It amazes me year after year how consistent the Pokemon games are. The quality they manage to maintain game after game is stunning when you think the series started in the US in 1998.
Yes and no. They maintain quality, but they also maintain bad habits. Here in 2013 we're still dealing with some bad design decisions from a few generations ago. I get the feeling Gamefreak is too comfortable (scared? stubborn?) to actually consider changing them.
The current generation has taken a few stops forward, but also a few steps back at the same time in terms of game mechanics and content. I'm interested to see Pokemon Z (2015?).
As much as I loved ACIV, I just couldn't put it above The Last of Us. I understand why some people wouldn't like it, but it was a pinnacle of the gaming form to me. ACIV is "just" another AC--a VERY good one, probably right up there with Brotherhood for me. (To be clear, this is coming from someone who has every AC CE made to date.)
Also, working on my alternative rankings like previous years right now. Back in a few.
I'm honestly surprised only 11 peeps picked it as #1. It's so fun. But the pirate life ain't for everyone.
ACIV is good. Really good. It even restored my faith in the franchise. The non-pirate stuff gets old pretty quick though. Heck, even pirating gets kind of samey.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
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RandomHajileNot actually a SnatcherThe New KremlinRegistered Userregular
edited January 2014
Man, I don't even know how to describe these alternative results. This is a recalculamatatrontion of @mcc's poll, ranked by the average position that people voted each game, with the cutoff set at 10 or more votes:
1) | 17.00 | 13 | 1.91% | 102. Rocksmith 2014 (360, PC, PS3)
2) | 16.94 | 144 | 21.21% | 6. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
3) | 16.71 | 205 | 30.19% | 1. Gone Home (PC)
4) | 16.64 | 136 | 20.03% | 8. The Last Of Us (PS3)
5) | 16.58 | 84 | 12.37% | 16. Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
6) | 16.15 | 13 | 1.91% | 109. 10 Seconds In Hell (PC)
7) | 15.94 | 68 | 10.01% | 22. Dota 2 (PC)
8) | 15.92 | 71 | 10.46% | 20. Kentucky Route Zero (PC)
9) | 15.90 | 157 | 23.12% | 4. Saints Row IV (360, PC, PS3)
10) | 15.89 | 35 | 5.15% | 46. 868-HACK (iOS, PC)
11) | 15.77 | 77 | 11.34% | 19. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360, PS3)
12) | 15.76 | 50 | 7.36% | 33. Hate Plus (PC)
13) | 15.63 | 155 | 22.83% | 7. Pokémon X and Y (3DS)
14) | 15.61 | 18 | 2.65% | 86. Fjords (PC)
15) | 15.44 | 140 | 20.62% | 10. Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
16) | 15.39 | 125 | 18.41% | 11. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
17) | 15.37 | 162 | 23.86% | 5. Tomb Raider 2013 (360, PC, PS3)
18) | 15.35 | 17 | 2.50% | 90. Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita)
19) | 15.23 | 113 | 16.64% | 12. Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)
20) | 15.22 | 69 | 10.16% | 23. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC)
Think of it as "of the people who voted for game X, they ranked game X at position Y on average." It's not a perfect metric, but in the past it has given an edge to games that were very good, but fewer people played (most often due to console exculsivity). Super Mario 3D World, for instance.
Please be respectful to others when discussing results.
And Stickied! Thanks for doing this as always, mcc.
Sterica on
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RandomHajileNot actually a SnatcherThe New KremlinRegistered Userregular
And one for all years. Short of re-running the poll, comparing the yearly average rankings is probably the best (albeit still incredibly far from perfect) way to compare years.
I haven't played Gone Home. Does it actually contain shooting at some point?
It contains no gameplay in the traditional sense. I would categorize it as an interactive visual novel.
How is it an FPS then?
First Person Perspective.
FPP != FPS
These are different letters.
I think that hacksword's original point was that mcc listed Gone Home as the #1 FPS game, which I know made me kinda go "wha?" Has the term colloquially evolved to mean "game with a first person camera" while I wasn't paying attention, or are we still restricting it to games where you have a first-person camera and shoot things?
Is it just me, or is that list crazy diverse? Everything from interdimensional puzzle solving with Antichamber to AAA-budget FPS with Bioshock to a game about being a border-crossing guard with Papers Please.
In fact, for all the crap people give FPS games, there's only one on that entire list, with almost half the top 20 being indie games. Really nice.
