Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1374

I had a dream that we discovered a Games Contest bracket Allen had been working on before he resigned

I'd even take that at this point

@SBAllen now that you are a private citizen do you have any cool behind-the-scenes peeks at contests ideas you pitched?

That would be lovely if he would. Fingers crossed.

The percentage of people without a local game store in the last four years has doubled according to today’s poll. I am one of those newly without one, in fact dedicated games retailers left my entire country this year. From the map this isn’t the only place that happened

LightningStrikes posted...

The percentage of people without a local game store in the last four years has doubled according to today’s poll. I am one of those newly without one, in fact dedicated games retailers left my entire country this year. From the map this isn’t the only place that happened

Sucks to hear, but ordering stuff online is just easier, faster, and more reliable these days. Gamestop, for example, was a cascade of pushy sales bulls*** and underhanded garbage. I don’t deal with any of that when something just pops up in my mailbox.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Sucks to hear, but ordering stuff online is just easier, faster, and more reliable these days. Gamestop, for example, was a cascade of pushy sales bulls*** and underhanded garbage. I don’t deal with any of that when something just pops up in my mailbox.

This is a very good point that is quite true but I haven't consciously thought about.

Ordering online in the UK has been cheaper and faster since the mid 2000's. Buying from shops was always more expensive and you had to wait until the official release day. There were of course the back street game shops that would sell you stuff a few days early but their prices couldn't really compete with online either.

Somebody didn't bother to update the poll options from when this was last run in 2021

There could be someone who is two years late on their Christmas shopping!

bump?

With the year almost over, how do we think the strongest games of the year rank on this site. TotK being #1 should be clear but what about afterwards.

I expect LoZ:TotK to win...but BG3 seems to be legit with most people who played it and it just won big at the Game Awards.

Not that these things always matter on GaneFAQs, but I do think it's going to impress.

HaRRicH posted...

and it just won big at the Game Awards.

So did Last of Us 2, that part doesn't matter.

I do think it will do well though

1. TotK
2. BG3
3. SMBW
4. RE4make
5. FF16
6. Spider-Man 2

Think that looks about right?

Edit: Guess there's also Super Mario RPG remake, but that feels like less of a separate game than RE4make. Hogwarts Legacy would beat Starfield for a distant(?) 7th.

TotK is going to SFF SMBW into the ground so unfortunately we won't be able to get to see how strong Wonder is. SMRPG will be able to avoid that a bit since it goes in the remake poll.

Baldur's Gate should at least be stronger than Last of Us right? It's an rpg!

But Zelda gonna Zelda all over this

There's a lot of room between TLoU2 and TotK.

The question is if TotK breaks 50% in the general final

I think there's a better chance of BG3 outright winning than TotK breaking 50% in the general final.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9234-at-the-halfway-mark-whats-your-pick-for-the-best-game-of

Here? I get Baldur's Gate 3 was a big deal but it takes a lot for Zelda not to win here.

KamikazePotato posted...

I think there's a better chance of BG3 outright winning than TotK breaking 50% in the general final.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6953-best-of-2017-game-of-the-year

Breaking 50% can be challenging in a multi way poll. At the very least RE4R will be there along with the strongest among FF16, BG2 and Spider-man 2. Maybe SMRPG as well. Probably Starfield too since I don't think it has much competition in the "new series" poll.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9234-at-the-halfway-mark-whats-your-pick-for-the-best-game-of

Here? I get Baldur's Gate 3 was a big deal but it takes a lot for Zelda not to win here.

BG3 winning means it got an external rally for some reason. I'm not sure what scenario would lead to TotK breaking 50%. It's hard to start a rally off "it isn't winning by enough".

Well, Breath of the Wild almost got 50% against a bigger final field than Tears of the Kingdom will be facing.

If just Baldur and one of Spiderman/RE4/FF16 makes it to the end, I don't think Tears of the Kingdom gets 50% on both of those.

Well, unfortunately, the last few years, it's been New Franchise vs. Sequel/Spinoff vs. Remake/Remaster in the finals

So I guess BG3 can take advantage of LFF and beat Zelda, but otherwise it's going to be Zelda vs. RE4 vs. Whatever new franchise came out this year

If it is just those three polls, how do the other two go? Will SMRPG beat RE4make? Are Starfield and Hogwarts Legacy really the best we've got for non-sequels, and which of them takes the crown?

The SMRPG Remake felt like it came and immediately went. It might skate by on name value alone, though.

well SMRPG did beat RE4 in the 2015 Games Contest so I guess I can't discount its chances entirely

Bump

rare to see a poll with so many even resuls

Bump

First GotY poll for 2023:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9419-

Looks like we're doing it by season this time around.

I don't like how it's classified by season... "winter" could be... the start of 2023... or the end of 2023.

Should be by quarter.

PrinceOfKoopas posted...

I don't like how it's classified by season... "winter" could be... the start of 2023... or the end of 2023.

Should be by quarter.

Winter sounds less dull than "Quarter 1"

So something like this:
2023-02-07 - Hogwarts Legacy (snubbed)

2023-05-12 - TotK
2023-06-06 - Diablo 4
2023-06-22 - FF16

2023-08-03 - BG3
2023-09-06 - Starfield

2023-10-20 - Spider-Man 2
2023-10-20 - SMW
2023-10-27 - AW2

Looks like "Winter" in the context of this poll means a release date at any time during January, February, or March since DREDGE was released on March 30th. Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless was classified as a winter game release because of the Japanese release date being in January, while being an October release in the US, EU, and AU. So they're also going off the first ever release date for the game (in the case of Disgaea here).

A few more:

2023-01-20 - Fire Emblem Engage (snubbed)

2023-04-26 - Honkai: Star Rail
2023-06-02 - Street Fighter 6

2023-08-29 - Sea of Stars

2023-11-17 - SMRPG

So, uh, Metroid Prime is gaining fast

RE4 Power Hour is over early.

Another year completed, and it's time for a update on the status of our vote totals.

Year | Average | % Increase / Decrease
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%
2017 | 14282 | -18.35%
2018 | 11360 | -20.46%
2019 | 10464 | -7.89%
2020 | 10483 | 0.18%
2021 | 9471 | -9.65%
2022 | 8362 | -11.71%
2023 | 7655 | -8.45%

The drop-off in vote totals from 2022 to 2023 was smaller than the 2021 to 2022 drop-off, despite 2023 being the first full year of Fandom's ownership of the site and Allen stepping down as admin. I am impressed the drop-off wasn't worse than it could have been as the Fandom era would likely be seen by our userbase as the least popular ownership to run this site.

Updated the Board 8 wiki page on this subject as well:

https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/GameFAQs_Site_Traffic

For the complete history of our vote totals, the above page has a full table of every year from 1999 to 2023.

RE4 finally starting to pull away a little

Maybe we'll get lucky and Armored Core 6 will beat Starfield

I think there's a very good chance it does. Starfield's reception has worsened each week since its release. You can literally see it in the Steam review trends!

Oh this is much better than the previous way they were doing it.

I don't like this format change. If your release date's too close to a powerhouse, it's just over for you even if you were also a powerhouse -- that feels more unfair than doing it by system/genre/new IP/remaster/whatever like most of our other ones have been. Also, they could have been doing this on April, July, and October the 1st but didn't (I suspect due to new leadership but still).

If there is a second-chance poll between the #2s and maybe #3s of these four seasonal polls ahead with the top one or two of that second chance poll entering the GotY-poll, that would help alleviate that for me.

Almost 12 hours in and we have 3600 votes in a game of the year poll.

Yeah this site is dead.

The older system was "New Franchises", "Sequels and Spinoffs" and "Remakes and Remasters". So powerhouses were already pretty likely to run into each other.

For this new format, we still need to see how many games from each poll reach the next stage. Could be 2 per poll and maybe 2 wildcards as well.

Yeah, this is better than what it was. I prefer it over the three categories with three GotY finalists we used to do.

2 per poll would certainly be ideal, or 3/4 for the bigger polls.

HaRRicH posted...

I don't like this format change. If your release date's too close to a powerhouse, it's just over for you even if you were also a powerhouse -- that feels more unfair than doing it by system/genre/new IP/remaster/whatever like most of our other ones have been. Also, they could have been doing this on April, July, and October the 1st but didn't (I suspect due to new leadership but still).

If there is a second-chance poll between the #2s and maybe #3s of these four seasonal polls ahead with the top one or two of that second chance poll entering the GotY-poll, that would help alleviate that for me.

Hopefully we get at least 2 games from each seasonal poll moving onto the overall GotY poll, because the next poll will have both TotK and FFXVI and you don't really want one of them getting snubbed from the overall GotY poll.