Ho-leeee shit.
Why have a GOTY at all? Why not just point their audience towards the review section and tell them to sort if by score?
Part of the problem here is Metacritic culture, and the other is the fact that reviews are generally referred to as "Outlet X gave game Y score Z", when it should be "Writer A of Outlet X gave game Y score Z".
Reviews aren't science. There's no formula or equation that you can plug a game into and have an acceptable final score range come out. Reviews are written by one person expressing their personal thoughts about and experiences with a game. Reviewers are given a platform to express these things because the outlet they work for trusts and respects their opinion and ability to elaborate on it. That doesn't mean that everyone in the outlet agrees with them on every score. Otherwise, it would just be every game from every outlet getting reviewed by every employee, which defeats the purpose of a reviews editor, or scores being dictated by higher-ups to form a stance for the entire outlet, which defeats the purpose of a reviews editor, the review itself, and is just plain disingenuous.
On the other hand, GOTY is an award presented by an organization as a whole, and as such should take into the account of a larger portion of the staff. It's going to cause a discrepancy between the award itself and the regular review, as it should. Unless, like I said before, you'd prefer that everyone have a say in every review so that you can deal with a mush of wildly different opinions instead of hearing one person's clear argument.
If you do prefer that, I'd suggest you stick to sorting by score on Metacritic.
Lol, calm down brother. No need to get all worked up.
So a score then holds no merit? That is what you are saying, a score holds no value at all. It is a GAME OF THE YEAR candidate, and they said a game, that their website published a review for and gave it a 7.5 out of 10, was the 4th best game of the year.
If that makes sense to you, then great. They should just abandon the score then. Simply have a written review. They publish their GAME OF THE YEAR, and people may see The Last of Us, then look at Polygon's review of it and see a 7.5/10. Does that come off as a game of the year candidate? Not immediately, not if someone looks just at the number, and some people do. That is what I find funny. I will never lose sleep over it, just sharing my opinion.
Sorry it seemed to offend you so much, with a "Ho-leeee shit" and all. Maybe if they are determining these games as a group, they should VALUE their own reviewers opinions, or sit around and come up with review scores themselves if they are simply going to come up with Game of the Year Candidates as a group.
Or, simply let each writer/editor have their own Game of the Year list, then asses those lists for an overall. That way, we could see who enjoyed a game, who didn't, and I would assume the individual that wrote the review wouldn't have it on his list, and everyone else would.
Its just videogames dude!