It's diverse largely because the poll is pulling from several disparate sources. Going by the twitter version of the poll, Depression Quest was the 6th best game of 2013. Now I'm sure that's a fine game/visual novel, and it probably spoke to a ton of people for whom depression is a very real and serious issue. But I doubt that many people who play games as a regular past-time or hobby would hold it in such high regard, especially above all the other great gaming experiences to be had in 2013. Different strokes and all, but consider the source.
I think it's quite mistaken (and actually fairly elitist, exclusionary, and generally not cool) to brand the twitter people as people who don't "play games as a regular past-time or hobby" and urge people to "consider the source" of a high ranking for Depression Quest. From my personal experience, I would say that the twitter people that we're talking about easily play as many games as the PA folk, and they play most of the same games, but they also play way more games because they also play indie games that most people on PA couldn't give less of a shit about (witness the person in this thread who hadn't even heard of Gone Home, which is winning GOTY awards left and right and which is easily one of the most popular indie games this year - if someone hasn't heard of that, imagine where they're at with something like Depression Quest).
The notion that for someone to rank something genuinely personal, intellectually stimulating, emotionally touching, and unique in the landscape of games above a game where you stab 500 people in the face with a Skyhook and literally go to Racist Disneyland requires the person making the ranking to not have played many games is a pretty toxic one. People who rank Depression Quest and games like it high are not ignorant gamers who have never heard of the bountiful wonders of BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, and all the other wonderful murder simulators we got this year. They don't ignore these games or fail to play these games or even live without ever knowing about these games - they just don't like them as much.
If you want to brand any group as ignorant/less informed when it comes to the number of games they play regularly and how often they play games, I would wager that a lot of people who vote in the Penny Arcade poll are worse off than the people who vote in the twitter poll.
You have to remember that polls like this are fundamentally popularity contests as much as they are measures of how much people like a game, and when some games have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marketing money poured into them and others can't even get posted on Greenlight without their creator being called a slut and a cunt and threatened with violence, there's always going to be an impetus towards games in the former group doing better in these polls unless people who have heard of both kinds of games end up voting in it.
This year we saw what happens when people who know about both kinds of games voted, and it looked very different from Penny Arcade's voting. Your conclusion is that these people don't play as many games - they don't treat gaming as a hobby the way we Penny Arcaders do. My suggestion is that this is completely untrue. There are certainly Penny Arcaders who voted more or less like twitter did, with lots of indie games like Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Papers, Please, Kentucky Route Zero, and various Twine games outranking things like BioShock Infinite or The Last of Us - witness my votes, Dhalphir's votes, Veagle's votes, Behemoth's votes, Renzo's votes, SoundsPlush's votes, Drake's votes, Lawndart's votes, and god knows how many others in that thread (that was just from the first page).
In general, I think it's really unhelpful to think of these results as something like "the people at Penny Arcade who play lots of games decided BioShock Infinite and The Last of Us are better - that's much more sensible than all those weird twitter folk voting for the weird indie games. Penny Arcade is a bunch of gamers and those weird twitter folk only play weird indie games." That kind of attitude is not just untrue and exclusionary, it's damaging to the PA forums in terms of their openness. @mcc doesn't even post here anymore! She feels uncomfortable on these forums and only shows up once a year, like Santa Claus, except instead of bringing present boxes she brings ballot boxes. Do you want the PA forums to be the kind of place that excludes people like mcc, people who obviously love video games and play video games (and even make video games - her game was excluded this year like she always excludes her games, but she's a game developer, not just a game vote collator!)? Do you want the PA forums to turn into something like NeoGAF or RPG Codex, a bastion of "true" gamers who take every opportunity to assert that "true" games are better than obscure indie games that nobody gives a shit about? Or do you want the PA forums to be open to the kind of people who would rank Gone Home above BioShock Infinite? Having spent time at NeoGAF and RPG Codex, and having spent time on twitter among the sorts of people we're talking about here, I think I can safely say that I know what the answer to that question is, and the answer I would give is the sort of answer that explains why I would be very reluctant to post something like what you've posted, which suggests that it's only due to ignorance and just generally not playing a lot of games as a hobby (that is, only because they aren't "gamers") that the twitter people have voted like this.
Honestly, I'd be fine with the poll being exclusive to this forum. Getting a gauge of how the forum feels is of more value to me than how mcc's twitter followers feel. But it's her poll, so she can invite who she wants.
