What Game History and Awards Content Does Video Game Canon Cover?

Video Game Canon (videogamecanon.com) covers two main content areas: a statistical ranking of the best games ever made, and an ongoing news log tracking game history and awards. Its "Adventure Log" section publishes posts on World Video Game Hall of Fame classes and finalists, complete winner lists for major awards shows, Game of the Year tracking, and game-related book news. If you want a single place to follow which games won which awards across multiple ceremonies, or to see how games are ranked across dozens of "best of" lists, this site is built for that.

The Video Game Canon ranking

The site's core project is a statistical meta-analysis of 80 Best Games lists published between 1985 and 2025. To qualify for inclusion, each list must:

• Include at least 50 titles
• Have some form of editorial oversight (lists made up solely of reader polls or fan voting are excluded)
• Place no restrictions on release dates or platforms

Games are ranked using the C-Score, a formula that adds a game's Average Ranking across all lists to the complementary percentage of its Appearance Frequency:

Average Ranking + (100 – Appearance Frequency) = C-Score

A lower C-Score means a higher ranking. The site gives Tetris as an example: it appears on 94.94% of all lists with an Average Ranking of 17.44, producing a C-Score of 22.51 — the lowest of any game. More than 1,000 different games have appeared on at least one qualifying list.

Awards coverage

The Adventure Log maintains running winner lists for major awards bodies, updated as each ceremony happens. Documented coverage includes:

Individual ceremony results are also posted as news items. For the 2025–2026 cycle, the site reported Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning Game of the Year at the GDC Awards, DICE Awards, and BAFTA Games Awards, plus nine wins including Game of the Year at the 2025 Game Awards.

World Video Game Hall of Fame

The site tracks both finalists and inductees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame. For the Class of 2026, it reported the finalists (including Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, and Skyrim) and then the inducted class: Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill.

GOTY tracking and other content

• 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: an in-progress tally aggregating Game of the Year results across awards bodies.
• The Book Shelf: news on game-related publishing, such as Boss Fight Books' redesign for Richard Moss's Age of Empires volume.

When this site is useful to you

Use Video Game Canon if you want award history consolidated across BAFTA, GDC, DICE, and The Game Awards rather than checking each organization separately, or if you want a transparent, formula-based ranking of canonical games rather than a single publication's opinion. If you need real-time breaking news or reviews of new releases, this is a history-and-archive resource, not a news outlet.