How Scoring Works

See which GOTY results we include, how we give points, and how we rank games.

You may cite GOTY Ledger rankings and scores when you name GOTY Ledger as the source.
The original award results, publication names, game titles, and company materials belong to their respective owners.

Overall GOTY or Best Game results with a clear winner are included.
The result must be published in writing, such as an article, award page, or official poll page.
It must be an official result from a publication, editorial team, award show, or reader vote, not one person's personal pick.
If the result appears in video or podcast form, we use it only when the same result is also published in text.
Only records with a clear source and final result are included.

Personal blogs, personal channels, and one-person picks are excluded.
Platform-only publications are excluded from the main aggregate.
Genre awards, platform awards, regional awards, and other non-overall categories are excluded.
DLC or expansion results are excluded unless they are treated as full standalone releases.
Results published far outside the normal GOTY season are usually excluded unless they are clearly delayed official awards.
Candidate lists, reposts, unclear social posts, dead links, and unverifiable claims are excluded.
Video-only results are excluded when there is no clear text version of the final result.

Each confirmed source can give a game up to 100 points for one year.
If vote totals are public, points are split by each game's share of the vote.
If only vote percentages are public, points are split using those percentages.
Ranked lists count only the top 10 positions. Rank 1 receives 100 points, rank 2 receives 90, and rank 10 receives 10. Positions below 10 are not scored.
If a winner and nominees are shown, the winner scores highest and the nominees are treated as one shared tier.
If only a winner is published, that game receives 100 points. If the source explicitly declares a tie for first, those 100 points are split evenly.

Rankings use the year when a game mainly competed, not just the article date.
Even if a source labels the year differently, its score is assigned to only one competition year.
We compare the points a game earned with the maximum points it could have earned from all included sources. Games with a higher percentage rank first.
If a game does not appear in a source result, it counts as 0 points from that source.
Any game with a positive total score can enter the ranking.
Public year pages show up to 20 games.
If displayed scores match at one decimal place, the table shows a shared rank.
Shared ranks use competition ranking, so two #1 entries are followed by #3.
Within a tie, games are ordered by first-place picks, sources that awarded points, and then title.
The All-Time Ranking adds each game's yearly score percentages together.

Source 1 Winner

Points earned: 100 pts

Source 2 Rank #6

Points earned: 50 pts

Source 3 Not listed

Points earned: 0 pts

In progress

We are still looking for new sources and checking possible results.

Collection complete

We have checked every source and possible result we found. Nothing is currently waiting for review.

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View rankings by year or compare records across several years.