Continuing a discussion started in the GOG community on Reddit. I publish here the ideas presented in this post.

i also notice there is a wishlist suggestion created in 2018 in case somebody wish to up vote the idea.

An annual award given to games launched on the GOG platform that obtained the best ratings in a vote divided between 50% of industry members who published on the platform and 50% of the popular vote (platform users). I don't know about you, but the fact that the industry's main awards are excessively influenced by marketing has always bothered me. This impacts what adds the most value to the award's brand, its credibility. I believe that GOG can make a difference by proposing an award architecture that tries to consider both ends of the market, seeking some degree of exemption.

Industry Members: Publishers, developers, and people involved in creating the published games. Industry Members votes will automatically have more weight as is composed by less voters. My personal assessment is that the specialized press should not be part of the vote as it is easily manipulated. But a 33% partition for each segment is always a option too.

Popular Vote: Users with a registred GOG account. Ownership of at least one of the competing games may be a requirement, but it's difficult to say whether it would be beneficial or not.

We live in a digital age where large databases are a reality. So the nominee system seems outdated and exclusionary to me. Why not allow voters to choose between all the titles released that year without restrictions?

I believe that the game of the year award should exist and be highlighted, but why not define categories for best game in certain popular and established game genres (Action, Adventure, Racing, RPG, Shooter, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, etc). Other non-award winning games would also benefit as they would be a reference in their respective segments as highly rated.

Some awards allow popular voting, but require voters to choose a competing game in each category. Blank votes should be allowed as many voters are unfamiliar with certain games or types of games. Basically, let the experts give their opinion without flooding the vote with unfounded opinions.

With the arrival of the current awards season that takes place every year-end, I've been thinking a lot about these questions. So I decided to share these ideas here. It may be interesting or not. Frankly, I don't know how difficult it is to create and publicize an award in this style. But I think it could be positive for the platform and the gaming industry in general.

1) To what point?

2) More to the point, what of the small snaggling matter which may apply to many users: What if their game of the year/other category isn't here on GOG? Balatro would be an easy taker for a category, but you'll noticed the suspect absence of the game being sold here.

3. And the erm, "Industry Members" are expected to deign to not simply bias themselves as they are oft wont to do? That weighting of the finger on the scale seems self-defeating at best, absurd at worst.

3a) Let's say GOG obtains a title where the primary developer is indisposed, deceased, or otherwise preoccupied; whom then would represent for example, The Bernstein Program, whose lead designer Alex Bernstein died in 1999? Almost as if the entire thing is rubbish predicated on generating capital, quite? Why not look into the BAFTAs or DICE, then?

3b) And among the press, just how many of them do you think would take this whole event seriously, given the lack of clout that GOG has, or it's apparent lack of sway towards publishers?

4) So if none of the games I'm interested in awarding are given a podium's chance, that's just -scratch- nil for me?

5) That would preclude that games in said categories having released on GOG in said year, and for said games to actually be worth awarding, unless you'd like to give a token trophy to something damned as a sports management title. To wit: Whose catagorization would we be going by? GOG is known and well known at that for having the organizational facilities as the average lowland gorilla! According to their genre label, there twas two whole titles released in the sports category. "We Are Football [APPEND YEAR]", and House of Golf 2. Is it true that these are the only two sports games this year? Who can say.

6) And who, pray tell are these so called experts?

7) Finally, what would this reward even represent aside from a yah-boo popularity contest like Eurovision?

Awards are vapid popularity contests, in which nobody wins.

Any work should stand on merits and be shown significance, over the test of time.

That is not the point. No one is forced to vote for an award. They develop and distribute the games and deserve to participate in the vote whether or not they value the work of their professional colleagues.
Nobody is asking the press to take the award seriously. GOG's games are not bought by the press. I'm sure they follow the GOG release calendar. No one is forced to vote for an award. But it would still be fun. You want to detail the functioning of something that doesn't even exist yet. I would leave that up to the organization. If it ever becomes reality. People who played the games or actually are experienced in game development and distribution. Games rated by both players and developers and specific to games published on the platform. But fear not, you'll still get the BAFTA or DICE.

Quoting this, not to respond, not to disagree, but because this very much expresses my thoughts word for word on this matter.

Honestly don't see the point. These days something like this is just something else for people to complain about and hoe GOG are doing a horrible job because there favourites were not chosen and anyone trying to look for the positives are just sheeple who won't recognize there truth.

Don't like typing like this but honestly that is the Internet today.

*makes masturbatory hand motion* Enough said.

Honestly: I don't get the idea behind this.
What would such a "GOG award" achive?

- It would not take into account ALL the games released/year - but only those released on GOG - which makes it already non-essential for the market...

- Many, if not most of the games, that get released here, are released years after their initial market release - when they don't need the (imagined) "advertisement effect" of an award anymore...

- There already exist a ton of meaningless "gaming awards", seriously: every other lifestyle magazine has its own...

which leads us directly to:

- Usually, these meaningless awards are (were) used to be plastered in dozens on the packaging of a game - serving only as eyewash, to lure in the uninformed (ooh, this game received 12 awards - it must be real good!)...you sure, you want GOG to waste its money on one more such trifle?

The company could publish the 100 most-sold games in 2024.
https://www.gog.com/games This link to "best selling recently", yet you don't know how recently (day? week? month?)
[url=https://www.gog.com/en/games?systems=windows&order=desc:bestselling]https://www.gog.com/en/games?systems=windows&order=desc:bestselling[/url] This link to "bestselling all time", even knowing some games are here for a few years only.

Personally, I miss the "best selling in year 'xx" option or list that would tell a lot.

Apart from selling, our curators are inviting games here based on already given facts to management. I presume each game hare has a recommendation from someone from within the company.
. ..and because games fall in categories, like movies, each department, e.g. nsfw comedy arcade genre or arcade tag, would be obligated to choose one title.
We could receive questionnaires because of why not. I'm in : )
also in https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_goty_2023_open_voting

This would only be worthwhile IF:

1: The award is purely for devs that have done everything possible to keep the GOG version of the game on par (or better) than other platforms.

2: It could only be voted on by people that own that game (and thus avoiding multiple account trollspam).

BUT:

point 2 completely devalues it as it makes it a total popularity contest (just like the Steam Awards).


Edit: Worth pointing out I worked in events for a long time and now work in game development AND events, so this is an informed opinion.

I believe that GOG can make a difference by proposing an award architecture that tries to consider both ends of the market, seeking some degree of exemption. So nobody would care if GOG start its own award based soly on a cheap database where their users can promote a friendly and healthy competition mocking other awards wihtout even a broadcast show and a lot of investment involved. But you are right, who would care?

I'm glad, we agree on that. ;)

And I am waiting for the Devolver Delayed Award 2024.

:-P