Dear Gamers, is GOTY the next console wars?

It’s not a question that I’ve seen anyone asking, but it’s one that occurred to me this morning while thinking about some of the discussions I’ve seen online since the release of Death Stranding 2.

Until Kojima’s massively impressive new game dropped a few weeks ago in June, many in the gaming community – from players to the press – looked at Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as the frontrunner for GOTY 2025.

But now, the conversation has started to turn on Expedition 33, with the latest buzz touting Death Stranding 2 as the new incumbent for the coveted Keighley award come end of year. Some have even gone so far as to say that DS2 has completely pushed E33 out of the conversation – that’s it. Case closed. Show’s over – GOTY is decided and nothing else released prior or since DS2 has a shot.

Of course, this is extremely hyperbolic – exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to read in the many online gaming forums, from Reddit and Twitter (yup, still calling it Twitter. At least for now, it’s a free country so I can say what I want) to even official gaming journalistic outlets and the assorted content creators, YouTubers, and podcasters the world over.

Do I think it’s true that there is already a definitive GOTY winner set to hit the stage at The Game Awards this December, whether DS2 or E33 or any of the other highest rated games of the year like Blue Prince and Split Fiction? No. Of course not. More games will come out, opinions will heat up and cool down, and debates will rage on.

Do I think it’s possible that some gamers have already found their own personal GOTY though? Sure, absolutely. Nobody can or will want to play everything, and on a personal level, you will often know with a special sort of clarity when a game speaks to you *that* strongly – which is a rare enough thing that you’re lucky for it to happen even once a year, if that.

But to circle back to the question that I started with, I have to wonder – are these online arguments many months premature to any sort of GOTY voting indicative of the next frontier for the Great Online Gaming Wars?

I won’t get into all the details of it now because it’s a topic deserving of its own article or twelve, but if you’re reading this, you’re likely a pretty avid gamer so you already know about the state of Xbox. Even without the recent layoffs shaking the entire industry, dominating the headline of every media outlet big and small, and upending literally thousands of lives, the Xbox brand identity has been increasingly called into question ever since the waning days of the Xbox One.

But recent years have seen that identity become even more unclear with things like the “This is an Xbox” brand campaign and now the announcement of the Xbox Ally X, a PC handheld made in partnership with Asus that will put the Steam online storefront (among others) right next to Xbox’s on an Xbox branded device.

And that’s to make no mention of the Game Pass of it all.

Suffice it to say, it seems like with each passing day, Xbox is moving towards dropping the “box” in their name in pursuit of becoming less of a console, and more of a universal platform, experience, and service. (Although I guess that would leave them with only “X” and Elon already has dibs on that one so, another war for another day perhaps.)

Now of course, you still have both Sony and Nintendo – but depending on what region you’re in (which is largely to say, any that isn’t Japan itself), the two often aren’t viewed as direct competitors. Nintendo has quite literally changed the gaming world with the Switch by merging the handheld and home console markets for a new hybrid experience, all while maintaining their appeal to all ages and families, plus players of all skill and interest levels, from the most casual of casuals to the capital G Gamers.

And without the direct one-to-one comparison with Nintendo (which I personally disagree with, but again, that’s a topic for another day), Sony is increasingly dominating the home console market and for many has become the de-facto box for non-PC, non-handheld gaming.

Whether you agree with all the details of who dominates which markets and how and why or not, the point I’m making is this: it seems like the console wars of old have a limited shelf life on them. Once a battle of Sega does what Ninten-don’t, the fighting grounds were then inherited by the Sony Ponies and X-bots or whatever catchy phrases you want to sling around.

But if Xbox’s brand identity becomes any more amorphous like the Azure cloud I’m sure all the kids born in the next twenty years will be streaming their games from, will the console wars buckle and give way to a new online battleground?

What will take its place as the sides that consumers can tie their own identities to and prove their opinion is the most right and therefore gain the quintessential validation we all seek?

It’s a leading and cynical question so don’t bother answering – perhaps I’ve had too much salt and not enough caffeine for this Monday morning.

What I want to say is this: I don’t want there to be new console wars or online arguments about which game is more deserving of its success. This industry is hurting enough, and we should all be shouting out the wins of every game we love and the talented teams that make them.

But by making GOTY such a public, international competition of increasing importance with each passing year, I have to wonder. Are The Game Awards starting to hurt as much as they help the conversation around spotlighting the best of the best of each year’s releases?

Just last year, Keighley’s TGAs celebrated their 10th anniversary. And it’s not like there weren’t GOTY competitions and conversations before that – prior to TGAs, Keighley himself worked on the Spike Video Game Awards, and media publications would always shout out their top picks for the best game of the year.

But two things are massively different in the past decade vs. anything that came before. Number one: social media. Social media existed prior to 2014 of course, but we all know that it is an entirely different animal nowadays. We’re not customizing our MySpace and AIM on dial-up internet anymore.

No, millions of people the world over have every social media app under the sun in their pocket at all times on their smartphone and you can read and react to every single leak, rumor, and hot take in an instant.

But social media isn’t the only thing that’s blown up exponentially which leads me to point number two: Keighley’s TGAs have grown massively as well. According to reported viewer counts, Keighley’s show has gone from 1.9 million viewers in 2014 to over 103 million in 2022. Then in 2023 it reportedly hit 118 million viewers – and last year in 2024? 154 million viewers.

From sub 2 million in 2014, to breaking 100 million 8 years later, and then adding over another 50 million in just 2 years. Sit with that a moment. Because wow.

Again, I won’t dive fully into yet another massive topic that would demand its own slew of articles but I will just quickly say we all know the pandemic changed things. Gaming is bigger than ever. Individual spending might not be universally up, but content consumption around gaming most certainly is.

Not necessarily at the journalistic titans of old – they’re facing their own struggles. But YouTube, Twitch, TikTok… Twitter… and even newcomers like BlueSky – their numbers have to be insane YoY, including for trending topics in the gaming sphere.

So to bring this all home: it’s human nature that we will argue. Especially online, where some level of anonymity lends a sense of invincibility. And especially in a world where outlooks are as dark as they are right now (whether politically or economically).

So if Xbox is exiting the console market in an attempt to carve out a whole new niche, consequently leaving behind the longstanding tradition of console wars, what will gamers do next? What sides will they take to show off and shore up their tribal identities?

I hope it’s not the case, but there was enough meat on this particular bone to make me wonder if turning GOTY into such an increasingly hyperbolic competition on a global stage where everyone has a microphone will make it the next setting for the wars that rage online.

But to end this on a more positive note, I’ll leave you with this advice:

GOTY has value. It celebrates an achievement like no other. People coming together to create a marriage of software and art that reaches new heights. They blow us away with their creativity. They craft stories that resonate and sit with us for years to come. They invent new gameplay loops that bring us together and help fill our days with joy.

So while there can only be one GOTY to rule them all at the Keighleys come year-end, that doesn’t mean there can only be one good game that you or any of us gamers show love to online in a given year.

Play great games. Shout them out. Celebrate the things that you enjoy – and that your peers online enjoy too. Not every day has to be a race to number one, where one game has to fall for another to rise.

Let today be a day we all just love the games we love, and let that be the message to the world – online or otherwise.

Take care of yourselves, be kind to your fellow gamers, and game on.

Sincerely,

Michaela