The Yuji Naka Game of the Year Award
Established in 2021 after the release of Balan Wonderworld, the Yuji Naka Game of the Year Award recognizes excellence in failure.
This prestigious award is only given to games which bomb the hardest. Games that come from big name studios and publishers, games that truly push the frontiers of deficiency, games that are just plain bad.
Criteria:
Not just any game can be nominated for the Yuji Naka Game of the Year award, there are two strict criteria that must be met to be eligible for nomination:
- Must Be From A Big Name Publisher: There are hundreds, if not thousands, of terrible no-name games release every year on Steam and other platforms. While many of these games are truly terrible, they are not worthy of the Yuji Naka Game of the Year Award. This award only celebrates the failures of major publishers whose ideas have crashed and burned in the public stage.
- Must Be A Legitimate Failure: Often times a mediocre game that comes with a big marketing budget can get meme'd to death on the internet. Games like Starfield and Pokemon S/V were made fun of relentlessly on release, but ultimately these games did not bomb out sales-wise, nor were they egregiously terrible games. To be eligible for the Yuji Naka Game of the Year Award, a game must truly bomb. Often times this happens with no fanfare at all, much less a mass meme-ing.