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A Game of the Year Poll 2008 [RESULTS]
mcc
glitchRegistered User, ClubPA regular
glitchRegistered User, ClubPA regular
Click here to see the full pretty color-coded results but
1. Fallout 3 (8780) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
2. Left 4 Dead (6626)
3. Grand Theft Auto 4 (5032)
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (4321)
5. Rock Band 2 (3290)
6. Dead Space (3151)
7. Gears of War 2 (2942)
8. Fable 2 (2751)
9. Braid (2729)
10. Metal Gear Solid 4 (2666)
11. Little Big Planet (2520)
12. No More Heroes (2241)
13. Audiosurf (2152)
14. Castle Crashers (2083)
15. Valkyria Chronicles (2027)
16. Mario Kart Wii (2014)
17. The World Ends with You (2000)
18. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (1914)
19. Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Ep. 1 (1910)
20. Sins of a Solar Empire (1850)
The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll’s ranking system. (The scores in general were a lot closer than last year–basically all the rankings 14-18 are within a couple votes of each other!) 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 2008:
#1, Fallout 3
* Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:
#4, Super Smash Bros. Brawl
* Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:
#7, Gears of War 2
* Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:
#10, Metal Gear Solid 4
* Top-ranked PC Exclusive:
#13, Audiosurf
* Top-ranked DS Exclusive:
#17, The World Ends With You
* Top-ranked PSP Exclusive:
#39, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
* Best RPG:
#1, Fallout 3
* Best FPS:
#2, Left 4 Dead
* Best Sports Game:
#27, Burnout Paradise
* Best Game Only Available Through A Console Download Service:
#8, Braid
* Special “Cult” Award (see below):
#26, Persona 4 & #15, Valkyria Chronicles (Tie)
NOTEWORTHY LOSERS
* Best game of 2008 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #33, Spore
* Worst game of 2008 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #179, Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Only two people voted for this)
* Worst game of 2008: #203, Mystery Case Files: MillionHEIR (Only one person voted for this; it was their #20 pick)
There were also ten games which were listed, but which no one voted for at all.
ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS
The rankings listed above are based on what was intended to be an approximation of Condorcet voting, but which I’m told is actually closer to the Borda count. In my Borda-ish 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 post votes they got, we get a wildly different list:
First Past the Post
1. Fallout 3 (182 first-place votes)
2. Left 4 Dead (109)
3. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (42)
4. Metal Gear Solid 4 (42)
5. Valkyria Chronicles (39)
6. Persona 4 (39)
7. Grand Theft Auto 4 (35)
8. Dead Space (31)
9. Rock Band 2 (30)
10. The World Ends with You (30)
11. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (30)
12. Gears of War 2 (23)
13. Little Big Planet (21)
14. No More Heroes (19)
15. Braid (15)
16. World of Goo (14)
17. Spelunky (12)
18. Sins of a Solar Empire (11)
19. Fable 2 (10)
20. Prince of Persia (10)
Every year when we do this there’s some game which scores horribly low in the objective rankings but gets a really startling proportion of first-place votes; last year the standout game in the “cult” department was Persona 3; this year the standout was, interestingly enough, Persona 4, which only got 87 votes at all, placing it at #26 in the overall rankings– but nearly half of those votes, a full 39, ranked it in first place, putting it in sixth place in the First Past the Post ranking above. Tying Persona 4 in the First Past the Post ranking is Valkyria Chronicles, which did a little better in terms of how many people voted for it (117 votes) but which still gets a pretty great cult ranking since one in three of those voters considered it their #1 game. (Honorable mention in the cult category should probably go to “Spelunky“, a wildly obscure but kind of awesome freeware pixel art game released in the last two weeks of December, which came in way down at 51st place in the overall rankings but managed to come in 17th in first-pace votes– with again nearly one-third of the people who voted for Spelunky at all rating it #1.)
