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

Bravo folks. Great job, and I hope everyone has a good sleep and holiday break!

Solid list! Thank you everyone!

Special thanks to Jess for all the extra set-up work, and to Tam and Lucy for joining in!

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For me this was one of the best GOTYs in a few years. Thanks everyone, it was a great time!

This was a really great GOTY, the discussions really got through and I am going to give a shot to more than a few of the games that I wouldn't have otherwise. Great way to finish it off without watering down or rehashing the arguments.

Tam is chaos incarnate

These streams were incredible work with a concept and idea I couldn't have imagined myself in a million years. The editing prowess of the team and their chemistry is still unparalleled. Seeing everyone work together and jive with each other so quickly will never cease to bring a smile to my face. I look forward to seeing what the future holds and during 2023.

However, and I say this with a lot of love and appreciation for the staff and the struggles they are going through, we still have community members confused about the wording for the GOTY lists. Even when Jan made his statement, on Twitch and in the site chat, people were still confident that Jan's statements only applied to guest lists and that staff lists were coming later.

I don't want this to be taken as an attempt to further an agenda. I will miss lists, but this is not my site or place to make demands. However, I felt the need to send this input and am confident it will be taken in good faith. You all should do what is right for you and know that many, myself included, will support you wherever you need us. Thank you, and bless you all wherever you may be.

thanks for pulling off all of this in spite of what sounds like a lot internal issues and roadblocks from the powers at be. i hope next year there is a bit more spectacle to it! I also presonally and selfishly really miss the days when the goty podcasts were prerecorded and released in the leadup to christmas. i get thatsnot possible to do with the livestreams, but i dont think goty delibirations benefit from being live streamed. It was part of my chrsitmas traditions for around a decade and i really miss it.

all in all a very enjoyable goty. thanks for all the hard work! look forward to see what next year holds!

My favorite GOTY discussions ever!!!

This was my favorite GOTY discussion since I can remember. Removing the horse trading on the top 10 via semi-secret ballot was a great decision.

Unfortunately, I’m also really disappointed in the lack of written lists this year. Hope they come back next year, but I’ll still have a gigantic hole in my reading list this holiday season.

This was really well done. You guys did a decent job balancing being respectful, while passionately representing your favorite games and giving reasons for dismissing the ones you didn't like. And the idea Jeff Grubb came up with to decide the official list was very smart. Instead of the previous years, where the staff just picked a safe game and said that was the GOTY to avoid the cuts from the knives. Also shout out to Jess for creating the virtual studio for the staff. Overall, a very carefully thought out presentation that worked.

But bring back the special guest list next year, if you can plz.

Loved the discussions and the format this year and shout out to Jess for the incredible architecting in Tower Unite and Jan for dual-boxing the game and using Lakitu for the camera work. There were a lot of cool games this year but I can't believe nobody felt strongly enough about Immortality to save it from the top 50 chopping block in favor of games that nobody seemed to even care about.

I can't handle the Harvestella disrespect

But for real, this was such a fun time! Probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite, GOTY weeks.

Still just starting the video but loving Jess' 'Nyanko Daisensou' skin even if she didn't know what game it came from. psst it's a tower defense mobile game and it's good!

Fun time folks, I'm so happy Signalis made it to top 10 it's an absolute masterpiece.

Call me Nostradamus. You can find my original comment on day one :)

Having no lists coming really is the nail in the coffin. It finalizes that the 'new' Giant Bomb is several steps behind what once was. Devolution, not evolution.

Democracy doesn't work. Thanks for trying.

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Am I crazy or did Metal Hellsinger not even get in the top 100 list?

am i crazy or have they streamed tower unit like twice earlier this year

I'm kinda sad that there are no guest lists this year, I always looked forward to more voices bringing up interesting games to the spotlight besides the deliberations.

That being said, I had fun listening to the 3 days of GOTY and was really perplexed every time dan offered sonic and it kept not being cut lol.

I was expecting tile of the year / bakalar's important games of the year lists tho, hope those are addressed in some way in the future.

Keep it up folks!

Very pleased that #10 got on there. Pretty rock solid 20 at the end there, even if Bayonetta 3 deserves better.

