Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 3

Sad to see how Immortality got treated. I watched some streams of it a while back and decided it wasn't for me, but it would have been interesting to hear a couple people who are somewhat positive on the game discuss it with someone who hates it. Oh well.

I like Jess and her contributions to the site and the vibe of the group in the GOTY videos is solid. But the speed with which they allowed her to eject Immortality from consideration before at least 10 other titles that should have been dropped was hilarious. I understand fixations but this is starting to become annoying and Jan especially is very quick to allow others to impose their personal dislikes on the whole group.

That was a very entertaining GOTY discussions.

Jan's rant when Dan tried to sneakily remove Xenoblade 3 from their top 20 list was both great and hilarious. Same for Tam's abrupt reaction when he dunked a Kirby ball in a hoop with his avatar offscreen.

That was fun, thanks all! Jess did a great job on the set.

Haven't posted here in awhile but tuned in for the awards and wanted to just leave some thoughts with the intention of hopefully being constructive.

Overall I enjoyed the format. The virtual setting was fun and the work down from 100 to the top 10 was a good conversation. Just a few things caught my attention that we're kinda a bummer to listen to though.

It's a shame there seemed to be some games just not mentioned at all? Like for example I didn't see metal hellsinger show up at all and monster hunter was mentioned but didn't even get added to the list to be discussed because everyone got excited about having an even 100. It's a long list of games so it's understandable, but feels like a space for improvement to make sure things don't get unintentionally ditched without conversation.

I really didn't enjoy that one particular game wasn't allowed to be discussed. That seems to be against the spirit of this process. If something has value that's worth mentioning it should be allowed to be highlighted for those positives, which clearly to at least a couple people it did have merit. I don't even really care about the game myself but it seems like a bad precedent to bar things from conversation just for one individuals dislike of it. Let people say what they liked about it and then cut it. As a listener I didn't get to learn anything about it other than the fact that someone really hated it which is not what I listen to this for.

Going forward it seems like there should be a rule to lock in votes after people start revealing their votes to prevent people from swapping their votes around as results are tallying. It seems like a flaw in the process that you can observe how you can influence the results and then change your votes. It gives an ability for people submitting later to influence where games land by swapping things around more than those submitting early. You might see your top game doing great and then swap in a more niche pick to make sure it lands in the list for example because your top doesn't need as much support. Even if they don't intend to it's extra info that shouldn't influence the voting process in my opinion. Especially if it's not info that everyone gets to benefit from (those voting first). I don't think it made a huge difference this year but as an observer it sounded like it happened based on at at least one or two people during the voting process and didn't seem fair to anyone who submitted earlier even if it's still all in good fun. Not a deal breaker on the voting but for future proofing the process it seems like something that should be prevented before it becomes a problem in a tighter race.

Finally, I didn't really enjoy the lack of interest in discussing games that you knew were going to be in the top 20. Elden ring won but barely anyone said more than a sentence or two about it. Again, this seems like it should be a process of highlighting the value of a game if it's worth being on the list and that didn't come across for the winner other than of course everyone knows it's good. I don't really care if you discussed it on release or if everyone else is already praising it, I'm listening to this to hear what you all think about a game right now at the end of the year in retrospect. Just because it might all continue to be praise doesn't mean that isn't interesting to listen to. If that's the attitude toward discussing the best games of the year then that just encourages me to go listen to those other sources that do discuss games regardless of how much they've already been praised instead of listening here. It was a weird feel to have the winner just not chatted about much at all.

All in all though it was a fun listen.

Really enjoyed this new format!

Great work GB team!

How did Tunic sit in top 10 tho? Sounded like most people bounced off it

Interesting new format for narrowing down the final 10 on the GotY list. I think it represented the staff’s preferences pretty well.