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. Most years I’ve ever done this the Instant Runoff and pseudo-Borda rankings have been almost the same, but this time they were actually a bit different (with the biggest difference being, for some reason I don’t understand, World of Goo somehow jumping a good seven spots in the rankings?!). Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the normal rankings:
Approval
1. Fallout 3 (488)
2. Left 4 Dead (388)
3. Grand Theft Auto 4 (325)
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (266)
5. Rock Band 2 (205)
6. Dead Space (204)
7. Braid (187)
8. Gears of War 2 (185)
9. Fable 2 (184)
10. Audiosurf (161)
11. Little Big Planet (161)
12. Metal Gear Solid 4 (161)
13. Castle Crashers (160)
14. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1 (176)
15. No More Heroes (155)
16. Mario Kart Wii (148)
17. The World Ends with You (129)
18. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (128)
19. Mega Man 9 (124)
20. Sins of a Solar Empire (122)
IRV
1. Fallout 3
2. Left 4 Dead
3. Grand Theft Auto 4
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
5. Dead Space
6. Rock Band 2
7. Gears of War 2
8. Fable 2
9. Braid
10. Metal Gear Solid 4
11. Little Big Planet
12. Castle Crashers
13. Mario Kart Wii
14. No More Heroes
15. World of Goo
16. AudioSurf
17. The World Ends with You
18. Valkyria Chronicles
19. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1
20. Sins of a Solar Empire
FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS
This poll basically exists for PA and a couple of PA treehouses. Since last year when I started crossposting the results on my blog, I’ve tried to actually run some extra results, in each case counting only those voters who– as far as one could tell from looking at the logs– had come to the poll from one particular forum or other.
So, here that is– these numbers aren’t totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but here’s an approximate by-forum breakdown of these results. (The Penny Arcade results are almost identical to the normal results.) Links go to color-coded full listings.
Penny Arcade Forums (806 voters)
1. Fallout 3
2. Left 4 Dead
3. Grand Theft Auto 4
4. Super Smash Bros Brawl
5. Rock Band 2
6. Dead Space
7. Braid
8. Gears of War 2
9. Fable 2
10. Metal Gear Solid 4
11. Little Big Planet
12. AudioSurf
13. Mario Kart Wii
14. Castle Crashers
15. No More Heroes
16. Valkyria Chronicles
17. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
18. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1
19. The World Ends with You
20. Sins of a Solar Empire
Platformers (42 voters)
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2. Fallout 3
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
5. No More Heroes
6. Persona 4
7. Mega Man 9
8. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
9. The World Ends with You
10. AudioSurf
11. Grand Theft Auto 4
12. World of Goo
13. Dead Space
14. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
15. Metal Gear Solid 4
16. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
17. Little Big Planet
18. Rock Band 2
19. Tales of Vesperia
20. Braid
360Arcadians (37 voters)
1. Fallout 3
2. Grand Theft Auto 4
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Gears of War 2
5. Rock Band 2
6. Metal Gear Solid 4
7. Fable 2
8. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
9. Little Big Planet
10. Dead Space
11. Saints Row 2
12. Sins of a Solar Empire
13. Burnout Paradise
14. Prince of Persia
15. Valkyria Chronicles
16. Castle Crashers
17. NHL 09
18. Lost Odyssey
19. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1
20. Civilization Revolution
Mechanically Separated Meat (6 voters)
1. Super Smash Bros Brawl
2. Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage
3. Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix
4. Mega Man 9
5. World of Goo
6. Trauma Center: Under the Knife
7. The World Ends with You
8. Iji
9. Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden Hourglass
10. Fallout 3
1. Fallout 3 (8780) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
2. Left 4 Dead (6626)
3. Grand Theft Auto 4 (5032)
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (4321)
5. Rock Band 2 (3290)
6. Dead Space (3151)
7. Gears of War 2 (2942)
8. Fable 2 (2751)
9. Braid (2729)
10. Metal Gear Solid 4 (2666)
11. Little Big Planet (2520)
12. No More Heroes (2241)
13. Audiosurf (2152)
14. Castle Crashers (2083)
15. Valkyria Chronicles (2027)
16. Mario Kart Wii (2014)
17. The World Ends with You (2000)
18. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (1914)
19. Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Ep. 1 (1910)
20. Sins of a Solar Empire (1850)
The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll’s ranking system. (The scores in general were a lot closer than last year–basically all the rankings 14-18 are within a couple votes of each other!) 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 2008:
#1, Fallout 3
* Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:
#4, Super Smash Bros. Brawl
* Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:
#7, Gears of War 2
* Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:
#10, Metal Gear Solid 4
* Top-ranked PC Exclusive:
#13, Audiosurf
* Top-ranked DS Exclusive:
#17, The World Ends With You
* Top-ranked PSP Exclusive:
#39, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
* Best RPG:
#1, Fallout 3
* Best FPS:
#2, Left 4 Dead
* Best Sports Game:
#27, Burnout Paradise
* Best Game Only Available Through A Console Download Service:
#8, Braid
* Special “Cult” Award (see below):
#26, Persona 4 & #15, Valkyria Chronicles (Tie)
NOTEWORTHY LOSERS
* Best game of 2008 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #33, Spore
* Worst game of 2008 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #179, Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Only two people voted for this)
* Worst game of 2008: #203, Mystery Case Files: MillionHEIR (Only one person voted for this; it was their #20 pick)
There were also ten games which were listed, but which no one voted for at all.
ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS
The rankings listed above are based on what was intended to be an approximation of Condorcet voting, but which I’m told is actually closer to the Borda count. In my Borda-ish 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 post votes they got, we get a wildly different list:
First Past the Post
1. Fallout 3 (182 first-place votes)
2. Left 4 Dead (109)
3. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (42)
4. Metal Gear Solid 4 (42)
5. Valkyria Chronicles (39)
6. Persona 4 (39)
7. Grand Theft Auto 4 (35)
8. Dead Space (31)
9. Rock Band 2 (30)
10. The World Ends with You (30)
11. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (30)
12. Gears of War 2 (23)
13. Little Big Planet (21)
14. No More Heroes (19)
15. Braid (15)
16. World of Goo (14)
17. Spelunky (12)
18. Sins of a Solar Empire (11)
19. Fable 2 (10)
20. Prince of Persia (10)
Every year when we do this there’s some game which scores horribly low in the objective rankings but gets a really startling proportion of first-place votes; last year the standout game in the “cult” department was Persona 3; this year the standout was, interestingly enough, Persona 4, which only got 87 votes at all, placing it at #26 in the overall rankings– but nearly half of those votes, a full 39, ranked it in first place, putting it in sixth place in the First Past the Post ranking above. Tying Persona 4 in the First Past the Post ranking is Valkyria Chronicles, which did a little better in terms of how many people voted for it (117 votes) but which still gets a pretty great cult ranking since one in three of those voters considered it their #1 game. (Honorable mention in the cult category should probably go to “Spelunky“, a wildly obscure but kind of awesome freeware pixel art game released in the last two weeks of December, which came in way down at 51st place in the overall rankings but managed to come in 17th in first-pace votes– with again nearly one-third of the people who voted for Spelunky at all rating it #1.)
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. Most years I’ve ever done this the Instant Runoff and pseudo-Borda rankings have been almost the same, but this time they were actually a bit different (with the biggest difference being, for some reason I don’t understand, World of Goo somehow jumping a good seven spots in the rankings?!). Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the normal rankings:
Approval
1. Fallout 3 (488)
2. Left 4 Dead (388)
3. Grand Theft Auto 4 (325)
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (266)
5. Rock Band 2 (205)
6. Dead Space (204)
7. Braid (187)
8. Gears of War 2 (185)
9. Fable 2 (184)
10. Audiosurf (161)
11. Little Big Planet (161)
12. Metal Gear Solid 4 (161)
13. Castle Crashers (160)
14. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1 (176)
15. No More Heroes (155)
16. Mario Kart Wii (148)
17. The World Ends with You (129)
18. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (128)
19. Mega Man 9 (124)
20. Sins of a Solar Empire (122)
IRV
1. Fallout 3
2. Left 4 Dead
3. Grand Theft Auto 4
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
5. Dead Space
6. Rock Band 2
7. Gears of War 2
8. Fable 2
9. Braid
10. Metal Gear Solid 4
11. Little Big Planet
12. Castle Crashers
13. Mario Kart Wii
14. No More Heroes
15. World of Goo
16. AudioSurf
17. The World Ends with You
18. Valkyria Chronicles
19. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1
20. Sins of a Solar Empire
FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS
This poll basically exists for PA and a couple of PA treehouses. Since last year when I started crossposting the results on my blog, I’ve tried to actually run some extra results, in each case counting only those voters who– as far as one could tell from looking at the logs– had come to the poll from one particular forum or other.
So, here that is– these numbers aren’t totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but here’s an approximate by-forum breakdown of these results. (The Penny Arcade results are almost identical to the normal results.) Links go to color-coded full listings.
Penny Arcade Forums (806 voters)
1. Fallout 3
2. Left 4 Dead
3. Grand Theft Auto 4
4. Super Smash Bros Brawl
5. Rock Band 2
6. Dead Space
7. Braid
8. Gears of War 2
9. Fable 2
10. Metal Gear Solid 4
11. Little Big Planet
12. AudioSurf
13. Mario Kart Wii
14. Castle Crashers
15. No More Heroes
16. Valkyria Chronicles
17. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
18. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1
19. The World Ends with You
20. Sins of a Solar Empire
Platformers (42 voters)
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2. Fallout 3
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
5. No More Heroes
6. Persona 4
7. Mega Man 9
8. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
9. The World Ends with You
10. AudioSurf
11. Grand Theft Auto 4
12. World of Goo
13. Dead Space
14. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
15. Metal Gear Solid 4
16. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
17. Little Big Planet
18. Rock Band 2
19. Tales of Vesperia
20. Braid
360Arcadians (37 voters)
1. Fallout 3
2. Grand Theft Auto 4
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Gears of War 2
5. Rock Band 2
6. Metal Gear Solid 4
7. Fable 2
8. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
9. Little Big Planet
10. Dead Space
11. Saints Row 2
12. Sins of a Solar Empire
13. Burnout Paradise
14. Prince of Persia
15. Valkyria Chronicles
16. Castle Crashers
17. NHL 09
18. Lost Odyssey
19. Penny Arcade Adventures ep.1
20. Civilization Revolution
Mechanically Separated Meat (6 voters)
1. Super Smash Bros Brawl
2. Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage
3. Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix
4. Mega Man 9
5. World of Goo
6. Trauma Center: Under the Knife
7. The World Ends with You
8. Iji
9. Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden Hourglass
10. Fallout 3
mcc on
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Posts
edit:
Or maybe I'm going crazy.... still GTA IV is in the wrong place in the Approval rundown list. Nice work an all. Still kinda shocked that Fallout 3 won.
EDIT: I'm a little surprised that GTAIV placed so high given how often it seems to get slammed, both here and on other forums I post at.
Well done gentlemen. Well done indeed.
Oblivion was no. 3, and that's the highest we've ever had an RPG, I expected similar from Fallout 3.
Random other thoughts:
Rook: good catch. But I caught it first MWAHAHAHA
I never posted it in the other thread, but how I personally voted was: 1. Mega Man 9, 2. World of Goo, 3. The World Ends with You, 4. Lost Winds, 5. Orbient, 6. Professor Layton, 7. KORG DS-10, 8. No More Heroes, 9. Dragon Quest Swords, 10. Spelunky, 11. Blast Works, 12. Boom Blox. My choices were not popular this year :O Although I find it odd that for some reason out of my top two choices, one made the top 20 in IRV scoring and the other made the top 20 in approval scoring-- but neither made it into the normal top 20. Hm.
This year had a lot of surprises in general and I'm particularly weirded out by how incredibly different the FTTP list is from the normal list.
