Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year

The Game Developers Choice Award for the Game of the Year, also known as GDCA Game of the Year is the main video game award presented at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers. The conference, usually held in or around March in San Francisco, presents the award as part of the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), a series of awards honoring outstanding achievements in video game design for games released during the previous calendar year.

Established in 2001, the award is considered the most prestigious peer-awarded accolade in the digital games industry, as the winners are selected by votes of game developers themselves.

As of the 17th GDC held in March 2017, only four studios have won the award more than once:

• Valve, for Half-Life 2 (2004) and Portal (2007)
• Bethesda Game Studios, for Fallout 3 (2008) and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
• Naughty Dog, for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009) and The Last of Us (2013)
• Rockstar Games, for Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Red Dead Redemption (2010)

As of the 18th GDC held in 2018, developers with three or more nominations in the category include Nintendo EPD (8), BioWare (5), Bethesda Game Studios (4), Rockstar North (4), Ubisoft Montreal (4), FromSoftware (3), Lionhead Studios (3), Blizzard Entertainment (3), Naughty Dog (3) and Valve (3).

The most successful video game publisher to date is Sony Interactive Entertainment with 11 nominations and 4 wins, followed by Nintendo (10 nominations, 1 win), Electronic Arts (8 nominations and 1 win) and Rockstar Games (7 nominations and 2 wins).