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Topic: What makes a game "GOTY"?

Posts 21 to 40 of 136

BruceCM

"GOTY in my eyes is an award that should go to games of exceptional quality which achieved highest grounds that year as opposed to the other games, either in its genre or overall." Exceptional quality of what, exactly, @Varkster? Highest grounds of what? & who are you suggesting be the official judge of the criteria?
I'm not clear on all that....

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Zuljaras

@Anti-Matter There are games that are considered amazing by a HUGE number of people.

Let me break it down so you can understand.

If 9 people like The Witcher 3 and you don't like it it still has 90% of success rate.

But for the negative it works like that:
If 9 people say that The Sims 4 is garbage and you love it that is 90% failure rate.

There will always be games that are loved by the majority and games that are overlooked because they are niche games. Those games NEVER win GotY, they are not even considered no matter how much you love them.

So "Art is subjective" is 90% crap.

Anti-Matter

@ThanosReXXX
In my opinion, GOTY is a different case.
For me GOTY labelling is very subjective, depend on people's taste.
Even for girly game like Pretty Princess Party on Switch , i labelled that game as my GOTY because the presence of girly game on HD with proper gameplay was really exceeding my expectations, don't care with other people's opinion.
I never understand the labelling of GOTY by most peoples for certain games and mostly the GOTY labeled by most peoples are the games i really hate most, i could barely even accept them.

Anti-Matter

Tasuki

@Anti-Matter We are not talking about personal GOTY we are talking about how companies and things like awards name GOTY.

Please read the first comment in a thread before commenting.

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ThanosReXXX

@Anti-Matter Yup. Like what @Tasuki said: it's not about what YOU think a GOTY is, it's about games that are OFFICIALLY labeled by the professional media (journalists, media, industry) as being that, and then the question is if we agree with that or not and what and/or how we feel a GOTY should be determined.

If you can't understand that, then no offense, but you will not be able to make any useful contribution to this specific thread.

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Krull

This thread is going after the Golden Joystick here - so I’ll just point out that Hades won the critic’s choice award there, not TLoU2.

A public vote is going to favour the game played by the most people that had the most impact on them. Animal Crossing was certainly in with a shout this year, but people who played that and The Last of Us 2 probably just found the latter more award-worthy. There is an element of Oscar bait there, certainly, but it’s also something that Animal Crossing lacks, however popular it is. Or even if you deem it a more enjoyable experience.

FWIW, I would prefer to find critics/reviewers whose opinions I respect, and who have played a wider range of games than the average punter, and trust their GotY.

As long as they pick Hades!

Edited on by Krull

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Wargoose

I like seeing the nominations for game of the year, because they often highlight games that didn't have a huge spotlight on them. A couple that come to mind from recent years, are Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice and What Remains of Edith Finch. Both were amazing, but I probably wouldn't have heard of them, without the awards Buzz. Disco Elysium which I haven't played yet, is on my radar because of last year's awards.

As for which game I'd like to see pick up a lot of awards this year. I'm going with FFVII Remake. I waited for this game, since the PS3 tech demo. And it didn't disappoint. Best Final Fantasy game in over a decade.

Wargoose

JaxonH

There’s no perfect methodology.

Popularity is a poor metric because it disadvantages lower budget games, and games on less mainstream platforms (such as Switch, which despite its large install base, is still the minority against the backdrop of modern AAA gaming).

This leads me to be inclined to think professional, unbiased journalists should make the call. But then I remember that most journalists are just as biased if not more so, but for different reasons. They allow their personal politics to affect their opinions of games, and even though most outlets cover all noteworthy games, there’s still the same disparity within outlets concerning percentage of journalists who play certain games, which results in the same popularity issue mentioned above. If only one or two people at that outlet played Fire Emblem, but 12 played Death Stranding, it’s obvious where their vote will be cast.

The only method which is truly fair is to only allow people to vote who have played all eligible nominated titles across all platforms, and against whom there is no evidence of personal bias due to non-gaming related matters coming into play, and no evidence of preference toward games on certain platforms.

This, however, is practically impossible. And for that reason, I don’t really put stock into anything those with power and a platform have to say. Their opinions have no more weight than my own, and more times than not, are far less trustworthy. But many look to put their opinions on a pedestal to legitimize their own.

