Aside from the Community GOTY voting, the 16th Annual Giant Bomb Game of the Year proceedings have officially ended. This year, we saw the first ever live event for the GOTY Finale as well as the return of guest lists after taking a hiatus in 2022. To me, the GOTY guest lists are on the same level as the E3 couch in terms of traditions on this site. That's why I contacted Grubb a few months ago and volunteered my time to enter them all into the CMS, format them, add screenshots, and have them ready to post. I figured if that helped make it possible for lists to return, it was worth my time.

And here we are. At the end of a week that saw a total of 41 lists from staff and guests. Seeing that big grid of articles on the front page makes me happy.

If you've known me at all over the past 15 years here, you know another thing that makes me happy. Data. Math. Spreadsheets.

Now, you may be asking: "Marino, they already did the math in LA. What could you possibly add to this discussion?"

Well, what if I told you that two staff members changed their lists? Oh, you didn't notice? What if I told you what they said in LA was not what they put on their list that got posted to the site this week? MADNESS! Also, since everyone except Tam gave us a full ten game list this week, those 6th through 10th place votes could've potentially affected the Top 10 list!

To be clear, I'm NOT suggesting we change the official list. What happened in LA is engraved in stone as far as I'm concerned. BUT! It might be fun to ask what if...

The Official Top 10

These are official results from the live show in Los Angeles. As you can see, Resident Evil 4 and Baldur's Gate 3 tied for 3rd place with 34 points. I personally rank RE4 higher because it got 4 votes versus BG3's 3 votes. We also had a tie for 9th place with Chants of Sennaar and Street Fighter 6.

Now, let's move on to the results following the lists posted this week...

The Adjusted Top 10

So, two major things happened here. Firstly, we added points for everyone's 6th-10th games. Secondly, Jan and Grubb changed their lists!

Grubb moved Super Mario Bros. Wonder from 5th to 6th and replaced it with Chants of Sennaar.

Jan had more drastic changes. He dropped Chants of Sennaar from 3rd to 9th, which moved Spider-Man up from 4th to 3rd. Jan also dropped Jusant from 5th to 6th and replaced it with Persona 5 Tactica.

The funny thing about these changes is that Jan subtracted 6 points from Chants' total while Grubb added 6, which resulted in Chants staying at 14 points.

Some of those 6th-10th place votes shuffled the bottom half around a bit, but it's mostly the same. The one big difference is that Street Fighter 6 got pushed out of the Top 10 in favor of Lies of P, which jumped into 9th place.

Street Fighter still has 14 points, but fewer votes than Chants of Sennaar, which is the tie breaker.

Another interesting thing to note is that Dan is the only person that voted for Zelda as #1. And, while Zelda won GOTY even with the adjusted points, Dan himself nearly pushed it out of the number one spot by giving points to Alan Wake II in the lower half of his list.

Guests' Top 50

For the purposes of this data blog, I'm considering Bailey and Shawn as guests only because they were not involved in the site's official Top 10. I've also included Dylan as a guest list.

• From 36 guests, we had 110 different video games with votes. In recent years, we had 121 (2021), 184 (2020), and 210 (2019). It seems like in a year with so many great games, there's more of a general consensus.
• Three games got first place votes with no other votes: 1000xResist, Elden Ring, and Pathologic 2.
• Baldur's Gate 3 had more 1st place votes than anything else (6). Marvel's Spider-Man 2 got 4.
• Tears of the Kingdom had the most overall votes with 23 (63.9%). The next closest was Mario Wonder (16) and RE4 (15). Total domination by Zelda.
• 21 of the 36 guests (58.3%) gave a full list of 10 ranked games. That's up from 48.3% in 2021 and 42.2% in 2020.
• Resident Evil 4 was the highest ranked game with no 1st place votes. Strangely, Resident Evil Village had this same distinction in 2021.
• 77 games out of 110 were released in 2023. That's 70%, which is down from 77.7% in 2021.
• The oldest game nominated was Final Fantasy III (1990). You could argue that Karateka could claim this distinction, but... nah.
• 8 of the Top 10 games are the same between the guests and staff. Guests put more points into Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Stars while the staff valued Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon and Chants Of Sennaar more.
• The GB Moderators (first column) have 9 games in the Guest Top 10. The next most was Bailey with 7. The mods also have all 7 of the Top 7. The voice of the people!

Old Data

• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017

Great work Marino! Very fascinating how the science and math of these collective lists turn out. Nice to see the Guests be more favorable for Hi Fi Rush. Meanwhile a little shocking Armored Core 6 got more love from staff than the guests.

I always enjoy these breakdowns. Thanks Marino for your hard work!

One last "What If?"

What if we include Bailey and Shawn in the staff GOTY vote?

The main difference here is that Street Fighter 6 rockets all the way up to #6 from #11 while BG3 moves slightly ahead of RE4.

Thank you for this breakdown, the lists, and everything else. Hold those no-account layabouts Jan and Grubb to the flame of truth!

Agonizing to see Sea of Stars at #11 on the guest list tally. I was really hoping it would find redemption there. Oh well, maybe the community vote will put it where it belongs.

This is how the points work for the guest lists:

• A "regular" ranked list results in a total of 55 points available. (1 point for 10th, 10 points for 1st, etc.)
• No list can earn more than 55 points.
• No vote can be worth more than 10 points.
• If a person gave 10 games but did not rank them, each game gets 5.5 points.
• If a person gave less than 10 and did not rank them, they still only get 5.5 each.
• If a person gave less than 10 and did rank them, they forfeited their points available for 10th, 9th, etc. (i.e. a list of 8 ranked is a total of 52 points)
• If a person doesn't rank their list, but specifically says the last game they talk about is their GOTY, then that game gets 10 points and the rest get 5.

We got a late addition from another guest, so I updated some of the stats.

Updated to include Kenny and Austin.

I can't believe I missed this the past several days. Awesome work as always @Marino ! Give me them numbers!

As a fellow appreciator of data, thank you for your service.

interesting and great work as always on these

I love data like this! Very interesting stuff.

Curious as to why Jan changed his Chants of Sennar rank so much!

Thank you, these list break down are what I find most joyful - the numbers don't lie.

SCIENCE