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Game of the Year 2012 Poll [*RESULTS*]
mcc
glitchRegistered User, ClubPA regular
glitchRegistered User, ClubPA regular
Game of the Year 2012: The Walking Dead
CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE PRETTY COLOR-CODED FULL RESULTS
Every year since 2004 I've been hosting this Game of the Year poll for the users of some forums I read. There are a lot of GOTY polls out there, but this one I think is kind of special. Most polls, you're given a list of four or five options and you're asked to pick the one you liked best. This poll, people are given a list of a couple of hundred options, consisting of every new game released in the previous year-- and asked to rate their top ten or twenty.
This does a few interesting things. First off, we get to see all the information about what people's second, third etc choices are. Second off, because the second, third etc choices count, people are more likely to vote for the game they want to win, rather than the game they think is likely to win-- they're less likely to engage in "strategic voting". Finally, because we have all this information, we're actually able to provide somewhat reasonable rankings for something like the top hundred or so games of last year.
The full results-- showing the exact number of voters who ranked each game first, second, third place etc-- can be found here. In the meantime, the final results were:
The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll's ranking system. Thanks if you voted, and some more elaborate analysis of the results (plus an explanation of the scores) can be found below.
NOTEWORTHY WINNERS
GOTY 2012:
Top-ranked PC Exclusive:
Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:
Top-ranked game for a Console Download Service:
Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:
Top-ranked Browser Game:
Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:
Top-ranked WiiU Exclusive:
Top-ranked 3DS Exclusive:
Top-ranked Vita Exclusive:
Top-ranked Smartphone Exclusive:
Top-ranked RPG:
Top-ranked "Indie" Game:
Top-ranked FPS:
"Cult" Award (see below):
Top-ranked H-Game?
NOTEWORTHY LOSERS
Best game of 2012 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #25, Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
Worst game of 2012 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: Three-way tie between three games tied for the #260 slot: "Carrier Command: Gaea Mission"; "OFF"; and NCAA Football 13. Each of these games got only one vote, but each of these voters considered it their game of the year.
Worst game of 2012: Two-way tie between the games tied for #331: "War of the Human Tanks" and Fingle. Both of these games scored only one vote each, each from someone who considered it their 20th best game of the year.
There were a whole 57 games on the nominations list that no one voted for at all.
ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS
The rankings listed above are based on a version of the Borda count voting method. Each vote cast for a game gives that game a certain number of points. If someone ranks a game #1, that game gets 20 points. If they rank it #2, the game gets 19 points. If they rank it #3 the game gets 18 points... and so on. I have a script that checks a couple of alternate ways of ranking the same data, though.
For example, if we rank games only by the number of first place votes they got, the top three remain the same but the rest of the list changes dramatically, with a whole bunch of indie games suddenly in the top 20. I bolded entries that are different in the first-place-votes count:
First Past the Post
I also did two more ways of sorting the rankings: an "approval" vote, where nothing is counted except the number of votes a game received (i.e. a first-place and a twentieth-place ranking count the same-- all the matters is if the game was on someone's list); and an instant runoff vote. Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, so again I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the official rank.
APPROVAL
IRV
FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS
Since like I mentioned there are a couple other small forums participating in this poll, I also went through and ran numbers using only votes from people who, as far as I could tell from the logs, came from the penny arcade site specifically. These numbers aren't totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but either way, here you go.
Penny Arcade Forums (306 voters)
The readers of my Twitter feed, by the way, have impeccable taste and collectively voted Super Hexagon as their #1.
Okay, that's all for this year! As a few people have observed, next year will be the 10th anniversary of this poll, so I'll make sure to start that one on time. Also keep an eye out because I am thinking about using the 10th anniversary of the original "best game ever" poll that kicked this whole thing off to come back around July somewheres and do a second best game ever poll, if this would interest people.
CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE PRETTY COLOR-CODED FULL RESULTS
Every year since 2004 I've been hosting this Game of the Year poll for the users of some forums I read. There are a lot of GOTY polls out there, but this one I think is kind of special. Most polls, you're given a list of four or five options and you're asked to pick the one you liked best. This poll, people are given a list of a couple of hundred options, consisting of every new game released in the previous year-- and asked to rate their top ten or twenty.
This does a few interesting things. First off, we get to see all the information about what people's second, third etc choices are. Second off, because the second, third etc choices count, people are more likely to vote for the game they want to win, rather than the game they think is likely to win-- they're less likely to engage in "strategic voting". Finally, because we have all this information, we're actually able to provide somewhat reasonable rankings for something like the top hundred or so games of last year.
