The Game Awards: We Used Data to Predict the Winners [IGN]

This year, the nominees are A Plague Tale: Requiem, Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Even though IGN’s own Best Game of 2022 nominees differ, we thought it would be interesting to use audience data from our coverage of the five Game of the Year nominees to predict what game will walk away with the award on Thursday night.

IGN Data Analyst Eric Zalewski compiled the data used for this experiment. We used a combination of data from IGN.com, IGN’s YouTube, Steam, and other sources to determine which games were the most popular with gamers throughout the year. It’s worth noting that winners for The Game Awards are determined largely by gaming outlets rather than the audience, but we still thought it’d be fun to see what the IGN audience thinks. Read on to find out our projected winners in about a dozen different categories for this year’s Game Awards.

Most Anticipated Game

• Final Fantasy 16
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Resident Evil 4
• Starfield
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Predicted Winner

While there are plenty of great games to look forward to in 2023, this contest wasn’t even that close. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom destroyed the competition, with its trailer attracting the most attention from our audience. And, Tears of the Kingdom articles drew nearly double the readership as the second place finisher, Hogwarts Legacy.

Best Adaptation

• Arcane: League of Legends
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
• The Cuphead Show!
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Predicted Winner
• Uncharted

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was easily the most popular adaptation among these choices for the IGN audience. If you combine all of the views of these five nominees, Sonic 2 accounted for almost exactly half of them. Those Sonic fans are a passionate bunch.

Best Multiplayer Game

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Predicted Winner
• Multiversus
• Overwatch 2
• Splatoon 3
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Based on readership numbers for IGN’s reviews of these five games, Modern Warfare 2 narrowly edged out TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. It’s not too surprising, considering MW2 crossed $1 billion faster than any other game in the Call of Duty franchise.

Best Sports/Racing Game

• F1 22
• FIFA 23
• NBA 2K23
• Gran Turismo 7 – Predicted Winner
• OlliOlli World

Gran Turismo 7 easily outpaced total viewership numbers leading up to release over the other nominees. We’ll have to see if the negative blowback over the game’s microtransations impacts its chances later this week.

Best Family Game

• Kirby and the Forgotten Land
• LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – Predicted Winner
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
• Nintendo Switch Sports
• Splatoon 3

For this category, we looked at the number of users checking out IGN’s guides for each of these games during the first month after release. LEGO Star Wars had nearly more first month guide traffic than all other nominees combined. The game was hugely popular, earning the best LEGO game launch of all time.

Best Fighting Game

• DNF Duel
• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R
• The King of Fighters 15
• MultiVersus – Predicted Winner
• Sifu

MultiVersus kept our audience’s attention even after the review dropped, likely thanks to additional character drops like LeBron James, Rick and Morty, and more. It’s the IGN audience pick for Best Fighting Game, trailed closely by Sifu (which isn’t really a fighting game, is it?).

Best RPG

• Elden Ring – Predicted Winner
• Live a Live
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus
• Triangle Strategy
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Elden Ring is one of the most popular guides on IGN in the last five years, matching the popularity of juggernauts like GTA V, Breath of the Wild, and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Best Action/Adventure Game

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• God of War Ragnarok – Predicted Winner
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Stray
• TUNIC

Horizon Forbidden West just fell short of this award, due to a dropoff in audience interest following the release of Elden Ring. For that reason, God of War Ragnarok takes the Best Action/Adventure prize.

Best Action Game

• Bayonetta 3
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II – Predicted Winner
• Neon White
• Sifu
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Bayonetta 3 had a decent amount of audience interest, but a lot of Bayonetta 3’s coverage was about controversy surrounding the game, rather than the game itself. Call of Duty remains unmatched in player base and popularity, giving it the win here.

Best Ongoing Game

• Apex Legends
• Destiny 2
• Final Fantasy 14 Online
• Fortnite
• Genshin Impact – Predicted Winner

Genshin Impact’s consistent updates and event schedule propelled it over the other nominees for best ongoing game.

Best Indie/Debut Indie Game

• Cult of the Lamb
• Neon White
• Sifu
• Stray – Predicted Winner
• TUNIC
• NORCO
• Vampire Survivors

We combined the nominees for Best Indie and Debut Indie Game into one category, finding that Stray would take both categories. Tunic came close, but the majority of its traffic came from guides, given its complicated nature. The cat game beats the fox game here.

Game of the Year

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Elden Ring – Predicted Winner
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Stray
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Finally, the one you’ve been waiting for. Based on a complex scoring system that awarded points for leading separate categories like the most popular guide, review, video views, and more, Elden Ring came out on top for our predicted Game of the Year winner. Elden Ring won four of the available five possible points, making it the clear favorite to win. But, that’s just our prediction!

Want to see how close (or far off) our predictions are? You can watch The Game Awards 2022 on Thursday, December 8 at 4 p.m PT / 7 p.m. ET when the IGN Pre-Show begins.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.