[1][2] The award is given in honor to the best video game released in a particular year.
The first Golden Joystick Awards were held in 1983, with the Ultimate Play the Game–developed shooter Jetpac winning Game of the Year.
During the 1991 ceremony, the award was presented as the Overall Game of the Year (including all systems), in order to distinguish it from another category (16-bit Game of the Year, specifically for 16-bit computers), before switching back for the 1992/93 ceremony.
However, the Golden Joystick Awards were put on hiatus until 2002.
Returning for one year under its original name, the award was then presented as the Ultimate Game of the Year for the 2003 ceremony, a moniker it held until 2012, and then again from 2015 onwards.