GameFAQs Contests

Poll updates and trend charts for yesterday's poll:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lvUeBkxvskDI-ESmeb-bgq1JRK_HPlug1m4FqsLtt_k/pub?gid=1356421340

The trends in this poll were centered around 3 main options, with a 4th option also having fairly extreme trends (but with a much lower overall percentage). There were also 3 other options in this poll, none of which factored into the poll's overall trends.

"Just in the last hour or two" had a terrible board vote and Power Hour. It continued to maintain the terrible Power Hour throughout the entire night vote. After 7:00 AM, it began performing much better and had a slightly below average early morning vote and a slightly above average late morning vote. It performed best during the ASV, with its best hours located in the middle part of the ASV. The middle part of the ASV contains the hours which are associated with the proposed AWV (After Work Vote). This option performing best during the AWV hours makes logical sense because people getting home from work probably waited until getting home from work before voting in this poll. "Just in the last hour or two" started dropping off near the tail end of the ASV (heading into the SNV) and performed even worse during the SNV. Even the performance during the SNV was fairly average when compared to the final percentage.

"Earlier today" had a strong board vote and Power Hour. It still had a good night vote as a whole, even with the huge collapse during the dead zone hours. "Earlier today" performaned worst during the dead zone hours and early morning vote. The late morning vote was slightly better, but still fairly bad overall. When the ASV started, "Earlier today" began performing better, but it wasn't until the tail end of the ASV that it started showing signs of returning back to its Power Hour level strength. The final 3 hours of this poll were fairly similar to the Power Hour.

"Yesterday" had a bad board vote and Power Hour. Over the course of the night vote, it gradually grew stronger with its best hours happening during the dead zone and early morning vote. Starting with the late morning vote, it began losing strength hour by hour, a trend which continued for the rest of the poll. Overall, it still had a good late morning vote, while the ASV was terrible, and the SNV was even more terrible than the ASV.

"Sometime in the last week or two" had a fairly average board vote and Power Hour. It performed best during the night vote and early morning vote, while the late morning vote was fairly average. When the ASV started, it dropped off pretty hard and only recovered slightly during the SNV. Despite the boost it got during the SNV, it was still below average when compared to its final percentage.

"I'm outside right now", "More than a few weeks for me", and "I can't even remember" all had less than 3% in the final results and are not even worth talking about since they were completely unaffected by this poll's extreme trends and had fairly stable trends throughout the entire poll.


The other thing I want to talk about are the extreme percentage changes over the course of the poll, along with the multiple comeback attempts.

"Just in the last hour or two" gained a total of 11.68% over the course of this poll, starting from 26.81% at 12:15 AM and reaching a maximum percentage of 38.49% at 10:40 PM. Although most of the percentage gain happened between 7:30 AM and 9:00 AM, since this option's weakest time period was the first 7 hours of the poll.

(continued in next post)

"Earlier today" had a maximum percentage of 46.47% at 12:10 AM and lost a total of 23.21% to reach its lowest percentage of 23.26% at 2:25 PM. Yes, this option actually lost half of its total percentage during the poll. After reaching the low point at 2:25 PM, "Earlier today" went on to gain a total of 2.82% to finish with a final percentage of 26.08%.

"Yesterday" had its lowest percentage of 14.81% at 12:10 AM and went on to gain a total of 14.54% to reach its maximum percentage of 29.35% at 11:35 AM. After reaching its maximum percentage at 11:35 AM, "Yesterday" was bleeding percentage for the rest of the poll losing a total of 6.14% to finish with a final percentage of 23.21%.

"Sometime in the last week or two" reached its maximum percentage of 8.76% at 7:20 AM and lost a total of 1.70% for the rest of the poll, finishing with a final percentage of 7.06%.

