Looks like the amount of games considered to be the best in a given year started to contract after the huge explosion in 2008. What happened after 2011?

While I think there are a lot of interesting technical and economic shifts in the AAA space that has led to a period of stagnation, I don't really have the time or energy right now to argue my case so I'll hopefully comeback later and edit this.

That said, this list is all over the place and might reflect the biases and demographics of wikipedia editors.

Off the top of my head, I loved Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and Jet Set Radio, but putting them next to Deus Ex, Thief, and The Sims in the same year, each of which respectively defined groundbreaking new genres, hints at a strange or inconsistent criteria.

Another incoherent juxtaposition is putting Burnout Paradise and Gears 2 in the same year as Braid, which was a pioneer in the indie renaissance, and Grand Theft Auto 4, which was a massive technical leap forwards, particularly in reactively blending animations and physics.

It seems as if the editors of the list can't come to an agreement over what the list represents: the most groundbreaking and influential games of their time, or just games that were generally considered a good time at release.

Very much agree it's subjective and probably a fool's errand to attempt such a list. However, THPS2 and Jet Set Radio had similar positive reviews to Deus Ex, Thief, and other games of that year. They also broke new ground in their own way. Jet Set being one of the first cel shaded games and Tony Hawk 2 being visually stunning for the time with amazing controls. Sometimes being a top game of the year isn't about technical innovation or defining a genre though. Sometimes it's just about being a really fun game a lot of people loved.

I doubt this is the only reason, but one contributing factor is probably that the cited articles declaring a game as "best of all time" are often retrospectives from a number of years after the game released. E.G: Portal was released in 2007, yet all-but-one of its references are from the 2010s/2020s. Given another 10 years, there'll probably be at least a few more games in the 2012-2021 sections.

Maybe there are just too many games around to compare, and so no consensus forms about which the best ones are?

The further back you go the more good games. When you see destiny as game of the year you think man that must have been a shitty year

Fallout 3, but not New Vegas. Interesting.

I think it's hard to argue that th Fallout 3 formula was more popular than the New Vegas formula. I enjoyed obsidian's take on the fallout setting, but it's hard to deny that Bethesda's was better received.

All but one of the games I went in to look for were there.

I would say that this seems like a pretty decent list.