Game of the Year awards are Serious Business. In order to ensure that everything is above board and proper, a set of rules is necessary. These are mine:

1. The game must have made either its initial or US release within the current calendar year.
   1. For most western games, the initial release and the US release occurs on the same day, so the distinction is not important.
   2. The distinction is more likely to matter for Japanese releases. Yakuza 5, for example, made its initial release in 2012 and its US release in 2015 and could have been considered for either year's awards.
2. Any game is only eligible for a single year's awards.
   1. If I had imported a Japanese copy of Yakuza 5 in 2012, it would have been considered for the 2012 awards and would no longer have been eligible in 2015.
   2. If I had not imported a Japanese copy of Yakuza 5 in 2012, the US release would have been eligible in 2015.
3. DLC and expansion content is eligible if it received a retail release or would have, in my opinion, received a retail release in 1995.
   1. Diablo expansions and Civilization expansions qualify, Mass Effect 3's Leviathan DLC does not.
4. Re-releases and remakes are eligible if, in my opinion, the length of time since the original release and the changes made to the game are substantial enough to warrant eligibility.
   1. The Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition, while still a fantastic game, does not meet either criteria and is not eligible. The Halo CE Anniversary meets both criteria and is eligible.
5. Episodic games are eligible in the year their final episode releases.
   1. The Wolf Among Us Episode 1 was released in 2013. Episode 5 was released in 2014. The Wolf Among Us is eligible in 2014, not 2013.
6. The game must have been released on a digital computing device of some sort.
   1. This means that browser, iOS, and Ouya games are all eligible, you know, if any good games existed for those platforms.