The comeback attempts in this poll are centered on the 3 most popular options in this poll. The poll started off with "Earlier today" looking very strong and building up a lead overnight over "Just in the last hour or two" and "Yesterday". "Earlier today" built up a maximum lead of 424 over "Just in the last hour or two" at 3:35 AM before the comeback started. It took nearly 4 hours to wipe out the 424 vote lead and take the lead over "Earlier today" on the 8:15 AM update. After "Just in the last hour or two" took the lead over "Earlier today", it showed no signs of slowing down and spent the entire day reaching a maximum vote lead of 2332 at 9:25 PM before "Earlier today" spent the last 2 1/2 hours cutting off about 70 votes from that huge lead. Overall, there was a 2756 vote swing for "Just in the last hour or two" in this poll.

There were 2 other comeback attempts in this poll and they both involve the options "Earlier today" and "Yesterday". The poll starts off with "Earlier today" building up a maximum lead of 774 over "Yesterday" at 3:35 AM. With a maximum lead that is close to double of what it had on "Just in the last hour or two" (424 vote lead), there is no way that "Earlier today" blows a lead this large with how s***ty the vote totals are. Right?

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. A 774 vote lead with these vote totals is comparable to a 4408 vote lead if this poll had 2008 vote level totals. I had to calculate this based on what this poll would have gotten with 2008 level vote totals, then calculate how many votes this poll would have at 3:35 AM assuming 2008 level vote totals. This poll was estimated at 104728 votes in terms of 2008 level vote totals, with an estimate of 22505 votes at the 3:35 AM update. Based on historical trends from the contests, you generally feel safe with a 4000+ vote lead barring a rally or an extreme trend difference between the 2 games/characters.

That 774 vote lead vanished in about 5 1/2 hours and "Yesterday" took the lead over "Earlier today" at 9:00 AM. After that, "Yesterday" went on to reach a maximum vote lead of 668 over "Earlier today" at 2:25 PM. This 668 vote lead would translate to a 3800 vote lead in terms of 2008 level vote totals. To blow a 4408 vote lead, build up a 3800 vote lead of your own, and then blow that 3800 vote lead isn't something that will ever happen in a contest setting through natural trends. I do not know of any contest match-up where this can happen through natural trends. Having 2 different leads of 600+ votes being blown in yesterday's poll is a testament to how extreme the trends were in this poll. The 668 vote lead by "Yesterday" vanished in 6 1/2 hours, with the lead change happening at 8:55 PM. For the rest of the poll, "Earlier today" spent the final 3 hours of the poll reaching its final lead of 527 votes when the poll closed.

"Sometime in the last week out two, not that long."

"Not that long" says so much about this site.

My head would boil overif I didn't go outside st least once every day. Of course, there are only so few days I don't have to.

I get that, but I also work on some of my creative pursuits at home too so I still feel productive if I stay inside for a weekend...wish I had more weekends like that! It's good to get out too though.

A weekend inside is nothing like a week or two though.

Calling it now: Dark Souls 3 gets Game of the Year.

Pokemon S/M gets runner up.

I am tracking poll updates for today's poll since the poll map for the 2008 poll shows a very clear trend towards English speaking countries opening up presents on Christmas Morning, while non-English speaking countries prefers opening up presents on Christmas Eve or whenever they get their presents.

Polls for the remainder of 2016:

12/23/2016 - I don't know. Probably an original poll idea.
12/24/2016 - 'Twas the night before Christmas, and what are you doing?
12/25/2016 - What did you get for Christmas (or another December holiday)?
12/26/2016 - Got 3DS?
12/27/2016 - Got PlayStation 4?
12/28/2016 - Got Xbox One?
12/29/2016 - Got Smartphone?
12/30/2016 - Got a gaming-quality PC?
12/31/2016 - I don't know. Probably an original poll idea.

It's a shame we won't get to see another "Got Wii U?" poll to see if the Wii U can make it over 50% ownership. Although it's possible we might get a "Got Wii U?" poll during the July 2017 batch of the "Got Console?" polls. We always get a more condensed version of the "Got Console?" polls right after Christmas.

bump

Poll updates and trend charts from the poll 2 days ago:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FkUTl1oyup-QkdaVyky6lQal0D_uJjpz-ikrq_0gGno/pub?gid=872658637

"Whenever I receive them" performs best during the board vote and also has a good Power Hour and early morning vote. It easily performs worst during the SNV and has a below average night vote, late morning vote, and ASV.

"Christmas Eve" performs worst during the board vote and has a bad Power Hour and ASV. It performs best during the night vote, morning vote, and the SNV.

"Christmas Morning" has a bad Power Hour and performs even worst during the night vote. It performs best during the morning vote, ASV, and SNV.

"Christmas Afternoon/Evening" performs best during the board vote, Power Hour, and night vote. It performs worst during the morning vote, ASV, and SNV.

"I don't celebrate Christmas" performs best during the night vote and worst during the board vote, Power Hour, morning vote, and ASV.


On the poll maps, there is a very clear trend between countries where English is the official language vs. countries where English is not the official language. English speaking countries have a strong preference towards Christmas Morning, while non-English speaking countries prefer "Whenever I receive them", "Christmas Eve", or "I don't celebrate Christmas". Even within Canada (an English speaking country for the most part), Quebec is defiant towards the rest of the Canada in their preference for "Christmas Eve" over "Christmas Morning".

3DS ownership actually drops for the first time in the history of ownership polls for the 3DS. For reference, here are the 2 most recent 3DS ownership polls:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6559-
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6384-

Despite "Not yet, but maybe in 2017" from yesterday's poll having a very similar percentage to "Not yet, but maybe by the end of the year" in the July 2016 poll, almost no one who voted for "Not yet, but maybe by the end of the year" in the July 2016 poll actually got a 3DS since the ownership has actually fallen off slightly in the most recent poll.

3DS ownership drops from 72.03% to 71.63% between the July 2016 poll and yesterday's poll. Updated spreadsheet with the most recent ownership poll:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iMtyUuzmT5ggmYy-xbiGf7fcloXuhkQuu4ZIC2nGI4M/pub

What are people's thoughts on Tracer after the recent controversy? Is it expected to hurt how rallyable she is? Was she even rallyable to begin with?

I don't play Overwatch, so I'm not sure if that hurts her rally potential. Overwatch also suffers from the same issue that affects the rally potential of characters from League of Legends. In League, a lot of people have their own preferences for which champions they prefer to play, making it much more difficult for the overall community to put their support behind one character. Granted, they were successful with Draven because he had memes in his favor. Overwatch will also have a similar issue getting the community to get behind just one character.

I haven't checked the Overwatch subreddit to see if they have a ban on rallying (League subreddit has banned rallying already), so any potential chance of an Overwatch character winning the next Character Battle depends on this specific detail. Even without relying on the subreddit, Tumblr is another source of rallying that can't be suppressed by mods like a subreddit rally could.


Also, the stats topic archive only goes up to Part 1260 and we are currently on Part 1264 right now. Since we are getting near the end of this year, I would like to request an update to the archive to include Part 1261-1263 (whenever TRE sees this post).

I've uploaded parts 1261-1263.

http://challonge.com/pooterss

Bracket I made(128 games, 1v1), for potential 2017 Games Contest! Check it out:

Here's the number 1 seeds I picked:

1) Undertale, Super Smash Bros. Melee, League of Legends, Super Mario 64, Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow, Legend of Zelda: OOT, Final Fantasy 7, Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Why do you think we might have a 2017 Games Contest? We haven't had a Character Battle since 2013, so that's what I'm expecting for the next contest.

-LusterSoldier- posted...

Why do you think we might have a 2017 Games Contest? We haven't had a Character Battle since 2013, so that's what I'm expecting for the next contest.

You're right about the next contest probably not being games but... I just love talking about potential games brackets!

Overwatch and Undertale are huge games right now

I enabled predictions for my challonge bracket too

I'd guess Undertale would go the L-Block route and be a low midcarder at best, probably lower than that. I don't see a rally taking off for it.

I also get the feeling Overwatch's characters would get more popularity than the game itself, though that doesn't mean the game wouldn't be rallied to a win. still, I'd honestly pick Tracer as my favorite to win the next character battle if it happens in 2017. Her outing and the delight of spiting misogynists and the usual Board 8 whiners will drive Tumblr for sure, and the Overwatch subreddit will likely run with things as well.