645 I'm gonna try to set up your "cult count" ranking tomorrow, right now I'm just too sleepy.
15 is totally respectable
Yikes, fixed. (I'd uploaded a broken version of the color-coded results initially, before.)
EDIT: Also, Rook, checking, the approval voting order is correct, it's the scores that are a little off in that one section. I'll fix that later.
EDIT EDIT: Yeesh, thanks to EvilBadman and everyone else pointing out the errors in the writeup here. Maybe I should have waited until morning to post this
mcc is the ruler.
Switch - SW-3699-5063-5018
Also, this list is pretty much how I expected it to be.
Games I voted for which got into the top 20: Left 4 Dead, Brawl, Mario Kart.
No mention of my #1, De Blob, but considering how different my gaming tastes are to those of the majority, I wasn't expecting anything.
In my 3DS: Super Smash Bros, AC New Leaf
Last game completed: Steamworld Dig
It came in 84th place. It was the top-ranked game with an iPhone version!
I mean, MGS gets fucking slammed round here, I thought everyone generally loved LBP.
Happy Valkyria Chronicles did well though, the little game that could!
Sometimes I Stream Games: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/italax-plays-video-games
I'M PART OF THE PROBLEM
Sometimes I Stream Games: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/italax-plays-video-games
Incidentally, I find it kinda funny there's like a 4-way tie for 10th place there ^_^
(Other random interjection: Was anyone else surprised by the relatively strong showing of Sins of a Solar Empire?)
http://dr.jeebus.sydlexia.com - Updated daily, Monday through Thursday
2008: Persona 4, ranked 26 with 39 first place votes.
I don't know if this a testament to the popularity of the poll or the series. I guess I can live with being tied for 5th in first place votes.
Yeah, though if I didn't already know the forum's consensus view on the game, and only had the game itself to go by, I would have predicted it as not even making the top 20. But I saw the nerdgasms it caused here, and how close to the end of the year the release date was, and knew it was destined for the top spot.
I knew Brawl would rank high. I didn't vote for it at all, as I felt it was just Super Street Fighter 2 to Melee's Street Fighter 2.
I'm kinda surprised POP beat out Mirror's Edge (albeit barely), as much as POP is slammed for being such a cakewalk.
heh, I am amused. Also Condemned 2 at 80? Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.
edit: also, Worst Game of 2007? A possible typo?
It was a sucky game
The surprise is that its not doing sucky. 33 on this list is not "sucky." Especially when that puts it above totally sweet games like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, DMC4, Ninja Gaiden 2, and Bionic Commando Rearmed.
That is far too good for a poorly made tech demo
GTA4 is another surprise, but the voting trends there seem to make sense--its a "good" game to a lot of people, but not everyone's #1 pick.
DS had some strong games all year, and maybe that hurt all their rankings, but I had hoped they would place higher. I guess consoles are where "top games" generally come from though. I want to know who voted Kirby Superstar Ultra as their top pick--you are my new friend.
Heh, Haze at 200.
As usual, I tend to agree with them as a general matter.
Not unsurprisingly, the results are very, very diverse - there were so many good games out this year with such a wide range of appeal, that many of the top games in the ranking were extremely close in votes to each other.
If there's one thing I wish there were more of in the top games, it would be Nintendo DS games. The system had some truly awesome games. But I can't really complain, considering there was just such a huge number of other awesome games taking up every top slot already. (edit: Aw, man, Ecclesia at 28! I wish it were higher :P) - edit2: Oh, owch! Bangai-O Spirits at 108!?!? boo!
Thanks once again, MCC! You're the best!
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I mean, Fable II, Braid, MGS4, and LBP all basically tied.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I'm doing excellent shopping.
My GOTY.
I think 2966 for MGS4 should be 2666 or 2566 for it to be #10.
Alternatively, if it's "points" total is 2966, shouldn't it be higher than Gears 2?
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Well, at least it's nice to see Sins of a Solar Empire and World of Goo quite high on the charts.