All in all, a fun GOTY program this year.

Yeah it seems like they completely forgot about it, which is kind of incredible considering they just gave it the best music award the day before.

Other than that, the format was much better this year. Math FTW!

I like the new format in general but no written or guest lists is a real disappointment.

This seems like the correct way to do these lists, fantastic outcome.

That being said, I'm quite sad that they went as far as mentioning MHR: Sunbreak, and then proceeded to immediately forget to write it down because Dan got distracted by suggesting to stop at 100 lol. Seems like they could have just gone over 100 since they left out things like Metal Hellsinger too... maybe they can just collect a list of user-voted games instead of trying to rely on memory to make the initial big list?

Great streams, the new format is obviously really good (as much as I’ll miss the near blood sport previous years have been).

Pretty sad about no lists though. Was always a fun December thing to see the home page overtaken with so much stuff.

Finally a winner that make sense.

seeing the passed winners up there.

Shadow of morodor 😆. Any day now that nemesis system will be big

Kirby... more like Cursedby

Loved all of the GOTY stuff this year. I agree with Grubb that the list pretty much sorted itself out in the exact same way it would have with organizing the list by hand and this was a much more fun and celebratory way to do it.

I am surprised by the lack of personal lists but I understand not having the guest lists. With the changeover in owners I’m sure the budget got completely reworked on everyone, a likely reason for the lack of travel for GOTY. And the site would obviously love to pay its contributors so I get it.

Can’t wait for the game of the year stuff from Fire Escape and Besties now!

Math and chaos, my favourite combo

So one of the best games of the year doesn't even make it to top 50 because of one person's irrational hateboner for Sam Barlow without anyone actually discussing it properly. Awesome.

Oh no! You did the points backwards! You start with announcing your lowest point and end with the 12 points! =P

on fire Cena looks like he got a devil fruit, Sun-god Cena

not gonna lie this was a bittersweet goty year for me. i love the new team overall but between seeing the 'old set' and doing the math at the end it just shows this isn't the same GB anymore. That said .....i think the math worked great , i've always loved hearing the arguments a the painful cuts in the past and while i'll miss it i think this was the right move. other years i honestly never understood why the math wasn't done sometimes and seeing it in practice was really nice, and i agree with grubb i think its how the list would have shaped doing it the old way with this new crew anyway. hopefully with a mostly wrap on this yr we can look forward to a fresh new yr with this crew . if i had a 2023 wish its that we get more games discussions on bombcast with more ppl because honestly everyone in this 'room' is great and i just want to hear more week to week with more ppl, specially tam n lucy who aren't around as often cause of double duty.

Marvel Snap was done dirty and I still don’t fully understand why

In a year full of disruption, pivots and change for the website; GOTY has been a breath of fresh air.
All of you are awesome. Hats off.

I understand the reasoning between the final voting, but it still feels somewhat anticlimactic to spend 3 hours getting to the top 20 and 30 minutes on the top games. There ended up being more discussion of the marginal games than the top ones. Maybe do some kind of voting/longlist to cut down the eligible titles and then negotiate the top 20 for next year?

Immortality being in multiple people's top 10 lists but then being cut/snubbed from the overall top 50 because of one person's hatred for its creator was incredibly disappointing to see.

Thanks for the content, and also keeping Dan from being a heel and ruining people's legitimate desires.

Elden Ring is the best.
Did no one play McPixel 3? Giant Bomb is the reason I got into the first one, plus it made the same '3' joke as Goat Simulator 3, pretty much the same day too!

Also, Tam should just vote for Elden Ring if that's his GotY. His reason for choosing Vampire Survivors just makes me distrust him.

Great job! I really enjoyed this, and applaud the voting system for the top 10. I had grown very tired of the debates in previous years devolving into people angrily tearing down great games so their favorite could be a certain number on a list. I remember Breath of the Wild was called a “bad game” in the 2017 debate. That’s an absurd statement and unpleasant to listen to. We come here because we love games and these lists should be a celebration of them, not an altercation over something that ultimately doesn’t matter at all. Thanks to the team, and keep up the great work!

@hype: I'm not happy about it, either, but at least it meant we didn't have to hear Jess shit on it further.

