The Golden Joystick Awards Celebrate ‘50 Years of Games’

The Golden Joystick Awards is celebrating 50 years of video games by inviting the public to pick their favourite game and gaming hardware of all time. The prestigious awards brand is now in its 39th year and is the world’s largest public-voted gaming awards event attracting millions of votes every year.





Voting opens today at goldenjoysticks.com and closes at 3pm PST / 6pm EST / 11pm GMT on Friday, November 12.

Daniel Dawkins, Content Director, Games at event owner Future said: “We are delighted to celebrate 50 Years of Games in a landmark moment for the gaming industry. In November 1971, Computer Space* became the world’s first commercially playable arcade machine, birthing a $150bn industry from a 10-cent coin. We’re celebrating this milestone by inviting the public to vote for their Ultimate Game of All Time and Best Gaming Hardware of All Time. The results will be revealed in a truly special Golden Joystick Awards ceremony broadcast on Tuesday, November 23.


We assembled a diverse panel of industry luminaries to create a 20 game shortlist, considering factors such as critical reception, social impact, commercial success, legacy and influence, plus a measure of personal preference. We hope our shortlist represents the diversity and achievement of our 50-year-old industry, which - by definition - has been forced to exclude some truly exceptional games. You can find out more about the judging process on gamesradar.com and we can’t wait to find out which games and hardware the public will vote as their winners.”


Shortlisted games and hardware:

Ultimate Game of All Time Best Gaming Hardware of All Time
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Amiga 500
Dark Souls Atari 2600
Doom (1993) Commodore 64
Grand Theft Auto V Dreamcast
Half-Life 2 Game Boy
Halo: Combat Evolved Game Boy Advance
Metal Gear Solid GameCube
Minecraft Nintendo 64
Pac-Man Nintendo DS
Pokemon Go Nintendo Entertainment System
Portal PC
SimCity (1989) PlayStation
Street Fighter II PlayStation 2
Space Invaders PlayStation 4
Super Mario 64 Sega Mega Drive
Super Mario Bros. 3 Sega Saturn
Super Mario Kart Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Last of Us Wii
Tetris Xbox 360
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ZX Spectrum


The Golden Joystick Awards are presented by GamesRadar+. The winners will be revealed on Tuesday, November 23 via an online broadcast. In addition to the two special '50 Years of Games' awards the event will also feature 20 more awards for the best games of 2021 including 'Ultimate Game of the Year', 'Studio of the Year' and more.

For more information visit Golden Joystick Awards 2021  #GoldenJoystickAwards #50YearsOfGames.