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

You take your damned ideas and you get out of here, ya hear! I won’t hear it. I won’t hear a word of it now. Skeedaddle!

:P

Ya think? I’d assumed it’d be Witcher 3. One of those two certainly does seem likely, though.

Mind you, I’ve barely played DS (not my cuppa) and haven’t played W3 (didn’t care for 2), I’m just going by chatter.

Neither of which make my top 5, and Witcher 3 only maybe makes my top 10.

But there is a clear top 2 for me, with a sharp drop off after.

Can we just pragmatically look at the previous year’s game of the year picks and just vote on those titles? How many year’s worth of quarterlies do we have?

Witcher 3 is a wonderful experience, but the mere servicable combat system knocks the actual game play rating down significantly. I’d still put it right up there in the top 10 though, easily, even though it fails to live up to a #1 rating.

I would also think that under different circumstances Minecraft might even have had a chance of being #1, but since that hit the street for the first time in 2009 it doesn’t actually qualify. But along with Dark Souls, it is certainly one of the most influential games of the last couple generations.

I agree with this. Maybe run the point values from 6-15 or 11-20 instead to avoid it. So every game that makes your list at all gets a kicker to represent that you think it’s way better than some random game that didn’t make the list, and the ratio between first and tenth is only 2X or 3X instead of 10X.

Here, I tried to put it together:

2010
(The Top 20 in this year was weighted per user by how long you’d been voting and how many posts you had, so Tom’s @DaveLong’s votes got counted for the most points, for example, and new users got counted the least).

Mass Effect 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Minecraft
Red Dead Redemption
Just Cause 2
BioShock 2
Alpha Protocol
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Dead Rising 2
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
Bayonetta
Civilization V
Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition
Supreme Commander 2
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Pinball FX2
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Heavy Rain
Battlefield: Bad Company 2

2011

We didn’t vote in 2011 for some reason. Major releases that were on people’s personal lists that year:
Portal 2
Batman: Arkham City
L.A. Noire
Saints Row: The Third
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Dead Space 2
Rayman Origins
Super Mario 3D Land
Gears of War 3
Bastion
Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery
Orcs Must Die!
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Forza Motorsport 4
Mario Kart 7
Driver: San Francisco
Space Pirates and Zombies
To The Moon
Witcher 2
Space Marine
Frozen Synapse
Magicka
Battlefield 3

2012

XCOM
Borderlands 2
Walking Dead
Guild Wars 2
Dishonored
FTL
Mass Effect 3
Dark Souls
Diablo 3
Journey
Dragon’s Dogma
Crusader Kings
Torchlight 2
Hotline Miami
Mark of the Ninja
Planetside 2
Warlock: Master of the Arcane
Xenoblade Chronicles
Eador: Genesis
Far Cry 3
Secret World

2013

Tomb Raider
Saints Row IV
Grand Theft Auto V
Last of Us
Gone Home
Bioshock Infinite
Brothers
Spelunky
XCOM DLC
Wargame: Airland Battles
State of Decay
Papers Please
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Rogue Legacy
Zelda: Link Between Worlds
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
Europa Universalis IV
Don’t Starve
Stanley Parable
Path of Exile
Metro: Last Light

2014

Divinity: Original Sin
Diablo III
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Elite: Dangerous
Dragon Age: Inquisition

(Only top 5, other games that got votes that year:)
Age of Wonders III
Might & Magic X: Legacy
Elder Scrolls Online
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Dark Souls II
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Destiny
Bravely Default
Wolf Among Us
Mario Kart 8
Titanfall
Super Smash Bros
Alien: Isolation
Infamous: Second Son
Monument Valley

2015

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Fallout 4
Pillars Of Eternity
Rocket League
Dying Light
Metal Gear Solid V
Bloodborne
Life Is Strange
Invisible, Inc
Kerbal Space Program
Cities Skylines
Massive Chalice
Rebel Galaxy
Chaos Reborn
Dark Souls 2: Scholar ed.
GTA V PC
DiRT Rally
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Divinity Original Sins Enhanced Ed.
Heroes of the Storm

2016

Doom & Witcher 3: Blood & Wine - shared number 1
Offworld Trading Company
XCOM 2
Dark Souls 3
Stardew Valley
Overwatch
Dishonored 2
Total War: Warhammer
The Division
Hitman
Grim Dawn
Deus Ex, M.D.
Darkest Dungeon
Inside
Uncharted 4
Titanfall 2
Forza Horizon 3
Hearts of Iron 4

2017

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Prey
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Super Mario Odyssey
Total War: Warhammer 2
NieR: Automata
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
Persona 5
Nioh
Ghost recon: Wildlands
Age of Rivals
Race for the Galaxy
Through the Ages
What Remains of Edith Finch
Destiny 2
Dominions 5

2018

Battletech
Subnautica
Red Dead Redemption 2
Slay the Spire
Rimworld
Into the Breach
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Monster Hunter World
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Dead Cells
Marvel’s Spider-Man
God of War
Return of the Obra Dinn
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Pillars of Eternity 2
Forza Horizon 4
Hitman 2
Overload
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War

2019

Disco Elysium
Slay the Spire
Control
Outer Wilds
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Sekiro: Shadws Die Twice
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Anno 1800
Oxygen Not Included
Remnant: From the Ashes
Resident Evil 2
The Outer Worlds
Age of Wonders: Planetfall
Devil May Cry 5
A Short Hike
A Plague Tale: Innocence
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Return of the Obra Dinn
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Bodenplatte

I have to say, 2010 was a really, really strong year. If we had voted in 2011, that would have been an interesting vote tally. A lot of people loved Skyrim, but then a lot of people loved Dark Souls that year too, and others really loved Batman: Arkham City and Portal 2.

Still, even keeping this to 20 games a year, a lot of games that didn’t make the top 20 were really beloved by some. So I’m not sure if restricting it to these 200 or so games is a good idea anyway. But this is a good starting point as a list of the best of the decade.

Thanks for the lists.

Yeah, seeing that Witcher 3 officially misses my top 10.

As for years, it’s funny. One of the strongest IMO, 2013, is followed by the weakest.

I’m always curious about this, especially in the context of a ‘Decade’ list. Does anyone really want to know why I put something on the list? I’m not a professional reviewer and there are no sob stories relating to my favorite games that I’m aware of :)

I’ve always wondered about the text blurb. I read ResetEra but didn’t vote on their GOTY thread specifically because it required a certain amount of ‘meaningful’ text behind each choice. I would think my list in order of 1-whatever is plain enough to get a peek as to what I think of things.

Edit: BTW if you thought my Quarterlies picks were bad, wait until you see this one. @divedivedive will love it, though.

Where the hell is M&B: Warband in that 2010 list?!?!?

34th place, if my counting is right. A lot of good games that year even outside the top 20.

Definitely wouldn’t allow at 10x multiplier. My initial thoughts are 2x what you’d get with simple ranked as the maximum points allowable. So, since it looks like we’re doing 10 games, 20 points instead of 10 for your #1 would be max, but now you’re taking a lot of points away from the games further down your list.

My thinking is it would be good for those people who feel like there are a few truly standout games that deserve to be recognized. There’s going to be enough votes/points that one or two people aren’t going to be able to mess everything up with point dumping.

I think the text gives flavor to the choices, but might be enough to make it valuable to someone else who dislikes your taste in games. Lord knows most people here aren’t picking the same stuff as me much of the time, so hopefully by explaining why you liked it so much there’s some method to the madness.

I got more interested in Final Fantasy XIV thanks to the text on that game in this year’s voting even though I know I don’t have time for that.

That’s fair. I’d probably have to explain Andromeda to everyone anyway.

image

I agree with this. As someone who is prone to writing more than anyone else would care to read, even I would be okay with allowing folks that already spent probably a lot of time creating and then ordering a list to just paste it and be done.

I have no issue with that either, btw. I think the Resetera thing is a little overblown, but I get why they do it. I think it’s as much to keep bots and jerks from ruining it as anything else.

As for 2010 @Rock8man… You’re welcome MINECRAFT!

I like it when people write a small blurb about their choice and try to put a sentence or three myself - like Dave mentioned something may catch my eye and make me take a look at a game I’d have glossed over before - but I don’t mind people who want to only post their list either. Whittling down to a top 5 can be hard enough as it is.

Thanks for this list. However, it made me realize that things I still intend on playing “soon” on my backlog (example: Bastion), are from 8 years ago…

This is the only way these kinds of “best of” lists have any meaning. Someone just dropping a bulletpointed list of ten games with zero context just slides right on by me. That’s why I’d like to see a single game nominated by each user. Write as much as you want to tell me what it means to you. Anything else might as well be a list of ingredients on the back of a mac-and-cheese box.