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There is no single, universal Game of the Year award, and the available evidence does not establish that the five games below have been “quickly forgotten.” What it does show is how an award-winning game can receive major attention in its release year and later become less prominent in everyday conversation. This is a subjective retrospective, not a measured ranking of public memory.
What “Game of the Year” means here
Different organizations give their own Game of the Year honors. The Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) describes its prize as recognizing “the choice of game developers for the overall best game release.” D.I.C.E. is a separate awards program run by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS). A win from one organization does not make a game the universal choice.
The five games below are notable former winners, but the available sources establish their awards and, for some, their release-era acclaim—not a decline in public recognition. The distinction matters: award records are verifiable; claims about what “everyone” remembers are not.
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Five former winners—and what the evidence supports
1. Dragon Age: Inquisition — 2014 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year
AIAS named Dragon Age: Inquisition its 2014 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year. TIME also included it on its best-games list for 2014, confirming that the game received prominent attention at launch. Those records do not show that players have since forgotten it; they establish a celebrated RPG whose later public visibility is not measured by the sources cited here.
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2. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor — 2014 Game Developers Choice Game of the Year
The GDCA archive names Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor its 2014 Game of the Year. Its launch-year reception was substantial: AIAS reported that it won eight of its nine D.I.C.E. nominations, and TIME included it among its best games of 2014, calling attention to its organized enemy hierarchy and combat. That is strong evidence of contemporary recognition, but it cannot by itself support a claim that the game later slipped from public memory.
3. Journey — 2012 Game Developers Choice Game of the Year
The GDCA archive lists Journey as its 2012 Game of the Year. That official record makes it a clear former winner, but the available evidence here does not establish whether its public reputation has faded, endured, or changed over time. Calling it forgotten would go beyond what the award record can tell us.
Rank #2
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4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — 2017 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year
AIAS awarded The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild its 2017 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year and reported four D.I.C.E. awards for the title. The award confirms its standing with that organization; it offers no basis for calling the game obscure now. Including it in a “forgotten” list is especially hard to justify without direct evidence of later visibility or audience recall.
5. Untitled Goose Game — 2019 Game Developers Choice Game of the Year
The GDCA archive lists Untitled Goose Game as the 2019 winner. Its win is comparatively recent among these examples, so describing it as quickly forgotten requires a clear time frame and evidence of what “forgotten” means. The award history alone supplies neither.
Rank #3
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Can we say these winners were quickly forgotten?
Not on the evidence available here. The official award records establish who won and when, while TIME’s 2014 coverage and AIAS’s results provide snapshots of release-era recognition for selected titles. None measures present-day recall, player numbers, sales over time, online discussion, or cultural memory. A defensible claim about fading visibility would need later, title-specific evidence—such as documented audience data, franchise activity, availability, or retrospective coverage—rather than an award record alone.
So these are former Game of the Year winners that may prompt the question, “What happened to that game?” They are not a verified list of games everyone has forgotten. The more accurate takeaway is that “Game of the Year” is tied to a particular award body and year, while a game’s long-term place in public memory needs separate evidence.
Quick Recap
Rank #4
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Sources
- Game Developers Choice Awards archive and award definition
- Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: 2015 D.I.C.E. Awards
- TIME: best video games of 2014
- Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: 2018 D.I.C.E. Awards
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