By all means, keep experimenting, but I’ll take anything over the original format of “everyone tries to denigrate other people’s games to get their own game higher on the list, and eventually certain decisions basically came down to whichever senior staff member was the most stubborn.” I guess some of you sickos like “spirited debate” or whatever, but honestly the final day of some previous GotYs just wildly favoured whichever staff member was feeling the most stubborn and obstinate about their game being included. At best you might get a Vinny/Alex/Jason be gracious and concede to cutting one of their games, but beyond that it was endless antagonism. And consensus got a lot messier as staff size expanded and more voices/tastes were in the discussion. One of the only times that had a positive result was the majority of staff pushing Outer Wilds to #1.

Also I want to join the chorus and request that personal top 10s come back in some way. I know organizing the guest top 10s was a huge task to dump on somebody for like all of December, so if that’s hard to continue then fine, but at the very least I always appreciate hearing from the individual site staff what their favourite 10 games are and why.

If anyone is feeling underwhelmed by Giant Bomb's 2022 GotY output maybe check out MinnMaxx's GotY podcasts. I'd say they out Giant Bombed Giant Bomb.

Gotta give respect to jeff grubb for being the only person to turn on pvp damage

video started. with an ad..first time this has happened for me on this site..is this new??

Absolutely shocked that Jess, once again, made it extremely awkward by going off about Immortality again. Other staff members are clearly too polite to not say anything in defence, and yes, people get annoyed that she keeps getting "passionate" about it. It's extremely irritating.

Am I the only one that thinks Dan would absolutely love Signalis if he played it? I really get 90s Capcom Resident Evil vibes with that game.

This is one of my favorite GOTY shows that GB have ever put together. When Jan discussed Xenoblade and Tam talked Vampire Survivors vs Elden I almost cried. GB forever! This is my top 5.

1. Elden Ring

2. Vampire Survivors

3. Pokemon Legends Arceus

4. Signalis

5. Prodeus

Thanks!

I did like the general focus on positivity and the virtual set was very cool.

Agree with some comments that it would be nice to recap, if briefly, why people liked Elden Ring. It felt like people referenced past discussions that I'm not familiar with since I haven't listened to / watched everything.

Particularly interested in Elden Ring since I did enjoy it, but also liked Dark Souls before that. Many people who are not particularly into Dark Souls seem to love this one, so it's interesting to hear why.

This was a tremendously fun watch. A great format and many good conversations were had!

@bisonhero: as a gamer with tastes similar to Jason’s I’d at least want staff top 10s

Firstly this was a really great production hats off to Jan and Jess. And great job to the rest of the staff.

I don't give a shit about immortality as a game, but I think its insane that one person can allow hatred of a game maker, who hasn't been 'canceled' or whatever to disallow the rest of staff to even discuss the game. Its not like it was going to win or probably make top 20, but that's bonkers and crazy bad precedent.

I think the new format works for this staff, I prefer the old style but as another person mentioned it got really weird when they doubled in staff in 2017.

Finally I don't want to be petty but Jess shitting on pub g winning in 2017 was crass and shitty. This site was built by people who came before you, they may have made questionable decisions but its fucked to dismiss their discussions and decisions. I personally think it was stupid that tetris won and have had plenty of misgivings on choices but it was always a staff decision, weather or not they all agreed they ultimately signed off on it.

Sorry for sounding so negative, I really think this was a fun goty, sad we didn't get to see all the weird stuff they would have gotten up to in person but thats life. Really great pivot and I hope this site continues to endure its almost 13 years for me here and I'll always keep up.

Just want to say I loved this year's GOTY discussions. I think this was a really smart way to form a list, especially with so many people on staff. You get to have people talk about the games they love, make the hard cuts, but cut out all the arguing and hemming and hawing over the order of the top ten. Aside from a little heat when cutting the last couple of games from the top 20 list, it was overall pretty chill. Would be thrilled to see more of this in future years for sure.

