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On 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board, a thread went up claiming ‘Palworld has been nominated for one of the Big 4 GOTY awards.’ In reality, though, what it was nominated for wasn’t a main GOTY prize at all — it was the Golden Joystick Awards’ ‘Still Playing – PC & Console’ category, alongside long-running favorites like Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Minecraft. The thread kicked off when posters mixed up this category award with the actual ‘Ultimate Game of the Year’ prize (to be announced October 26), and it spiraled into a full-blown debate over how to count GOTY wins — including the saga of how Breath of the Wild missed BAFTA’s top prize and got stuck at ‘Big 4,’ and how Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 are said to have swept all five major awards.
What people said
It's not even nominated in the PC Games category, and you're calling it GOTY? lol
The pride of Japan right here.
User-voted!?
Isn't that basically Sony's home turf!?
And now it's the 'Big 5 GOTY.'
You're on the Geha board, so at least remember that much,
Pal-copy-World fanboy. (a jab combining 'Palworld' with パクる, 'to rip off')
Real talk, the BAFTA award — the one Breath of the Wild missed — tends to get left out of the count.
There's no such thing as a meaningless award.
@Bucky_cm
Somehow… according to Steam250, Palworld is the highest-rated game on Steam this year!
Saying the response to 1.0 was overwhelming would be an understatement.
Thanks to all the fans!
It's really been a wild ride these past few years.
Seriously… thank you! 🥹
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HS_DKWEagAAi6k-.jpg
https://x.com/Bucky_cm/status/2103114141150187635
Real talk, Super Mario Galaxy actually won one.
The Japan Game Awards are way more forgettable than that.
Real talk, when it comes to GOTY it's TGA, and then everything else.
The rest are all basically the same level.
If it's counting every country, of course English search terms are going to come out on top.
There are over 100 of them.
And whenever a Sony game wins, the count somehow jumps by about 20% more than usual.
It's just a bunch of different media outlets each picking their own game of the year.
Category awards don't matter even when TGA is the one handing them out.
The nominees in this category are:
Apex Legends
Fortnite
GTA Online
HELLDIVERS 2
HITMAN World of Assassination
Minecraft
No Man's Sky
Palworld
The Elder Scrolls Online
Warframe
World of Warcraft
Call of Duty: Warzone
Doesn't really matter, but the company it's keeping is impressive.
With this lineup, Palworld's a lock.
Seems like you're mixed up — this is just a nomination for the 'Still Playing' category award.
Pokémon gets nominated for category awards all the time too.
That's not what I meant.
Breath of the Wild stalled at 'Big 4' because it missed that award, while Elden Ring won it and swept all 5.
Back in the day it feels like the picks were more distinctive.
The 'Big 4 GOTY' phrase started getting thrown around back in the Breath of the Wild days, right?
It's completely stuck since then.
And whenever people hype up a Sony game, suddenly it's 'most GOTY wins ever.'
Elden Ring never actually won 'BAFTA Games Awards – Best Game' (BAFTA's top prize).
The only two games to sweep the top award at all 5 major industry awards are Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
https://store.steampowered.com/steamawards/2025?l=japanese
And per that, Expedition 33 missed out on 'Steam Awards 2025 – Game of the Year,' so it didn't actually get all 5. BG3 didn't miss that one either — it swept everything.
I remember it selling for around 4000 yen (~$27).
No microtransactions, no paid DLC either.
They'd probably rake in a fortune if they just sold cosmetic skins or something.
What was announced this time were the nominees for everything other than the top prize.
For what it's worth, the Console Game of the Year nominees have been announced:
Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, Bokoa (nickname, exact title unclear), 007 (First Light), Forza 7, Fire Emblem: Bansei Senkou (nickname, exact title unclear), Onimusha, Lego Bandman (nickname, exact title unclear), Saros, Nioh 3
What's 'Forza 7'? That's total 'never actually played it' energy. (エアプ, slang for faking having played a game)
I decided it!
Kidding aside, who knows? Maybe it's just historical convention?
Take last year's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — it was already getting rave reviews before it swept every GOTY award.
But I bet to a clueless idiot like you, that was also 'some game nobody's ever heard of,' huh? (豚, lit. 'pig,' a common 5ch insult)
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
GOTY isn’t a single award — it’s a system where multiple outlets and organizations, including The Game Awards (TGA), BAFTA, the Golden Joystick Awards, and the Steam Awards, each independently pick their own “Game of the Year.” 5ch posters informally tally how many of these major awards a title has won, using nicknames like “Big 3,” “Big 4,” and “Big 5 GOTY.” Breath of the Wild is said to have stalled at “Big 4” because it missed BAFTA’s top prize, while Elden Ring is credited with sweeping all five major awards. In recent years, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are cited as the rare titles to have achieved a full 5-for-5 sweep. The Palworld nomination that sparked this discussion was actually for just one of the Golden Joystick Awards’ many category awards, “Still Playing – PC & Console” — nominees for the actual top prize, “Ultimate Game of the Year,” aren’t due to be announced until October 26. The thread title’s claim of a “Big 4 GOTY nomination” appears to stem from a mix-up between this category award and the main prize.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, Geha) thread “[Sad News] Palworld Gets Nominated for One of the Big 4 GOTY Awards.”
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