The full results-- showing the exact number of voters who ranked each game first, second, third place etc-- can be found here. In the meantime, the final results were:
- The Walking Dead (3440) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown (3022)
- Mass Effect 3 (2730)
- FTL: Faster Than Light (2676)
- Borderlands 2 (2671)
- Dishonored (1625)
- Hotline Miami (1551)
- Journey (1532)
- Diablo 3 (1480)
- Sleeping Dogs (1465)
- Mark of the Ninja (1436)
- Spec Ops: The Line (1352)
- Far Cry 3 (1313)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (1195)
- Torchlight 2 (1191)
- Guild Wars 2 (1113)
- Frog Fractions (1078)
- Assassin's Creed 3 (994)
- Halo 4 (868)
- Legend of Grimrock (757)
The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll's ranking system. Thanks if you voted, and some more elaborate analysis of the results (plus an explanation of the scores) can be found below.
NOTEWORTHY WINNERS
GOTY 2012:
#1, The Walking Dead
Top-ranked PC Exclusive:
#4, FTL: Faster than Light
Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:
#8, Journey
Top-ranked game for a Console Download Service:
#8, Journey
Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:
#14, Xenoblade Chronicles
Top-ranked Browser Game:
#17, Frog Fractions
Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:
#19, Halo 4
Top-ranked WiiU Exclusive:
#27, New Super Mario Bros. U
Top-ranked 3DS Exclusive:
#36, Kid Icarus: Uprising
Top-ranked Vita Exclusive:
#71, Gravity Rush
Top-ranked Smartphone Exclusive:
#91, SpaceTeam
Top-ranked RPG:
#3, Mass Effect 3
Top-ranked "Indie" Game:
#4, FTL: Faster than Light
Top-ranked FPS:
#5, Borderlands 2
"Cult" Award (see below):
#14, Xenoblade Chronicles
Top-ranked H-Game?
#72, Katawa Shoujo
NOTEWORTHY LOSERS
Best game of 2012 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #25, Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
Worst game of 2012 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: Three-way tie between three games tied for the #260 slot: "Carrier Command: Gaea Mission"; "OFF"; and NCAA Football 13. Each of these games got only one vote, but each of these voters considered it their game of the year.
Worst game of 2012: Two-way tie between the games tied for #331: "War of the Human Tanks" and Fingle. Both of these games scored only one vote each, each from someone who considered it their 20th best game of the year.
There were a whole 57 games on the nominations list that no one voted for at all.
ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS
The rankings listed above are based on a version of the Borda count voting method. Each vote cast for a game gives that game a certain number of points. If someone ranks a game #1, that game gets 20 points. If they rank it #2, the game gets 19 points. If they rank it #3 the game gets 18 points... and so on. I have a script that checks a couple of alternate ways of ranking the same data, though.
For example, if we rank games only by the number of first place votes they got, the top three remain the same but the rest of the list changes dramatically, with a whole bunch of indie games suddenly in the top 20. I bolded entries that are different in the first-place-votes count:
First Past the Post
- The Walking Dead (70)
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown (48)
- Mass Effect 3 (33)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (28)
- Borderlands 2 (26)
- Journey (23)
- Dishonored (18)
- FTL: Faster Than Light (16)
- Hotline Miami (15)
- Guild Wars 2 (13)
- Sleeping Dogs (12)
- Spec Ops: The Line (11)
- Dragon's Dogma (9)
- Crusader Kings II (8)
- Hexagon / Super Hexagon (6)
- Halo 4 (6)
- Far Cry 3 (6)
- Dustforce (5)
- Fez (5)
- Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (4)
- Planetside 2 (4)
- Kid Icarus: Uprising (4)
I also did two more ways of sorting the rankings: an "approval" vote, where nothing is counted except the number of votes a game received (i.e. a first-place and a twentieth-place ranking count the same-- all the matters is if the game was on someone's list); and an instant runoff vote. Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, so again I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the official rank.
APPROVAL
- The Walking Dead (194)
- FTL: Faster Than Light (180)
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown (175)
- Borderlands 2 (171)
- Mass Effect 3 (170)
- Diablo 3 (110)
- Dishonored (106)
- Hotline Miami (103)
- Mark of the Ninja (102)
- Sleeping Dogs (97)
- Journey (93)
- Spec Ops: The Line (93)
- Frog Fractions (89)
- Torchlight 2 (88)
- Far Cry 3 (87)
- Assassin's Creed 3 (80)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (74)
- Guild Wars 2 (74)
- Halo 4 (60)
- Legend of Grimrock (58)
IRV
- The Walking Dead (3440)
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown (3022)
- Mass Effect 3 (2730)
- Borderlands 2 (2671)
- FTL: Faster Than Light (2676)
- Dishonored (1625)
- Hotline Miami (1551)
- Diablo 3 (1480)
- Journey (1532)
- Sleeping Dogs (1465)
- Mark of the Ninja (1436)
- Spec Ops: The Line (1352)
- Far Cry 3 (1313)
- Frog Fractions (1078)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (1195)
- Torchlight 2 (1191)
- Assassin's Creed 3 (994)
- Guild Wars 2 (1113)
- Halo 4 (868)
- Legend of Grimrock (757)
FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS
Since like I mentioned there are a couple other small forums participating in this poll, I also went through and ran numbers using only votes from people who, as far as I could tell from the logs, came from the penny arcade site specifically. These numbers aren't totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but either way, here you go.