(witness the person in this thread who hadn't even heard of Gone Home, which is winning GOTY awards left and right and which is easily one of the most popular indie games this year - if someone hasn't heard of that, imagine where they're at with something like Depression Quest).
Hey, I actually totally know about Depression Quest! I also know about The Stanley Parable and Cry$tal Warrior Ke$ha. I love TellTale's TWD.
I'm the opposite of a "serious" gamer though. I play games and I like them. I don't generally follow any gaming news, so I really wouldn't know who won what GOTY award anywhere outside of the PA forums. Pretty much all I know comes from this place, since it's one of the least toxic places of its kind that I know.
Sometimes I pick up something about a new cool game or two, mainstream or indie. Sometimes the most popular game of the year slips through the net.
I haven't played it, but I'm kinda suprised that Bioshock managed to be so high on the list. My impression from reading the forums was that it was good but not as groundbreaking as the original one from 2006. I rather expected games such as The Last of Us and maybe even GTA 5 to score higher. Happy to see the games I played, Tomb Raider and Saints Row, in the top ten though.
Rather sad to see Dead Space 3 way, way down on the list. RIP.
Dismissing anyone's opinion goes against the whole idea of the poll in the first place. Everyone has a voice. Everyone counts.
And mcc just said she wants to expand the polling base for future polls to get inputs from several different communities. The poll base is only going to get more diverse.
Besides, this year's polling numbers from PA are about a third of the numbers we had when it was most popular. More respondents = more comprehensive results.
Man, I don't even know how to describe these alternative results. This is a recalculamatatrontion of @mcc's poll, ranked by the average position that people voted each game, with the cutoff set at 10 or more votes:
1) | 17.00 | 13 | 1.91% | 102. Rocksmith 2014 (360, PC, PS3)
2) | 16.94 | 144 | 21.21% | 6. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
3) | 16.71 | 205 | 30.19% | 1. Gone Home (PC)
4) | 16.64 | 136 | 20.03% | 8. The Last Of Us (PS3)
5) | 16.58 | 84 | 12.37% | 16. Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
6) | 16.15 | 13 | 1.91% | 109. 10 Seconds In Hell (PC)
7) | 15.94 | 68 | 10.01% | 22. Dota 2 (PC)
8) | 15.92 | 71 | 10.46% | 20. Kentucky Route Zero (PC)
9) | 15.90 | 157 | 23.12% | 4. Saints Row IV (360, PC, PS3)
10) | 15.89 | 35 | 5.15% | 46. 868-HACK (iOS, PC)
11) | 15.77 | 77 | 11.34% | 19. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360, PS3)
12) | 15.76 | 50 | 7.36% | 33. Hate Plus (PC)
13) | 15.63 | 155 | 22.83% | 7. Pokémon X and Y (3DS)
14) | 15.61 | 18 | 2.65% | 86. Fjords (PC)
15) | 15.44 | 140 | 20.62% | 10. Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
16) | 15.39 | 125 | 18.41% | 11. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
17) | 15.37 | 162 | 23.86% | 5. Tomb Raider 2013 (360, PC, PS3)
18) | 15.35 | 17 | 2.50% | 90. Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita)
19) | 15.23 | 113 | 16.64% | 12. Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)
20) | 15.22 | 69 | 10.16% | 23. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC)
Think of it as "of the people who voted for game X, they ranked game X at position Y on average." It's not a perfect metric, but in the past it has given an edge to games that were very good, but fewer people played (most often due to console exculsivity). Super Mario 3D World, for instance.
This is pretty interesting! I like the idea of a ranking that tries to get rid of the effects of not having been played by as many people. That seems like a great way of getting at how much people like a game rather than a combination of how much they like it and how many people have played it.
The notion that for someone to rank something genuinely personal, intellectually stimulating, emotionally touching, and unique in the landscape of games above a game where you stab 500 people in the face with a Skyhook and literally go to Racist Disneyland requires the person making the ranking to not have played many games is a pretty toxic one.
That's certainly one opinion.
Another opinion is that Gone Home is not a game in any traditional sense of the word, and is instead closer to a audio drama, book, or movie.
The fact that the two groups rated Gone Home radically differently - to the point where Gone Home is not even in the PA Top 10 - shows pretty clearly that it targets a different audience.
Heck, there's only a few points of overlap between Twitter's Top 10 and PA's Top 10 : The Stanley Parable, Pokémon X and Y, and Saints Row IV.
That hints pretty strongly towards some sort of dramatic demographic difference.
Also, Bioshock Infinite's ending spoke pretty goddamn deeply to me as a father, so. You know. Opinions.
Such a shame more people don't have vitas to try out Tearaway. My number 2 with Brothers at number 1. Great list though. Everything is fantastic in there.
I was only in the last few days that I took the time to finally try out Tearaway and Batman: Arkham Origins. Had I played them earlier, my list would be a little different!
It is uncool in the extreme to pretend that one group's set of opinions is somehow more valid than another's.
You do not need anyone to validate your list for you. It is ok to be parts of different demographics. We can only spend so much time and money on video games. Let's not be mean to each other about it. That would be stupid of us.
Such a shame more people don't have vitas to try out Tearaway. My number 2 with Brothers at number 1. Great list though. Everything is fantastic in there.
I'm a lame-o with a Vita who hasn't picked up Tearaway. I almost bit on it twice, and I keep hearing how good it is. It was on sale for $17 but by the time I decided on getting it, it was too late =/ Hopefully it gets another sale sometime soon, cause I will be all over that. I've heard alot of good things about the ending sequence.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
The best thing about this is how it fosters a sense of togetherness and mutual respect amongst people who enjoy playing video games, regardless of the differences in what they play or enjoy.
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RandomHajileNot actually a SnatcherThe New KremlinRegistered Userregular
Such a shame more people don't have vitas to try out Tearaway. My number 2 with Brothers at number 1. Great list though. Everything is fantastic in there.
I'm a lame-o with a Vita who hasn't picked up Tearaway. I almost bit on it twice, and I keep hearing how good it is. It was on sale for $17 but by the time I decided on getting it, it was too late =/ Hopefully it gets another sale sometime soon, cause I will be all over that. I've heard alot of good things about the ending sequence.
It was my #1 for the year, which is pretty great considering there was so much other quality stuff.
I think I had 5 or 6 Vita games on my top 10 list though. I love that handheld.
The notion that for someone to rank something genuinely personal, intellectually stimulating, emotionally touching, and unique in the landscape of games above a game where you stab 500 people in the face with a Skyhook and literally go to Racist Disneyland requires the person making the ranking to not have played many games is a pretty toxic one.
That's certainly one opinion.
Another opinion is that Gone Home is not a game in any traditional sense of the word, and is instead closer to a audio drama, book, or movie.
The fact that the two groups rated Gone Home radically differently - to the point where Gone Home is not even in the PA Top 10 - shows pretty clearly that it targets a different audience.
Heck, there's only a few points of overlap between Twitter's Top 10 and PA's Top 10 : The Stanley Parable, Pokémon X and Y, and Saints Row IV.
That hints pretty strongly towards some sort of dramatic demographic difference.
Also, Bioshock Infinite's ending spoke pretty goddamn deeply to me as a father, so. You know. Opinions.
Man, I don't even know how to describe these alternative results. This is a recalculamatatrontion of @mcc's poll, ranked by the average position that people voted each game, with the cutoff set at 10 or more votes:
1) | 17.00 | 13 | 1.91% | 102. Rocksmith 2014 (360, PC, PS3)
2) | 16.94 | 144 | 21.21% | 6. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
3) | 16.71 | 205 | 30.19% | 1. Gone Home (PC)
4) | 16.64 | 136 | 20.03% | 8. The Last Of Us (PS3)
5) | 16.58 | 84 | 12.37% | 16. Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
6) | 16.15 | 13 | 1.91% | 109. 10 Seconds In Hell (PC)
7) | 15.94 | 68 | 10.01% | 22. Dota 2 (PC)
8) | 15.92 | 71 | 10.46% | 20. Kentucky Route Zero (PC)
9) | 15.90 | 157 | 23.12% | 4. Saints Row IV (360, PC, PS3)
10) | 15.89 | 35 | 5.15% | 46. 868-HACK (iOS, PC)
11) | 15.77 | 77 | 11.34% | 19. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360, PS3)
12) | 15.76 | 50 | 7.36% | 33. Hate Plus (PC)
13) | 15.63 | 155 | 22.83% | 7. Pokémon X and Y (3DS)
14) | 15.61 | 18 | 2.65% | 86. Fjords (PC)
15) | 15.44 | 140 | 20.62% | 10. Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
16) | 15.39 | 125 | 18.41% | 11. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
17) | 15.37 | 162 | 23.86% | 5. Tomb Raider 2013 (360, PC, PS3)
18) | 15.35 | 17 | 2.50% | 90. Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita)
19) | 15.23 | 113 | 16.64% | 12. Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)
20) | 15.22 | 69 | 10.16% | 23. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC)
Think of it as "of the people who voted for game X, they ranked game X at position Y on average." It's not a perfect metric, but in the past it has given an edge to games that were very good, but fewer people played (most often due to console exculsivity). Super Mario 3D World, for instance.
