Can A Small Game Be 'Game Of The Year'?

Could you ever pick a Nintendo DS game as Game Of The Year?

Would you ever pick a web browser game? Should a critic consider a game you played on your iPhone? An XBLA game?

This question of whether a small game could be Game of the Year came up earlier this week in the Multiplayer comments section of my VGA post.

Reader "withaneight" wrote:

With games so many fantastic games available as direct download i am surprised to see none on the ballot. Was there no place for Castle Crashers or Braid on the list game of the year list? I think they were both better than Metal Gear and GTA4. I was just wondering if there is a reason for this; are you not allowed to nominate non-retail games, even if they are rated by the ESRB?

To which I replied:

I hear you. The choices on the ballot above are the product of lists of nominations submitted by many judges, myself included. I've found that with awards like these many reporters and critics are loathe to nominate anything smaller than a disc-based game for Game of the Year. I got some grief here last year for picking Desktop Tower Defense as my GOTY because many people thought I was nuts for choosing that over a full-sized games (others had other criticisms, of course.) The games I had submitted as my GOTY contenders to Spike were: Game of the Year LittleBigPlanet, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Spore, World of Goo and The World Ends With You. That was a few weeks ago. Since then, I'm not sure if TWEWY is even still my favorite RPG of the year. The mind keeps changing!

"Wario Ware: Twisted" is one of my favorite games ever. It came out in the U.S. in 2005. Would I have picked it that year over "Resident Evil 4"? In a heartbeat. Over "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"? No way.

Would you ever name a "small" game -- a non disc-based-console game -- as your Game Of The Year? Do you think the critics ever should?

It's not like the Oscars committee ever nominates a short film for Best Pitcure, but a game like "Braid" is worthy? Or no?