Am I the only one that finds the term "Game of the Year Award" has been getting used pretty loosely around the internet? It seems like websites pop up solely to announce their choice of "Game of the Year" in a given year and then just disappear. For example, the list of "Game of the Year" stats that I was linked to from Dualshockers for 2013 accounts for 523 total GOTY winners. But 2017 only totals 333 total GOTY winners. That's a pretty huge disparity. I clicked on several of the "GOTY" winners on the 2013 list and was either taken to a site with a "Top 10" list that didn't use the phrase "GOTY" at all, or in other cases a broken link for a site that no longer existed. For reference, the 2012 list totals 385 GOTY winners, and the 2014 list totals 374 GOTY winners.
Even excluding the "Readers Picks", and comparing just the "Critics Picks" shows the same disparity. 2013 accounts for 360 "Critics Picks", which was an increase from 262 "Critics Picks" from 2012. But a year later in 2014 they were back to only 255 critics still around? 2013 just seems ridiculously weighted against any other year I looked at for comparison.
https://gotypicks.blogspot.com/2013/09/2013-game-of-year.html
https://gotypicks.blogspot.com/2017/09/2017-game-of-year.html