This is pretty interesting! I like the idea of a ranking that tries to get rid of the effects of not having been played by as many people. That seems like a great way of getting at how much people like a game rather than a combination of how much they like it and how many people have played it.
What if I told you I could change the cutoff to 0 votes?
I think it's hilarious that Crysis 3 only got 3 votes. Like holy shit, that franchise has really taken a nose dive. I haven't even played Crysis 3 but I heard it's at least better than Crysis 2 - too bad they decided to try to turn themselves into a cinematic FPS experience like Call of Duty rather than realizing that if they had continued iterating on the Far Cry > Crysis model of freedom and exploration in their game, they could've gotten themselves a Far Cry 3.
Man, I don't even know how to describe these alternative results. This is a recalculamatatrontion of @mcc's poll, ranked by the average position that people voted each game, with the cutoff set at 10 or more votes:
1) | 17.00 | 13 | 1.91% | 102. Rocksmith 2014 (360, PC, PS3)
2) | 16.94 | 144 | 21.21% | 6. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
3) | 16.71 | 205 | 30.19% | 1. Gone Home (PC)
4) | 16.64 | 136 | 20.03% | 8. The Last Of Us (PS3)
5) | 16.58 | 84 | 12.37% | 16. Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
6) | 16.15 | 13 | 1.91% | 109. 10 Seconds In Hell (PC)
7) | 15.94 | 68 | 10.01% | 22. Dota 2 (PC)
8) | 15.92 | 71 | 10.46% | 20. Kentucky Route Zero (PC)
9) | 15.90 | 157 | 23.12% | 4. Saints Row IV (360, PC, PS3)
10) | 15.89 | 35 | 5.15% | 46. 868-HACK (iOS, PC)
11) | 15.77 | 77 | 11.34% | 19. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360, PS3)
12) | 15.76 | 50 | 7.36% | 33. Hate Plus (PC)
13) | 15.63 | 155 | 22.83% | 7. Pokémon X and Y (3DS)
14) | 15.61 | 18 | 2.65% | 86. Fjords (PC)
15) | 15.44 | 140 | 20.62% | 10. Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
16) | 15.39 | 125 | 18.41% | 11. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
17) | 15.37 | 162 | 23.86% | 5. Tomb Raider 2013 (360, PC, PS3)
18) | 15.35 | 17 | 2.50% | 90. Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita)
19) | 15.23 | 113 | 16.64% | 12. Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)
20) | 15.22 | 69 | 10.16% | 23. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC)
Think of it as "of the people who voted for game X, they ranked game X at position Y on average." It's not a perfect metric, but in the past it has given an edge to games that were very good, but fewer people played (most often due to console exculsivity). Super Mario 3D World, for instance.
This is pretty interesting! I like the idea of a ranking that tries to get rid of the effects of not having been played by as many people. That seems like a great way of getting at how much people like a game rather than a combination of how much they like it and how many people have played it.
What if I told you I could change the cutoff to 0 votes?
That's super interesting too. Like, someone on these boards enjoyed X:Rebirth a lot. So there's that. If ever, like, 10 billion people voted in the poll, I think I'd be even more interested in something like your ranking system than the default ones mcc provides (albeit probably with a cutoff higher than 10, maybe, although I'm not sure).
It is uncool in the extreme to pretend that one group's set of opinions is somehow more valid than another's.
You do not need anyone to validate your list for you. It is ok to be parts of different demographics. We can only spend so much time and money on video games. Let's not be mean to each other about it. That would be stupid of us.
I'm really surprised Antichamber didn't rank higher; that game was brilliant. (Heh, and for all my bitching, mcc's twitter followers ranked it at #9 while the forum couldn't even get it into the top #25 )
Such a shame more people don't have vitas to try out Tearaway. My number 2 with Brothers at number 1. Great list though. Everything is fantastic in there.