@avioto: Swell, isn't it?

I'm still fomenting my personal top ten for the year, but right now it's sitting pretty in the 3 spot. It's a technical marvel, a series of satisfying and chilling reveals, and (a rare and wonderful thing to be able to say) a completely unique game experience.

History will be kinder to it than this podcast was, to be sure.

@doncabesa: Just said this in another reply, but it bears repeating. Immortality is a great game, and history will be kinder to it than this podcast was. Giant Bomb can be wrong about this.

@wittynickname: do you post about anything else? I only see you when you’re mad at Jess being mad at Immortality.

I love this website

@beggary: I rarely post. Only when I'm passionate about something.

I hate to say it, but math really spoiled my fun this year. The tradition of Giant Bomb's Game of the Year Deliberations has always been about getting into the really nitty gritty arguments and really looking at these games warts and all. Instead, I feel like Elden Ring got to win its award with barely any discussion of it whatsoever. Yes, there are disorganized discussions of it throughout the year as people played it, but I really feel like the classic GOTY deliberation podcasts are great for hashing out these games and really seriously engaging with their relative merit.

I recognize that this group probably isn't interested in having a knock-down drag-out like Saints Row The Third vs. Skyrim and probably wouldn't even have had one if they had gone with the original format - like Grubb says, it often feels like those top slots are where people are really just worn out. But I really loved the conversation just two years ago between Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Hades! I thought that really hit the mark and made me think more about what those games excel at and how there's still even more to do.

It's not that I hope that Giant Bomb goes back to the classic knives out format. For one thing, it's always been more difficult since the staff expanded - the reason people get exhausted for the top 5 is because they're narrowing down from 50 something games people care about instead of maybe 25. For another, a lot of people have always found it sort of offputting, including the original duders - Brad Shoemaker was vocal about wanting it to be more positive since like 2013.

But personally, I hope that someone else picks up the original format, because I really think it led to great criticism that wasn't possible any other way, and I'd happily listen to both shows moving forward.

EDIT: Tbc, really happy with the podcast you did record and the list that you wound up with. Every game on your eventual top 20 that I've played is good!

@daavpuke: Good riddance to you I guess. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Am I crazy,or did Elden Ring's point total not change after Jess' vote?

I really dug this format and thought it worked quite well, especially with a bigger team. Using personal point allocations for each person to create an aggregate top 10 makes a lot more sense than tearing down and picking apart games people had already agreed were good just to move a chosen pick up a place. The top 50 -> top 20 -> top 10 idea was quite good too as it allowed almost everything significant that came out this year to be discussed at least a bit.

The old "knives out" format some people seem to want still worked great when GB's game of the year coverage was 4 people who had a large overlap in taste for games. It started to fall apart the second they added more staff and by 2017 when the staff had doubled and had a much more diversified taste, it was no longer fit for purpose since it ended up with people arguing against games they hadn't ever played and people trying to make cases for games others had not touched. If you go back and look at the last couple pre-pandemic GOTYs, there were a lot of complaints about the format from fans and it seemed like staff were increasingly unhappy with it too. A change was needed.

It's not a coincidence that pretty much all of the remaining old-school GB staff who still do GOTY in some capacity don't go anywhere near the old format. Dan and Jason obviously used this new GB format. Vinny, Brad, and Alex devised a format at Nextlander that is designed specifically to avoid arguing and talking negatively about games they all agree are good. Though they also go out of their way to all play at least some of the same games, which helps a lot with their podcast and GOTY discussions. Obviously that's a much easier thing to do with 3 people compared to 9.

Given the sudden last minute pivot, I'm grateful that GOTY turned out this great. Obviously, we would love to see written top 10 lists, but it sounds like that was not feasible this year. I hope things get better in the future.

I was skeptical of the calculated approach, but it seems to have worked as intended. The outcome probably would have turned out very similarly with the old method. But this avoided the bitterness of having to sling mud at each other's favorite games. There were still plenty of tough cuts for top 20, but it becomes even more personal and unpleasant as the list narrows to number 1. I would suggest that the votes be locked before the tallying. Being able to skew the results after seeing how things are going seems less genuine than blind voting.