About / FAQ

Caring about video games means supporting the people who make them, the people who write about them, the communities who play them, and the world that we all exist in. Visitors of this site are encouraged to support workers unions, to participate in movements calling for greater action on climate change, and to boycott companies complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. A list of companies currently targeted by boycott campaigns, which includes companies in the gaming space, can be found here. Do not support these companies, regardless of whether or not their games are featured on this website.

History

Acclaimed Video Games began in early 2020 as a project to determine the most acclaimed video games of the past decade, based on a combination of end-of-year lists and the recently released end-of-decade lists. In the years that followed, that project gradually became more ambitious: it included more games, more lists, and the aggregation method became a lot more robust. Since 2021, it has attempted to determine the most critically acclaimed video games of all time. A website for the project was launched in March 2023 and continues to receive regular updates. Since November 2025, the website has been maintained by ColonelChibbers.

How are the rankings calculated?

The rankings are based on more than 800 lists from more than 100 publications. A program scans these lists and records every instance of a game being ahead of another game. The results are tracked on a large table that shows every possible game vs game match-up. These match-ups are then rigorously cross referenced to determine which games performed the best overall. The highest ranked games are the ones that consistently rank ahead of other strong games, while rarely being ranked behind weaker games.

The source lists themselves are weighted according to the reputation of the publication, and the age of the list (newer lists are very slightly favoured). A final weighting penalises publications that have repeated themselves across multiple lists. The strength of these penalties varies depending on the degree of overlap between the lists, and are applied at the match-up level. This prevents the most prolific publications from dominating the rankings.

What lists are eligible?

The source data includes any list from a reliable source chosen primarily by the publication's editorial staff (lists based on reader polls are excluded). These lists can cover any time period, they can be ranked or unranked (or partially ranked), and they may have platform restrictions. Lists with one-per-series restrictions are also included, and this restriction is accounted for by the algorithm. Currently, the following types of lists are ineligible:

  • Genre exclusive lists
  • Collections of individual staff lists
  • Lists with a single entry
  • End-of-year lists limited to a specific platform
  • Console lists released before the console's end of life

What games are eligible?

This is determined on a case-by-base basis. As a general guide:

  • Base games are almost always eligible
  • Remakes and standalone expansions are usually eligible
  • Mods are sometimes eligible
  • Expansion packs, DLC and remasters are almost always ineligible
  • Games without a full release are included in the source data, but usually won’t appear in the rankings until they have a full release
  • Games from the current year won’t be ranked until there is enough data for the rankings to be sensible, which usually happens early the following year

Does Acclaimed Video Games use AI at all?

No. All of the data entry is done manually, and the ranking algorithm does not use any machine learning tools.

What's with the platform data?

The listed platforms are the ones that the eligibility checker for the ranking program assumes eligibility for. These will almost never be every single platform that the game has been released on, nor are they necessarily the first platforms that the game was released on. Ideally, the listed platforms are the ones where the game’s performance on lists exclusive to that platform will be representative of its overall strength. Feedback on this platform data is encouraged as there is necessarily a degree of subjectivity to it.

Where does your metadata come from?

Cover images, developer data, and genre data comes from IGDB. Release dates, game names, and platform data is entered manually (for now).

I found a mistake!

It happens from time to time. Please let me know by either emailing me or using the contact form.

There’s a list that you haven’t included yet!

If you’re sure that the list is eligible (please check the eligibility criteria above), and if you can provide a reliable source for it, then please let me know and I’ll include it in the next update.

Are these the definitive greatest games of all time?

No. The aim of this project is to determine the most acclaimed video games of all time, and no one is obliged to think that the most acclaimed video games are also the best. Video game critics are imperfect people working in an imperfect industry, and their tastes are inextricably linked to factors such as their worldview, history, and what space they think video games should occupy in the broader cultural landscape. The main list is a reflection of all of this, and criticism of it is encouraged.

Are there any other websites that are similar to Acclaimed Video Games?

There are! Here are some others that also aggregate best of lists, both for video games, and for other media:

I would like to give feedback or contact you for some other reason.

Sure, I'd love to hear from you. I can be reached by email at contact@acclaimedvideogames.com, on X (formerly Twitter) at @AVGRankings, or on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/avgrankings.bsky.social.

Thanks to

  • Kris/Delfeir for helping me untangle the video game industry's various complexities, and for your help early on with the data entry. (Also for putting up with my rants whenever I was stuck on something.)
  • Ian for feedback on earlier versions of the ranking algorithm.
  • Sean for maintaining the website up until November 2025.

"Hey! Listen!" ~Navi, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

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