I'm a lame-o with a Vita who hasn't picked up Tearaway. I almost bit on it twice, and I keep hearing how good it is. It was on sale for $17 but by the time I decided on getting it, it was too late =/ Hopefully it gets another sale sometime soon, cause I will be all over that. I've heard alot of good things about the ending sequence.
Well now, clearly this needs to be fixed
As for Crysis 3. Loved that game. Ran like ass after a few hours. It was definitely an improvement over 2. I need to jump back into that.
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RandomHajileNot actually a SnatcherThe New KremlinRegistered Userregular
That's super interesting too. Like, someone on these boards enjoyed X:Rebirth a lot. So there's that. If ever, like, 10 billion people voted in the poll, I think I'd be even more interested in something like your ranking system than the default ones mcc provides (albeit probably with a cutoff higher than 10, maybe, although I'm not sure).
Yeah, I originally didn't know where this statistic was going to go when I started, but then I found that it says something. I have tried out a bunch of different weird calculations, but this one seems to work best. Take a look at prior year discussions. mcc and I sort of sussed out what it kinda meant a few years back. I also had one that was kinda sorta maybe like an overrated list, but will never work out right because of people just flat leaving something off their list if they didn't like it.
I'm sure the cutoff would have to be adjusted if it got big voting numbers. There's probably some meta statistic there, like raise the cutoff by 1 for every 100 voters. I play around with the number every year, but I want to say that 10 has worked every time.
Posts
Yes and no. They maintain quality, but they also maintain bad habits. Here in 2013 we're still dealing with some bad design decisions from a few generations ago. I get the feeling Gamefreak is too comfortable (scared? stubborn?) to actually consider changing them.
The current generation has taken a few stops forward, but also a few steps back at the same time in terms of game mechanics and content. I'm interested to see Pokemon Z (2015?).
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
list fails
epically
Also, working on my alternative rankings like previous years right now. Back in a few.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
Guess I have to hope Gone Home finds its way to PS4 so I can see what all the fuss is about.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
ACIV is good. Really good. It even restored my faith in the franchise. The non-pirate stuff gets old pretty quick though. Heck, even pirating gets kind of samey.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
And Stickied! Thanks for doing this as always, mcc.
Didn't realize the /code tags put in line numbers now. Sorry if that make it hard to read, but the columns need to line up.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
Rogue Legacy showing up makes me real happy though!
FPP != FPS
These are different letters.
I think that hacksword's original point was that mcc listed Gone Home as the #1 FPS game, which I know made me kinda go "wha?" Has the term colloquially evolved to mean "game with a first person camera" while I wasn't paying attention, or are we still restricting it to games where you have a first-person camera and shoot things?
The notion that for someone to rank something genuinely personal, intellectually stimulating, emotionally touching, and unique in the landscape of games above a game where you stab 500 people in the face with a Skyhook and literally go to Racist Disneyland requires the person making the ranking to not have played many games is a pretty toxic one. People who rank Depression Quest and games like it high are not ignorant gamers who have never heard of the bountiful wonders of BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, and all the other wonderful murder simulators we got this year. They don't ignore these games or fail to play these games or even live without ever knowing about these games - they just don't like them as much.
If you want to brand any group as ignorant/less informed when it comes to the number of games they play regularly and how often they play games, I would wager that a lot of people who vote in the Penny Arcade poll are worse off than the people who vote in the twitter poll.
You have to remember that polls like this are fundamentally popularity contests as much as they are measures of how much people like a game, and when some games have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marketing money poured into them and others can't even get posted on Greenlight without their creator being called a slut and a cunt and threatened with violence, there's always going to be an impetus towards games in the former group doing better in these polls unless people who have heard of both kinds of games end up voting in it.
This year we saw what happens when people who know about both kinds of games voted, and it looked very different from Penny Arcade's voting. Your conclusion is that these people don't play as many games - they don't treat gaming as a hobby the way we Penny Arcaders do. My suggestion is that this is completely untrue. There are certainly Penny Arcaders who voted more or less like twitter did, with lots of indie games like Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Papers, Please, Kentucky Route Zero, and various Twine games outranking things like BioShock Infinite or The Last of Us - witness my votes, Dhalphir's votes, Veagle's votes, Behemoth's votes, Renzo's votes, SoundsPlush's votes, Drake's votes, Lawndart's votes, and god knows how many others in that thread (that was just from the first page).
