to a lock as possible with Mina the Hollower looking extremely likely as well for nominations. The next games below those may be at risk, possibly getting bumped out of consideration for releases later this year.

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Backtested against previous years, it had about a 72% accuracy of predicting the nominees within its top 6 and had the actual GOTY winner as the highest index game 50% of the time so clearly this method isn't perfect. The misses include whiffing on Balatro and Black Myth: Wukong in 2024, expecting Split Fiction to be nominated last year and several more in the earlier years of TGA. That's to be expected of a model that only measures review scores, it can't see buzz/hype, sales, cultural impact or buggy launches.

And for the record, these are the GOTY Index for past winners (earlier years get a bit wonky with lower review counts and less nominees)...

2025: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - 184

2024: Astro Bot - 231

2023: Baldur's Gate 3 - 218

2022: Elden Ring - 299

2021: It Takes Two - 63 (notoriously weak year)

2020: The Last of Us Part II - 202

2019: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 95

2018: God of War - 247

2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 235

2016: Overwatch - 87 (a weird one, Uncharted 4 and Inside scored better)

2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 138

2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition - 33 (much smaller pool for first year)

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And while this method technically applies to GOTY only, we can still use it to help take a look at what games could take other awards for funsies (removing any penalties since those only apply for GOTY)...

Best Independent Game: Mina the Hollower

Best Debut Indie Game: Esoteric Ebb

Best Action Game: Saros

Best Action / Adventure Game: Resident Evil Requiem

Best Role Playing Game: Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection

Best Fighting Game: MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls (none meet the minimum threshold but if applied, this is the prediction)

Best Family Game: Pokémon Pokopia

Best Sim / Strategy Game: Mewgenics

Best Sports / Racing Game: Forza Horizon 6

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This project isn't meant to be taken too seriously and has some obvious flaws but IMO it's still a useful way to look at the landscape of the GOTY field to see where things may be headed. It's mostly just a fun experiment I've been playing around with and figured why not share with this sub? If y'all think this is cool, I could maybe make this a monthly thing where I post the current standings the first Monday of each month as more games come out.