Should be a fun contest!

https://www.reddit.com/r/overwatch/wiki/rules

Trying to predict whether the Reddit rallies or doesn't seem to depends on their rules. It seems that if regular Reddit posters link to our polls, they aren't going to get stopped. They would delete a rally if they felt that it was the only reason that poster came to the site.

My main concern about Overwatch was that it dropped right into a hiatus between contests, and I was wondering if it would still be popular by the time we get to the next contest. However, it sure still seems to be relevant months later, so it's still not a bad choice to get behind. And yeah, people getting butthurt over Tracer is only going to help Tracer should it happens.

-LusterSoldier- posted...

Polls for the remainder of 2016:

12/31/2016 - I don't know. Probably an original poll idea.

Found out tomorrow's poll will be "How do you plan to ring in the New Year?". I didn't discover that at first since the last time we had that poll was way back in 2006.


In slightly over 24 hours from now, we will start the GotY polls.

Hey, something to finally talk about!

Too bad this is a pretty weak year as far as games GameFAQs would be interested in.

Not_Wylvane posted...

Hey, something to finally talk about!

Too bad this is a pretty weak year as far as games GameFAQs would be interested in.

You could probably say that about every year since the PS2 era began, and it's probably only going to get worse.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4086-east-division-round-1-warcraft-iii-vs-morrowind
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6085-best-game-ever-day-9-okami-vs-warcraft-iii

Two of the greatest polls in site history. Worst game ever made getting s*** on.

Not_Wylvane posted...

Too bad this is a pretty weak year as far as games GameFAQs would be interested in.

I'd probably say 2016 is a weaker year for games than 2015. For 2015, we had the following notable games:

Batman: Arkham Knight
Bloodborne
Fallout 4
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Undertale
Xenoblade Chronicles X

The only thing really saving 2016 from being the worst year ever for games would be Final Fantasy XV. Without that game, 2016 is a clear dead last out of every year we've had GotY polls.

These posts were from about a year ago:

spooky96 posted...

Our vote totals only fell by 2000 this year.

Not bad.

-LusterSoldier- posted...

Closer to 3000, actually. At the start of this year, we were around 23000 votes on average and this has dropped down to about 20000 votes. I assume at some point, vote totals are going to stabilize and not drop any farther. Until we see fairly consistent monthly vote totals for a period of at least 48 months (2 years), I will avoid making any statements about whether or not our vote totals have finally hit rock bottom and are unable to go any lower.

spooky96 posted...

Yeah we're definitely closing in on hitting the rock bottom vote totals, 48 months sound about right where we'll probably end up with 14000 - 17,000 stabilized vote totals.

1 year later, our average vote totals are currently around 15500 (it started around 20000 at the start of this year). So our vote totals just continue to keep declining. I suspect we're getting close to reaching the stabilization point for our vote totals. With our vote totals down even more since the end of 2015, it's a safe bet that our next contest will have lower average vote totals than the last contest (ignoring the Undertale matches and rally spillover matches, which inflate the average vote totals of the last contest).

@swirIdude @AxemRedRanger @pjbasis @abdou @foxhead84 @red_sox_777 @charmander6000 @KamikazePotato @Ngamer64 @CaptainOfCrush

Alright guys, it's time for the GotY polls. Let's get the GotY discussion up and running. I only mentioned users who haven't posted in this topic in over a month (though I'm limited to only 10 mentions per post).

My predictions for the GotY poll winners:

PlayStation 4 - Final Fantasy XV
Xbox One - Dark Souls III
Wii U - Pokken Tournament
PC - Overwatch
3DS - Pokemon Sun/Moon
Vita - I have no idea. I know nothing about what games were on the Vita this year.
Mobile - Pokemon GO

Early results so far...

I am impressed that Uncharted 4 is keeping it close against FFXV. Even though FFXV is a multiplatform game, it is far more popular on PS4 than Xbox One, so I wasn't expecting it to lose to Uncharted 4 (despite UC4 being the PS4's major exclusive of 2016).

I believe multiplatform games perform better in the overall GotY poll than the platform polls. If FF15 can stay competitive here it really only needs to worry about Pokemon SM and external rallies.

disappointing (so far) showing by FFXV and I am not surprised at all, and even happy. That game was awful. Uncharted 4 is one of those games that do a lot better in GoTY polls than actual contests right? I would didn't even consider Uncharted 4>FFXV in a contest match. And then there is The Last Guardian, I didn't expect much but losing to Odin Sphere...? that's reaaaly bad. I remember people buying PS3 for that game.

Team Rocket Elite posted...

I believe multiplatform games perform better in the overall GotY poll than the platform polls. If FF15 can stay competitive here it really only needs to worry about Pokemon SM and external rallies.

You are correct about multiplatform games performing better in the overall GotY poll vs. their respective platform polls. It was the only reason why Uncharted 4 had any chance of winning of the PS4 poll. Although that didn't matter today since FFXV is far more popular on the PS4 than the Xbox One.

http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/GameFAQs_Site_Traffic

Year|Average votes|% annual change
1999 4408
2000 7062 60.21%
2001 14019 98.51%
2002 34435 145.63%
2003 55397 60.87%
2004 54598 -1.44%
2005 56643 3.75%
2006 74644 31.78%
2007 87908 17.77%
2008 91112 3.64%
2009 85797 -5.83%
2010 72588 -15.40%
2011 56882 -21.64%
2012 42981 -24.44%
2013 36506 -15.06%
2014 27323 -25.15%
2015 21162 -22.55%
2016 17750 -16.12% (Very rough estimate. I used the average of 20,000 and 15,500 Luster just mentioned. Luster himself can probably give us the actual numbers before long.)

That's a fairly consistent ~15-25% annual decline in votals since the end of 2009.

If PotD vote totals weren't enough, the number of online users regularly using the boards at any given time has dropped off significantly since 2010. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of online users would regularly go over 7000 during the peak hours. After 2010, the number of online users has really dropped off. As of 2013, getting over 5000 online users is very uncommon, with 4000 to 4500 users online during the most active part of the day (8:00-11:00 PM EST).

Hmmm.

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/

It shows what http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/ looked like at random times for several days for almost every month from December 2008 onwards. Seems like at the times they used the peak was a bit over 6,000 back during 2008 - 2010 (it probably did get to 7,000 at times but wasn't able to sustain this for long or else it should have been caught at least once) and was a bit over 3,000 for 2016. Still a notable decline but not nearly as severe as the votals would indicate.

I don't suppose anyone's been tracking data on this in a more reliable or in-depth way?

AxemRedRanger posted...

(Very rough estimate. I used the average of 20,000 and 15,500 Luster just mentioned. Luster himself can probably give us the actual numbers before long.)

That's a fairly consistent ~15-25% annual decline in votals since the end of 2009.

I can provide an update on the state of our vote totals.

Year | Average | Percent Increase/Decrease:
1999 | 4408 |
2000 | 7062 | 60.21%
2001 | 14019 | 98.51%
2002 | 34435 | 145.63%
2003 | 55397 | 60.87%
2004 | 54598 | -1.44%
2005 | 56643 | 3.75%
2006 | 74644 | 31.78%
2007 | 87908 | 17.77%
2008 | 91112 | 3.64%
2009 | 85797 | -5.83%
2010 | 72588 | -15.40%
2011 | 56882 | -21.64%
2012 | 42981 | -24.44%
2013 | 36506 | -15.06%
2014 | 27323 | -25.15%
2015 | 21162 | -22.55%
2016 | 17492 | -17.34%

I know Overwatch is seen more as a PC game, but its performance here is pretty bad, it may not be a factor in GotY unless there are rallies.

1271 votes at the end of the first hour. I guess this poll is on track for about 12000 to 14000 votes. Most of the other GotY polls should get even less votes than the PS4 GotY. We should see at least 1 GotY poll with less than 10000 votes (probably the Mobile and Vita polls).

