There is no game of the year.

Well I played Pokemon Heartgold for over 300 hours this year, so if I had to pick one, it'd be that, even if there isn't a single person on this site that would agree with me. But I agree with you that comparing two things as different as Pokemon and Red Dead Redemption would be pretty dumb.

I think the point of GOTY  is that it's a vehicle to have fun talking about the games we've played over the last year and the actual contest is secondary.  Ranking them inspires discussion from others while just listing what games you like doesn't.

I really didn't play a lot of new releases this year so I can't have an opinion on what's the most deserving of the title.
 
Though I find your suggestion that someone would name Poker Night at the Inventory Game of the Year as kinda... what's the word....? Silly.

Dragons are better than triangles and eagles combined. Yeah, that's right, dragons destroy triangle eagles.

There is no spoon.

Borderlands :)

Good call on Super Mario Galaxy 2 as a forgettable game. Whenever someone mentions GOTY, other games come to mind instead, but SMG2 definitely one of the year's best and makes a strong contender. I think maybe it's because it came out so early in the year. Until a month or so ago, I think a lot of people even kind of forgot about Mass Effect 2 as well, and now it looks like it could end up winning top honors all over the place.

MASS EFFECT 2 sucks!

Kbai!

GOTY awards are for people to pick their favourite game from the past 12 months. I don't see it as an official thing, it's all opinions.  
 
Saying that, it's obviously Minecraft.

I liek supper met bay. 
 
Also, SMG2 is a fraking amazing game. If it weren't for SMG1 it'd probably win GOTY.

hows this different than any other year? almost every year theres an abundance of great games from all genres.. 
 
you just pick the GOTY based on the game you enjoyed the most. the game you'd choose if you were told you could only play ONE GAME in said year 
 
its RDR for me. i'd give everything away to play a Rockstar Games game.. sure ME2 was fucking epic, Bad Company 2 shat all over other multiplayer games, Just Cause 2 literally blew my mind with it's explosions and SMB raped me and i enjoyed it, yet Red Dead Redemption pwned them all!

I like dem Street Fighters.

FarmVille.

" All who finished Mass Effect 2 in less than 25 hours played it wrong!!! "

" @phrosnite said:

" All who finished Mass Effect 2 in less than 25 hours played it wrong!!! "

I watched every cutscene and listened to all the dialog and completed every quest.  I finished in 24 hours. "

I never take anything said in these kind of debates seriously, because the games I love never get any attention in the media, while everything that I think is complete crap gets praised and awarded all the time so there is no point.