@youngshields: I don't know. That PUBG year was the first time I turned on GB GOTY discussions. It was so negative, and they spent most of the time trashing (better) games to get PUBG to the top in a decision that felt dated even while it happened. They had some amazing times with that game, but it felt like a mistake when it happened. I don't get why she can't criticize it? She was a fan of the site. The Tetris one was even worse because it felt like bland acceptance of a consensus pick in a year with some truly next level games. Abby got crap for saying that it was a boring choice (wonder why!) but she was absolutely right, and I think VB is allowed to question the PUBG pick, and, not for nothing, that's the year Abby was accused of ruining Giant Bomb and a million other horrid things. This feels a bit similar to me. People could have stood up to Jess on Immortality--she said as much on her Twitter!--but they didn't. It seems rich to me that she's the bad guy here for having strong (perhaps pre-judged) opinions on a site built by Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis, to say nothing of Brad freaking "I read people didn't like it on Twitter" Shoemaker. Those dudes went hard in the paint on everything. And picking PUBG over Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Nier: A (which I don't even like), Cuphead, HZD, well, the list goes on and on...I understand what you're saying about being respectful of the people who built the site, but I'm not sure why it's verboten to go after that. Apologies for rambling.

Thanks for a great year, folks!

Neon White was robbed at yet another awards show.

New GB, same old community shitting on women who work at the site and dare to have their voices heard during GOTY. Some of you should be ashamed.

@beggary: I agree with a lot of what you had to say. Honestly it just burned me the way it was said in a drive by like fashion of oh how could anyone think that. On a practical level I just don’t care for the other games people present as better options and I do think pub g was important albeit short lived and overtaken by Fortnite and warzone.

I also remember the really lame lambasting of Abby that year mostly over dream daddy. A few people had valid complaints about 1 person getting a game on the list but the same thing happened in 2014 with brad and destiny. I think some people read into and probably rightfully so criticism of female staffers as being neo gaf/gamer gate hold over hate against any women having an opinion. But I remember the trains of hate thrown Vinny or brads way on how people landed on the Skyrim vs saints row discussion, the hate at brad for forcing destiny or oven older Minerva’s den into lists or winners. Long winded way of saying just being critical of a persons decisions or words don’t automatically mean we all hate them or dismiss them. I would have been equally critical of grubb or tam who had no involvement at the site back then.

One of the best game of the year discussion this site or any other has ever had. Amazing talks about amazing games. Good job everyone.

A really good idea with the voting at the end. Best GB GOTY ever. I never liked the heated debates that used to happen at the end.

@paul_tillich:

What?

If someone has a legitimate complaint, they arnt shitting on some one.

I don't know why Jan sacrificed Citizen Sleeper like that. Even if it doesn't make a top 10 or a top 5, dude talks about how it opened his eyes to an entire genre and had an emotional effect on him that he had to walk away for a bit.

for anyone who thought the immediate Immortality dismissal without anyone saying their piece sucked a lot considering GOTY should be about discussion and not "I don't like the creator. We weren't supposed to talk about this" "A few of us liked the game but we won't talk about it at all," Nextlander, Noclip and Writing on Games all have good discussions on the game. As someone who will realistically never play it, I'm more interested in that and what could make it worth playing than some immediate disregard for even talking about the game.

I loved this format for GOTY. I've been listening for years, and I appreciate you all's willingness to experiment (even when out of necessity) and be flexible. And, I don't think we as a community take the time to appreciate just how much time you all spend on camera/audio. That's a lot of time to be "on." Seriously, you all are rock stars, and I'm excited to see and hear what you have in store for 2023 and beyond.

Maybe I missed it but why are there no personal top 10s this year? I like to look over them each year to see what people enjoyed. It's also important from a historical standpoint. What a bummer.

Awesome work everyone, really loved it.

@deadstar: According to the Community Spotlight on the forums, the staff top 10s are going up on the site from Dec. 26th-30th. A little confusing to not just post it all in the same week, but I guess they wanted to do the podcasts live instead of recording them and holding them for a couple weeks.