Overwatch performing bad in this poll isn't too surprising, since the PC version is the most popular. I guess Overwatch should at least win the PC GotY poll.

I linked this in the other topic as well:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6381-now-that-the-first-half-of-2016-is-over-what-is-your-pick

Without rallies, Overwatch was never going to be a GotY threat. Overwatch's PS4 performance is pretty bad, though. It should do a lot better in the PC poll.

Team Rocket Elite posted...

Without rallies, Overwatch was never going to be a GotY threat. Overwatch's PS4 performance is pretty bad, though. It should do a lot better in the PC poll.

In the overall GotY, I expect Overwatch to perform better compared to the PC GotY poll since the overall GotY poll will allow Overwatch to pull in votes from everyone who has played Overwatch, regardless of what system they have played it on. With the current GotY format, we've seen that voters won't vote for a game they've played if it was on a system they didn't play it on. Thus, PC owners of Overwatch aren't expected to vote for the game in a PS4 or Xbox One GotY poll since they didn't play the game on those 2 systems. The overall GotY poll solves that issue by bringing in voters from every single system that Overwatch was released on.

Ratchet & Clank and Titanfall 2 are the best games on this list. As usual, GameFAQs disagrees with me.

Is FFXV going to be on the Xbox One poll?

I'm assuming we're not going to have a multiplatform poll.

Dragon Age: Inquisition was on and won both PS4 and XB1 polls in 2014.

I'm really struggling to think of Wii U games that came out this year besides Star Fox.

There's gotta be something else I'm missing.

pjbasis posted...

I'm really struggling to think of Wii U games that came out this year besides Star Fox.

There's gotta be something else I'm missing.

Twilight Princess HD, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Pokken Tournament, Paper Mario: Color Splash, Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

No wonder I didn't remember any. Star Fox could actually win that, and I expect it to be exceedingly weak.

FFXII loses to Uncharted 2 right? So XV is at least better than that.

Was Pokken Tournament 2016?

I am looking at the vote totals and I want to cry

pjbasis posted...

FFXII loses to Uncharted 2 right? So XV is at least better than that.

I don't think it does, actually. Uncharted 2 did not look good last contest.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6124-best-game-ever-day-19-round-2-sonic-the-hedgehog-2-vs
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6138-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-final-fantasy-xii-vs-zelda

Sonic 2/Uncharted 2 was an Undertale match day so U2 is a little underrated there but Sonic 2 is so far from being in the Game of Last Decade's league that I don't think it matters.

I'm also not buying Uncharted 4 being as strong as 2.

HaRRicH posted...

Was Pokken Tournament 2016?

Yes.

Star Fox Zero is a bad game and it will be disappointing if it wins.

@AxemRedRanger

AxemRedRanger posted...

That's a fairly consistent ~15-25% annual decline in votals since the end of 2009.

We've had a total of 7 consecutive years of vote totals declining by 15% or more every year compared to the previous year. I think maintaining that trend would be quite difficult now that our vote totals are so low at this point, so it gives me hope that we'll see vote totals stabilizing quite soon. I still think 2017 will be another decline in average vote totals compared to 2016, especially considering we ended 2016 averaging about 15500 votes at the time. Let's just assume we averaged 15500 votes for all of 2017. An average of 15500 votes for all of 2017 is a decline of only 11.39%, a smaller decline than our usual 15-25% declines for the past 7 years.

Another thing that I thought of is how long would it take for our average vote totals to fall below 10000 if vote totals continued to decline by exactly 15% every year. Let's find out.

Year | Average | Percent Increase/Decrease:
2016 | 17492 |
2017 | 14868 | -15.00%
2018 | 12638 | -15.00%
2019 | 10742 | -15.00%
2020 | 9131 | -15.00%

Based on this, it's expected that we would fall below 10000 votes in early 2020, I'm guessing. This is only if we can maintain the 15% decline in vote totals every single year, which I think would be almost impossible.

Hell yeah, goty polls. I legitimately enjoy them.