In general, I think it's really unhelpful to think of these results as something like "the people at Penny Arcade who play lots of games decided BioShock Infinite and The Last of Us are better - that's much more sensible than all those weird twitter folk voting for the weird indie games. Penny Arcade is a bunch of gamers and those weird twitter folk only play weird indie games." That kind of attitude is not just untrue and exclusionary, it's damaging to the PA forums in terms of their openness. @mcc doesn't even post here anymore! She feels uncomfortable on these forums and only shows up once a year, like Santa Claus, except instead of bringing present boxes she brings ballot boxes. Do you want the PA forums to be the kind of place that excludes people like mcc, people who obviously love video games and play video games (and even make video games - her game was excluded this year like she always excludes her games, but she's a game developer, not just a game vote collator!)? Do you want the PA forums to turn into something like NeoGAF or RPG Codex, a bastion of "true" gamers who take every opportunity to assert that "true" games are better than obscure indie games that nobody gives a shit about? Or do you want the PA forums to be open to the kind of people who would rank Gone Home above BioShock Infinite? Having spent time at NeoGAF and RPG Codex, and having spent time on twitter among the sorts of people we're talking about here, I think I can safely say that I know what the answer to that question is, and the answer I would give is the sort of answer that explains why I would be very reluctant to post something like what you've posted, which suggests that it's only due to ignorance and just generally not playing a lot of games as a hobby (that is, only because they aren't "gamers") that the twitter people have voted like this.
Hey, I actually totally know about Depression Quest! I also know about The Stanley Parable and Cry$tal Warrior Ke$ha. I love TellTale's TWD.
I'm the opposite of a "serious" gamer though. I play games and I like them. I don't generally follow any gaming news, so I really wouldn't know who won what GOTY award anywhere outside of the PA forums. Pretty much all I know comes from this place, since it's one of the least toxic places of its kind that I know.
Sometimes I pick up something about a new cool game or two, mainstream or indie. Sometimes the most popular game of the year slips through the net.
Rather sad to see Dead Space 3 way, way down on the list. RIP.
And mcc just said she wants to expand the polling base for future polls to get inputs from several different communities. The poll base is only going to get more diverse.
Besides, this year's polling numbers from PA are about a third of the numbers we had when it was most popular. More respondents = more comprehensive results.
Another opinion is that Gone Home is not a game in any traditional sense of the word, and is instead closer to a audio drama, book, or movie.
The fact that the two groups rated Gone Home radically differently - to the point where Gone Home is not even in the PA Top 10 - shows pretty clearly that it targets a different audience.
Heck, there's only a few points of overlap between Twitter's Top 10 and PA's Top 10 : The Stanley Parable, Pokémon X and Y, and Saints Row IV.
That hints pretty strongly towards some sort of dramatic demographic difference.
Also, Bioshock Infinite's ending spoke pretty goddamn deeply to me as a father, so. You know. Opinions.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Well, so long as you don't want to see anything past the top 20, or ranked differently.
You do not need anyone to validate your list for you. It is ok to be parts of different demographics. We can only spend so much time and money on video games. Let's not be mean to each other about it. That would be stupid of us.
I'm a lame-o with a Vita who hasn't picked up Tearaway. I almost bit on it twice, and I keep hearing how good it is. It was on sale for $17 but by the time I decided on getting it, it was too late =/ Hopefully it gets another sale sometime soon, cause I will be all over that. I've heard alot of good things about the ending sequence.
Oh hey check this out http://vote.runhello.com/2013/penny_results.html
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
It was my #1 for the year, which is pretty great considering there was so much other quality stuff.
I think I had 5 or 6 Vita games on my top 10 list though. I love that handheld.
http://storify.com/TychoCelchuuu/j-chastain-on-the-definition-of-games
http://www.visitproteus.com/what-are-game/
http://www.gamedefinitions.com/
https://twitter.com/TheGamePolice
But I'm probably coming across as entitled now, which wasn't my intent, so I'll quit my bitching.
And just for fun, PA only:
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Well now, clearly this needs to be fixed
As for Crysis 3. Loved that game. Ran like ass after a few hours. It was definitely an improvement over 2. I need to jump back into that.
I'm sure the cutoff would have to be adjusted if it got big voting numbers. There's probably some meta statistic there, like raise the cutoff by 1 for every 100 voters. I play around with the number every year, but I want to say that 10 has worked every time.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.