The communication around 2022 GotY has been a little chaotic/unclear, but I gather there has been some behind the scenes stuff that changed a bunch of GotY plans.

Great to hear!!!

Thanks for the show people it was fun. Especially the Tower Unite models paid off great during the best music category.

That said, sadly i thought the final day was a complete waste of time.

2 hours were spent on meta-list discussion instead of game-discussion. 'This game should get cut before this other game gets cut because it does more interesting things' 'This game should get moved up' , 'this game should go to the bammer'

The majority of time spent on sorting and shifting through games that you didn't really care about all that much or might not have played at all but still wanted to write down for a bit. All while not even talking about the games themselves while they get cut. Who is this for at that point? perhaps i'm an outlier, but i do get the most out of the GOTY-talks when they actually celebrate and talk about what happens in the games they enjoyed the most. But there was hardly time to talk about that.

Elden Ring: Jeff had a certain epiphany 4 hours in (not sure what) and Tam complimented how huge that game is, especially as you get underground.

Tinykin is a good running around game.

Pentiment, you probably need to watch the quicklook if you want any information about it at all.

Neon White: It's a speedrunning game and Grubbs stream likes to watch it.

God of War : Ragnarok, Some people find it boring, some enjoy it.

Tunic: People were dissapointed with it.

Sifu: Jason likes it.

It's just a shame that none of these games were actually discussed indepth. They were just put on a list. And personally i think that's the least interesting part of game discussion. GOTY's can be informative, they can peak your interest and make you want to check out a game by hearing someone talk about what happens in them. I remember when Jeff mentioned that Titanfall 2's singleplayer was probably the best FPS campaign he played. Or how COD: Black Ops has those crazy storybits. Or hearing how Florence has that puzzle where you try to piece a relationship together but the pieces just won't fit together. That's the stuff that sticks with you through the years. This GOTY sadly had none of those moments because the list got more discussed than the games themselves.

Like Norco vs Citizen Sleeper was quite a prominent discussion this year, but to be frank i have no clue what sets these games apart from eachother and why someone can really enjoy the one but completely dismiss the other as being boring. That would be a great discussion.

What was it about Elden Ring that made it the first From Game that people have connected with this time? What is it about FromGames that people can try 5 of them, not be into it, yet gel with it on the 6th try? What were the stand out bosses? What build did people go for? Were there many speedbumps due to the more open nature of the game or did it feel like you could truly take on most bosses in whatever order you want?

What's up with the deep love for a 'B-game' like Evil West while other B-games like Mad Max, Destroy All Humans and WereWolf : The Apocalypse seem to not do much for Dan? Was the progression really good? The way the story was written? Does it go beyond the nostalgia for the 360 days?

How did their Pentiment games differ from eachother?

What did God of War Ragnarok do so much better than Horizon? What was the storyline like? Any memorable combat-sequences?

Tunic puzzle-moments?

I love Jess, and I'm glad she's here. She makes all conversation more interesting and has a much needed perspective on games that is absent otherwise that makes the site better.

That being said, I think she needs to relax a little. It got so uncomfortable so many times how aggressive and rude she can be toward the cast in these deliberations specifically. It was a shock to me, cause I've never really heard her like this in past content. But it really made the talks harder to listen to at times because she was so flippant in her arguments. Maybe I'm being too sensitive here. I'm sorry if it sounds like a pile-on. It just stuck out to me enough to say something, even as a community member who is almost always just a silent observer.

Using votes to calculate the top 10 was a smart improvement. In all the previous years, the top 10 negotiations was the worst part of the podcast as it inevitably devolved into trash talking a great game. The negotiations always ended with a cynical and negative aura.

One improvement I'd suggest is making the vote a blind vote that is locked in (using the honor system is fine) to avoid anyone gaming the system. I'd also suggest that voters are asked to rank based on how they actually feel and not to give extra points just to ensure a game that no one else is likely to vote for gets as many points as possible (I'm looking at you, Jess). Once people start voting based on the meta, that's when this all turns into the same crap as previous years.

A criticism I have is that there is still an issue with some voices dominating conversations. I think some of Jan's favorite games got cut out of the top 20 just because he is more chill while Jess managed to bully Immortality out of the top 50. The strength of GB is the different personalities, but in GOTY deliberations, personalities that are more laid back or less confrontational always "lose" to the dominant personalities. A possible remedy that I've seen work for other personality driven teams of content creators is group therapy. An example is The Normies channel on YouTube where you can see a marked improvement in that team's chemistry after group therapy.

I really enjoyed this year's format, please keep it for the forthcoming years. Much more pleasant to listen to and it still had the horse trading, passion and tenseness without bitterness and somewhat farcical tearing down games to get into a top 10 list of previous years.

100% put my words on it. People on this site generally have a love for PUBG as this revolution for the time and the streams helped that as they loved seeing almost all the crew love it. Fortnite came out around then and the controls weren't where they are now, and it wasn't gritty and grown up enough and got overlooked as a copy kids game thing, and i hated that take on it from the crew. It's nice for them to (or dan) to respect it and wanna give it the shot it was and will never get to be on their top 10. Fortnite is what PUBG wasn't and PUBG kept getting lots of things swept aside, as Abby put it, that other games don't just because the streaming was fun. Looking back on it (and when i finally got it for free, which i think it should have been all along) it was still jank...and im told it improved tons in the years so wow. Then i played it and was like...yeah fortnite if your into fun silly and hanging is just the better alternative (which i think pubg people eventually admitted, given pubg tried to do the whole goofy silly, and it was cringe.) It works in cartoony world of fortnite to see goku gritty after beaming a bus of 99 and winning in a minute. The building ain't nearly as bad as people claimed but yeah if you couldn't do it you never would, but it helped that all environments are destructible for the most part. And you up'd traversal building.

PUBG was such a weird pick and mostly won, like the popular person vs the smarter candidate who cares. for example so much better stuff. HZD got a 5/5 from jeff that year and was tossed as if it was unplayable, boring, and not unique. They were excited by its trailer debut, but all seem to hate the series more and more each sequel, and I'm all like I guess open world fatigue, but it's a fine one of those...and unique i thought points in uniqueness still count. If BOTW came out near pubg and lost wow...

Then again, souls gets snubbed all the time till the easiest one came out, and it finally clicked. Taste and all. Also, the bad talk on shadows of mordor year winning is also strange. They ask for games to be different each year and like most sites give credit to indies for barely doing something interesting, shadows made a AAA Nemesis system we really haven't seen and could be implemented into tons of games and had some fun batman combat and wasn't too long. Repetitive missions and an ok story (i guess gb doesn't like LOTR as well or any long epics for that matter, so I get it) but repetitiveness and decent stories can work in a fun loop (see MGSV) with fun tools to play with. Tetris and PUBG were the only years i was like hummm. But it seems much like power wash sim and vampire survivors each year a game clicks by just being something they play alot due to it being so relaxing and easy. akin to why my pals think candy crush is goty for them...its just a break on a line play this, type of game. Or in power wash case, something they can podcast. It's like why Avatar the movie can get billions, yet people love a ton of other movies more...its just not offensive and just easy picking. OTher stuff tries things where you gotta pick at it more and come to notice issues you have.

And i agree abby got crapped on, but she won out in the end as she was young enough and open-minded enough to try fortnite a game the staff was allergic to cause general opinions on things you never play solidify even when said thing changes (jeff played it on release and bounced). Fortnite is just a fun game for people who just wanna chill or play hard. It's inviting. PUBG seems like a big boy game that's no fun allowed (at least silly fun) unless it's jank they should have fixed. Plus Fortnite money fuels free epic games, what's not to love.