I think some of these comments are being a little stuffy / overly critical. Brad pretty explicitly said that this is a loose "warm-up" category to get everyone primed for other GOTY the discussions, and clearly no one was particularly passionate about any old games this year.
There's no need to get in-depth if the general sentiments in the room are "yeah, Mario Kart was pretty good and there's no other old games I'm dying to have above it," so getting all cynical about GOTY discussions being "shallow and pedantic" this year when there is another 24+ hours to go is being a bit dramatic.
Teigen's comments