The Games 100 is an annual feature of Games magazine, a United States magazine devoted to games and puzzles. The Games 100 first appeared in the November/December 1980 issue as an alphabetic list of the 100 games preferred by the editors of the magazine. In 1981, Games introduced The Games 100 Contest, which involved identifying pieces from games listed in the Games 100, with the grand prize being more than half of the games on that list. Games continues to publish this list as "The Buyers Guide to Games", broken out into "The Traditional Games 100" and "The Electronic Games 100".
Lists are published in either the November or December issue. Through 1994, the lists for a year were published at the end of that year. Starting in 1995, lists are released at the end of the year prior to the year of the list. (This means that there was no list for 1995. There was also no list for 1990, because Games was temporarily out of publication during the period when the list would have been published.) There are several categories for which "best" games are determined.
The winner of the historical category for approximately the last ten years has been determined by one individual, Walt O'Hara, who runs the Historicon miniatures convention.
| Year | Game of the Year | Abstract strategy | Advanced strategy | Family | Family card | Family strategy | Party | Puzzle | Word | Historical simulation | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991[1] | - | Trivia: Play It By Ear | ||||||||||
| 1992 | - | Trivia: Times To Remember | ||||||||||
| 1993 | - | Trivia: Celebrity Challenge | ||||||||||
| 1994 | Arcade: | Real-Life Strategy: | Adventure: | Trivia: Quote Unquote | ||||||||
| 1995[2] | Adventure & Role Playing: | Trivia: Chronicles CCG: | ||||||||||
| 1997[3] | Adventure & Role-Playing: | Trivia: Origins | ||||||||||
| 1998[4] | - | Trivia: Director's Cut CCG: | ||||||||||
| 1999[5] | - | Trivia: Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? CCG: C 23 | ||||||||||
| 2000[6] | - | Trivia: Bioviva CCG: Pokémon Dexterity: Spintrek | ||||||||||
| 2001[7] | - | Two-Player Card: Caesar & Cleopatra Dexterity: Carabande | ||||||||||
| 2002[8] | Manual Dexterity: Space Game | |||||||||||
| 2003[9] | Vom Kap Bis Kairo (From Cape to Cairo) | - | Manual Dexterity: Villa Paletti | |||||||||
| 2004[10] | Two-Player Card: Balloon Cup | |||||||||||
| 2005[11] | - | - | - | |||||||||
| 2006[12] | - | Two-Player: Jambo | ||||||||||
| 2007[13] | - | |||||||||||
| 2008 | - | |||||||||||
| 2009 | Palast Geflüster (Palace Whisperings) | - | ||||||||||
| 2010 | - | - | ||||||||||
| 2011 | - | - | ||||||||||
| 2012 | - | |||||||||||
| 2013 | - | - | ||||||||||
| 2014 | - | - | - |
Part of the Buyer's Guide includes a hall of fame for "games that have met or exceeded the highest standards of quality and play value and have been continuously in production for at least 10 years; i.e., classics."[14]
This Hall of Fame includes: