Rules

When the nominees are announced (expected Monday, November 16, 2026), picks open in all 25 categories. Pick one winner per category. You can change any pick as often as you like until the lock. Picks lock when the show starts on Thursday, December 10, 2026. After the lock, every sheet is public and scores settle as the winners are announced.

Game of the Year is worth 3 points. Every other category is worth 1 point. A sheet that gets all 25 categories right earns a 5-point perfect-sheet bonus, so the most a sheet can score is 32 points. There are no negative points and no partial credit.

The categories: Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, Best Audio Design, Best Performance, Innovation in Accessibility, Games for Impact, Best Ongoing Game, Best Community Support, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game, Best Mobile Game, Best VR/AR Game, Best Action Game, Best Action/Adventure Game, Best RPG, Best Fighting Game, Best Family Game, Best Sim/Strategy Game, Best Sports/Racing Game, Best Multiplayer, Best Adaptation, Most Anticipated Game.

Sheets level on points are split in this order:

1. Whose Game of the Year pick was right.
2. Whose Best Game Direction pick was right.
3. Whose sheet was completed first (the moment it first covered every category).

A match is a private table for your group. Anyone can create one and share its invite code; anyone with the code can join. Matches can be created and joined before picks open. Everyone plays the same single sheet — your ballot counts everywhere at once, in the global standings and in every match you have joined. Match standings stay hidden until the lock, same as the global board.

The panel is the published prediction sheets from the shows we follow — this year, the Kinda Funny Gamescast hosts' winner predictions, seeded exactly as published when their episode drops the week of the show. Panel sheets are display-only: nobody plays as a panelist.

The Crowd is the majority pick in each category across all players, worked out at the moment picks lock. It is a sheet nobody filled in, and it is on the board next to the panel. Beat both.

In December and January the outlets and shows publish their Top 10 games of the year. We collect those lists and score them into one Consensus Top 10. A ranked list scores 10 points for its #1 down to 1 point for its #10; an unranked Top 10 scores 5 per title; ranks 11–20 score 1 per title. Longer lists count only their top 10 for the main scale. Ties break on most #1 votes, then most lists appeared on, then best single rank, then earliest list published.

You rank your own Top 10 blind while collection runs — this page shows the expert lists as they publish, never the running aggregate. Your list stays editable until submissions lock on Thursday, December 31, 2026. At the reveal on Saturday, January 9, your score is: for each title on both lists, 11 minus its consensus rank, plus a closeness bonus — exact position +3, one slot off +2, two slots off +1. The best possible score is 85. The full breakdown, your overlap with every expert, and your closest-expert match are on the lists page.

The catalog behind this site holds one entry per game. A remake, however substantial, is the same entry as its original game, and an enhanced edition is the same entry as the game it enhances. The entry always carries the original's release year. So Resident Evil 2 is Resident Evil 2 — the 1998 game, whose entry also covers the 2019 remake — and a remake never appears as a separate title of its remake year. Every canon argument on the internet eventually becomes this argument, so the rule is written down here.

Cover art via IGDB. Game titles and artwork are trademarks and copyright of their respective owners. Covers are shown at thumbnail size to identify the game they belong to. Where a game has no cover, it appears as a text tile instead.

Video Game Picks is a free fan game from Extra Mic. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Game Awards, Kinda Funny, IGDB, or any publisher, show, writer, or host whose published picks or lists appear in the game. All games are free and for fun. Play the ballot on the GOTY page.