Penny Arcade Forums (306 voters)
- The Walking Dead
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown
- Mass Effect 3
- Borderlands 2
- FTL: Faster Than Light
- Dishonored
- Spec Ops: The Line
- Sleeping Dogs
- Far Cry 3
- Diablo 3
- Mark of the Ninja
- Hotline Miami
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Journey
- Guild Wars 2
- Torchlight 2
- Assassin's Creed 3
- Halo 4
- Crusader Kings II
- Penny Arcade OTRSPOD 3
The readers of my Twitter feed, by the way, have impeccable taste and collectively voted Super Hexagon as their #1.
Okay, that's all for this year! As a few people have observed, next year will be the 10th anniversary of this poll, so I'll make sure to start that one on time. Also keep an eye out because I am thinking about using the 10th anniversary of the original "best game ever" poll that kicked this whole thing off to come back around July somewheres and do a second best game ever poll, if this would interest people.
mcc on
+35
Posts
Far Cry 3 all the way down at #13? Disappointed in you, fellow forumers
The hell.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Whatever that was.
NO DON'T!
The PS3 and supposedly Xbox 360 retail version are basically awful in every way, it's super-stuttery and kills a lot of the tension the game has as a result
It's just really bad across the board
The downloadable 360 version is fine, and I hear the PS3 one is as well. The ideal platforms here are PC/Mac or iPad
Aww, man really? I thought I heard that the bugginess was just on the 360 Retail versions.
It was that negatively impactful
It's interesting that three of the top four games have aliens in them.
The fact I've run it late this year and last year may be damaging user retention and critical user brand engagement however
Concerning Mass Effect 3 and Far Cry 3, one thing to keep in mind is that a voting system such as this one inherently favors a game which is played by the largest number of people - it works opposite to how a lot of award systems do (rewarding games later in the year which are fresh in the mind), but rather tends to favor games which came out earlier in the year. This would help to explain Far Cry 3's position - ME3, on the other hand, was legitimately high on a number of peoples' lists, but it's also fair to consider the fact that more people had more time to play it, which allowed it to land on more lists.
Concerning turnout, might some mods on the forum have any info re: forum traffic compared to earlier years? I'd be mildly curious as to whether there's a correlation.
the Dead Island PR team is probably looking for work soon
a bloody torso would give you just the notoriety you need
Alright. So. The bloody torso statue. Good start. But it's thinking small. How about an *actual* bloody torso? No such thing as bad publicity, they say.
Enormous meh at Mass Effect 3 in the top 5. I knew it was going to happen thanks to the huge ME community here but still disappointing.
Kinda bummed Gravity Rush is so low. :P
But yeah, The Walking Dead absolutely deserves top place, even with all it's glaring (and I mean huge) technical problems.
I totally expected to be the only one that mentioned Unstoppable Gorg. And ouch on Ninja Gaiden 3 with two votes.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
I love Heavy Rain too but I approached it in the same way I did The Walking Dead, which is that my playthrough is my playthrough. It's not something to be repeated. I know how my versions of Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead left
So Telltale making a lot of the outcomes the same didn't really affect me much overall
It's hardly a scientific survey, but it seems like every other list in the last thread said something along the lines of I wanted to put X on my list but I haven't played it yet, or all the games I played this year were from 2011, or other stuff along those lines. If it weren't for the drop in participation, I'd strongly lobby @mcc to actually run it later, but if a few weeks dropped it that much, oh well
Also,
Thanks for doing this again, @mcc. I really enjoy them.
Sidescrolling stealth game with multiple ways to complete including the option to do a pacifist run apart from maybe a couple of storyline guys you have to kill (I haven't tried a pacifist run myself yet). It's pretty brilliant
XBL, Steam & Tribes: elmartino333
I imagine a lot of people just went ahead and played Xenoblade in 2011.
Interesting results as always, and thanks for doing this so consistently MCC!
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Yeah, but as I said, I noticed the seams of the entire experience in my very first playthrough and, at that point, I realised how completely pointless all the choices really were and stopped caring. I don't care about getting slightly different dialogue or slightly different cutscenes, in a genre like Heavy Rain or TWD, I want my choices to actually make a difference. Not all of them, of course, but the major ones, yeah.
Saddened slightly to see XCOM do so well, not because I dislike the game, but because it's simply inferior to the original 90's version in my eyes. I suppose you could also argue it's too different to the original to warrant such a comparison without bias creeping in. Suffice to say that I'm still playing the original after I stopped playing the 2012 game.
I'm more of the opinion that it's the journey that makes the game and the journey certainly differs depending on the choices you make.
The end outcome, not so much, but the way you get there can certainly alter.
I'm a little sad to see Knytt Underground and Lollipop Chainsaw rank so low, I had a ton of fun with them and I think a lot of people are missing out.
It's interesting to see some fairly big budget games rank so low. Dirt: Showdown, Ninja Gaiden 3, Twisted Metal.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Mind explaining? I'm curious.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW