If you've been around here at any point over the last decade, you probably already know I love stats. You may remember the good ol' days of monthly Data Dumps, achievement tracking, and annual reviews data, but those days are long gone. Game of the Year is one of the few chances we have to put some spreadsheets together these days, so let's do this thing!

First off, some ground rules. Since not everyone decides to do a nice and tidy one through ten list, I had to get a little creative with how to tally everything.

• A "regular" ranked list results in a total of 55 points available. (1 point for 10th, 10 points for 1st, etc.)
• 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.
• If a person (@will) is a weirdo and calls four games their GOTY, then lists seven other unranked games...I made it work.
• If someone gave a spot a tie between two games, I split the allotted points. For example, if someone put two games in their 1st place spot (10 points), I gave each game 9.5 points. If you can't make up your mind, your choices take the hit. Sorry.

So, what are we actually doing here? Well, what if we good ol' mathematics to determine the site's GOTY rather than hours and hours of arguing? Sure, the deliberations are fun, but if we deployed a spreadsheet, how different would the final results be? As I've said before, I don't necessarily believe this is how it should be done, but it's just fun to compare the cold, hard stats to what went down in that hot, sweaty room.

Staff's Top 25

The score tally on the far left is "without Matt & Engineering" because they were not in the room during deliberations. When using the cold, hard math to make a list and compare it to what they came up with in the room, this is the score we should use since...that's who was in the room.

As you can see, it's a mathematical tie between Control and Outer Wilds. Technically, Control wins because it had more votes. Everyone voted for Control in some form, while Jeff didn't vote for Outer Wilds at all.

But, more importantly, let's make the comparison to the list they came up with themselves. Nine of the games in this top ten are the same. If we swapped out Judgment with Luigi's Mansion 3, it's be the same list just in a slightly different order. And that's pretty cool!

If Jason gets around to posting a list, I'll definitely update this. Get well soon, duder!

East vs. West

Some people often wonder what would happen if West and East did their own separate GOTY lists. Well, this is how their separate Top 25s shake out based on the math. If you look at it this way, all the Nintendo fans can thank Jan for single handedly getting Pokémon Sword/Shield and Fire Emblem: Three Houses into the GB West Top 10!

Guests' Top 50

Now let's take a look at those guest lists. There's way more data to wade through with these. And since guests have no rules, I have to get a little more creative with the math sometimes.

It was tight for a while, but Control easily took this year's crown.

• 210 different games were voted for by the fifty-nine guests. That's five more games than last year.
• Eight games got a 1st place vote with no votes from anyone else: AI: The Somnium Files, Cuphead, Children of Morta, Shenmue III, Jurassic Park, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Stellaris, and Teamfight Tactics.
• Control got the most 1st place votes with seven, Outer Wilds had six, Resident Evil 2 had three, and Untitled Goose Game got two. No other games had more than one.
• Control also had the most votes overall with twenty-five.
• Just thirty-one of the fifty-seven guests actually gave a ranked list of ten.
• The Outer Worlds (4th place) was the highest ranked game that got no first place votes.
• Yes, I included all of Bakalar's pinball games.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll have another opportunity to share a bunch of stats in 2020.