How should we arrange the "Game of the Decade" QT3 poll?

Games released in the last decade are candidates for the vote.

Oh no. Are you saying we’re including… board games too, physical games?

Yep45

You know I was going to include at least one. X-wing is a dead set tie with EU IV. It was always going to be named if board games were official or not.

Well now I have reconsider my whole list! I have to put some board game / card games on there.

We’re strictly enforcing release dates on a games of the decade list? That seems wildly ridiculous to me. Particularly the decade under discussion where the concept of a specific release date has become often quite a nebulous idea. But we’re allowing board games?

This is your list of games of the decade. What games people should allow themselves to consider for their list is between them and their games. Any crazy votes will be self corrected in the final tally by the fact that no one else will vote for Civilization 2 or whatever.

As for games series, I think you need to apply some kind of distinctiveness test. If something is clearly just an iteration, then the whole series should be the vote. If the games differ a lot, say with the three Dawn of War games, then each should be voted for individually. I think this is important (where as release dates are not) because it affects arrendek’s ability to tabulate the results.

Sports games should probably be a “series” but anything else is not. There’s plenty of differentiation between all the Call of Duty games, Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario 3D World, Land and Odyssey, etc. for those to be individually listed.

Released in the decade or I’m out. I won’t even vote if we’re letting people vote for games before the beginning of the decade. That’s totally worthless. That’s your best games of all time. It’s a different discussion.

What is the definition for ‘released’? Dwarf Fortress’ first alpha came out during the previous decade, but the game still hasn’t hit 1.0 and will probably still be in continued development for decades to come.

Games like that are complete outliers and you have to draw a line somewhere. I’d say it’s not eligible until it’s a 1.0. That’s on the developer for not being able to release it. It’s either that or you go by the first playable date.

The reality is there will always be exceptions that people want to throw into the mix, but there are thousands of games within the last decade you could vote for instead. If you can’t bring yourself to vote for any of those, then just don’t vote. It’s really that simple.

But Slay the Spire was eligible for GotY in both 2018 and 2019 due to early access. Is this different?

It’s whatever people decide, and I’ll participate or I won’t based on the decision. You can do the same.

We had a discussion about that that more or less ended with people doing whatever they wanted, but the “official” policy has always been early access doesn’t count as released, since it causes issues like StS in two best of yearly lists.

I think we can stick with the 1.0 release between 1/1/2010 and 12/31/2019 and not have too many problems, even if it’s pretty clear that some people are going to put a few things out there that break that rule, sometimes in the spirit of fair play and sometimes not. But unlike with 2018 StS (which had the effect of a 2019 game of the year miss since several people wouldn’t let themselves vote on it two separate years) I doubt any shenanigans will cause any real issues.

As for series titles, I’m assuming that the people voting for the series can work out just fine if they want to group up games or not on a per series basis. I didn’t even consider CoDs and the like, I was thinking about the posts on this year’s thread about Pokemon Sword and Shield. I think Dave is mostly right that sports games are a good fit for series voting but not CoD and GTA etc as they are unique games. I expect that voters will be able to figure that out on their own in a way everyone will agree on, but maybe I’m missing something.

I mean, if we wanted to get really serious about it I could try to find a list of all valid games from the decade and reject the vote failing a match, but I feel like that will just exclude people with hurt feelings.

Since the biggest question mark in my mind was Minecraft, which hit 1.0 in 2011, I have no issue with this.

For those who love Dwarf Fortress (the only game that might still be an issue at any serious scale) then you do you.

Do you really need to throw your toys out of the pram if you don’t get your way?

Why is specific release date the most important criteria? If people think a game was important to this decade or to them during it, why the hell can’t they vote for it? Why is your opinion so damn important?

If you aren’t going to have cut off dates, why call it game of the decade? As I already said, call it “My favorite game 2010s” then.

It’s right in the name. Game of the Decade. Why does that have to kowtow to people who just want to watch the world burn?

Perhaps we can do the two vote thing, one for game released in the last decade and one for your favorite games that you played in the last decade.

Edit: I don’t mean pick just one game each, I mean two 10 game votes.

Factorio? :)

I hope everyone is thinking this stuff through so we’re well prepared for the upcoming game of century and millennium threads.

Huh, haven’t played it but been hearing about it so long I assumed it was fully released.

Shit, man, I dunno. These things are so fuzzy in these days of early access, betas, continual development that the notion of a single date is almost an outmoded relic.

Whether that is a good or bad thing I leave for you to decide.

Just include some kind of “just ship it already” bonus award for games forever in early access.

It’s especially egregious when you see other games that have shipped and continued to update like No Man’s Sky. Having a release version doesn’t preclude further development game makers!.