D.I.C.E. Award for Game of the Year

The 1st Annual Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony was held on May 28, 1998, with the licensed adaptation of GoldenEye 007, developed by Rare and published by Nintendo, receiving the first award. The award was originally known as Interactive Title of the Year for the 1998 ceremony.^[3] It would be renamed Game of the Year at the following year's awards ceremony. For a brief period between 2006 and 2009, the award was presented as Overall Game of the Year.^[4][5][6][7]

The first indie that was nominated for Game of the Year was Angry Birds HD, while Journey was the first indie game winner. The only other indie games that had won were Untitled Goose Game, Hades, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. On a yearly basis since 2016, there had been at least one indie game nominee for Game of the Year:

• 2016: Ori and the Blind Forest
• 2017: Inside
• 2018: Cuphead
• 2019: Into the Breach, Return of the Obra Dinn
• 2020: Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Untitled Goose Game
• 2021: Hades
• 2022: Inscryption
• 2023: Stray, Vampire Survivors
• 2024: Cocoon
• 2025: Balatro
• 2026: Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Dispatch

2019, 2020, 2023 and 2026 were the only years that had more than one indie game nominee, with 2020 and 2026 being the years of indie games majority.

The most frequently nominated and winning genres for Game of the Year had been action, adventure, and role-playing games. No strategy game had ever won the award, but fourteen had been nominated: Age of Empires, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Sacrifice, Sid Meier's Civilization III, Command & Conquer: Generals, Rise of Nations, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Hearthstone, Into the Breach, Inscryption, and Balatro. The Sims was the only simulation game to win the top award, with six others also being nominated: MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, RollerCoaster Tycoon: Loopy Landscapes, Black & White, Animal Crossing, Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Four rhythm games had been nominated: PaRappa the Rapper, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, and Rock Band. The only fighting games that had been nominated were Soulcalibur, Tekken Tag Tournament, and WWF No Mercy. The awards ceremony in 2001 had six sports game nominees: FIFA 2001, Links 2001, Madden NFL 2001, SSX, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, and Virtua Tennis; SSX 3 and Wii Sports were the only sports games nominated after 2001. Only three expansion packs had ever been nominated (all during the awards ceremony in 2001): Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, and RollerCoaster Tycoon: Loopy Landscapes. The only compilation pack that received a nomination for Game of the Year was The Orange Box (which included Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, as well as previously released titles of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One).

Nearly every Game of the Year nominee had either been released for a home video game console or for personal computer. Pokémon Yellow, Nintendogs, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds were the only nominees that were released for handheld game consoles. There had been six nominees that were released for mobile devices at the time of their nomination: Angry Birds HD, The Walking Dead, Hearthstone, Pokémon Go, Vampire Survivors, and Balatro. Journey, Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Inside, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Into the Breach, Disco Elysium, and Hades would eventually be released for mobile devices, but they were not at the time of their nomination.

Usually the winner for Game of the Year would also win the award for their respective genre/platform category; the only exceptions had been The Sims, Battlefield 1942, Untitled Goose Game, and It Takes Two. Of the four exceptions, Battlefield 1942 and Untitled Goose Game did not receive any nominations for their respective genre-related category (although the former did win the award for Online Gameplay of the Year, while the latter won for Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game). There had been seven winners for Family Game of the Year that were also nominated for Game of the Year: Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Rock Band, LittleBigPlanet, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Astro Bot, with LittleBigPlanet and Astro Bot being the only winners for Game of the Year. Angry Birds HD and Journey were the only winners for Casual Game of the Year that were also nominated for Game of the Year, the latter of which won both awards.