There’s a huge disconnect between the media and the gamership at large. And no game makes that more evident than TLOU2 (which I just bought on sale, btw, and I would like to compliment the gyro aiming, the graphics, and production values- many aspects of the game are top notch, irrespective of how you feel about the game as a whole). But regardless of what you think about the game, which is your opinion to have, the fact is there is a statistically significant difference between the average rating from the media and the average rating from those not affiliated with traditional media, be it Angry Joe, Skill Up, Yong Yea, etc. Proper statistical analysis will bare that out, to anyone who wishes to verify for themselves (drop all scores in a one-way ANOVA comparison, separated by group- traditional media and non-traditional media). I’m pretty sure I know why, but the reason doesn’t matter. All that matters is the fact the media can no longer be trusted to represent the opinions of the majority. And that’s a serious problem when you then look to that very same media to make unbiased determinations and judgement calls that represent the opinions of gamers at large.

While I very much like the idea of acknowledging certain games that are really good, I cannot trust the system as it currently stands, and I don’t think it can be fixed. When Xenoblade Chronicles 2 doesn’t even get a mention for best soundtrack or best JRPG, when DKC Tropical Freeze doesn’t get a mention for best soundtrack or any other category besides best “Nintendo game”, when Fire Emblem Three Houses can’t garner a GOTY nomination despite winning people’s choice (which is also flawed due to the popularity issue mentioned previously, but it does beg the question why it wasn’t even nominated), when some of THE best games ever made are routinely ignored for their respective categories, the “GotY” cannot be trusted, in my humble opinion.

And then there’s the question of whether games should be judged by impact. Imo, Animal Crossing is not GotY caliber. But it’s undeniable the impact it had this year and maybe it should win based on that alone? I don’t know. At the end of the day, does it even really matter...

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

kkslider5552000

New Horizons will never be as good a game as it was in 2020, but that's fine. You can't have grown up in the mid to late 90s and judge all games by how well they'll age in 20 years.

To me like official awards mostly have merit to see where people are on games, especially in context of who and when etc, and to see what games get more attention than they would have without them. But otherwise, they just seem to exist. Like, God of War and Sekiro winning the past 2 GOTYs at the Game Awards made no significant difference to either game or to anything else. It's cool they won, but it didn't actually matter.

This is my way to say, it doesn't matter what is GOTY beyond someone's personal preference. It's nice when you can relate to or at least understand their reasoning, but otherwise, eh.

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Krull

@JaxonH The issue isn’t the media - only Trump attacks an entire industry purely because he doesn’t agree with what it’s saying - but addressing a game with more than hot takes and boiling everything down to a score. Go on Metacritic for TLoU2, and you’ll see a string of zeros in user scores solely because the players disliked the story, even as the reviews themselves praise the technical achievement and the gameplay. That’s not a review - in what world does that game deserve 0/10? Where does that leave something like Vroom in the Night Sky?

As I said above, it’s better to find a critic - whether in traditional media, a YouTuber or even just a friend - whose opinion you trust and to a large extent agree with. To talk of a gulf between media and gamers is divisive, entitled nonsense. But there might well be a gulf between you and, say, Fox or Al-Jazeera, Kotaku or IGN. The media is a mirror - maybe you just haven’t found a good reflection.

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Zuljaras

@Krull

Actually.

"10/10 this game perfect!" is exactly the same in validity as "0/10 this games suxxx!"

In the end the two balance each other out and the game gets near 6/10 which is more like it.

Krull

@Zuljaras Yep, I can agree with that 100%. It’s like there are only two scores: 0 and 10. We’d be better off with just a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

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Mr-Fuggles777

@Krull I prefer the aggregate scoring rather than just a thumbs up or down model.
You are right that you get the fans blindly giving 10,s and the haters blindly giving 0's but that effectively just gives you the popularity of a game and then those people who genuinely write an honest review (the 3-7 crowd) are the ones that make up the overall score.

If we look at both Animal Crossing and Last of us 2 on metacritic which were both up for GotY there are interesting similarities:
Animal Crosing: 5788 ratings giving an aggregate of 5.5 (49% positive and 43% negative).
Lou2: 147171 ratings giving an aggregate of 5.7 (51% positive and 43% negative).
Both games are probably worthy of the overall scores, although both do some things exceptionally well they also drop the ball massively in certain areas (I had to buy another console so my wife and I could both have our own Animal Crossing island FFS) and the fans/haters on look at the points from their side of the arguments

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JaxonH

@Krull
Thats not true- traditional media of all kinds (I was referring to gaming media btw, but this applies for most media also) is agenda driven- I could literally write a book with examples, but that's besides the point. There's always been bias, but it's become much more pronounced over the last decade, and they're not even trying to hide it anymore.

There is a gulf, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. I gave clear examples, and I encourage you to investigate. Media isnt a reflection. More and more it's propaganda, or at best, biased opinions masquerading as fair analysis.

When a Kotaku PS5 review has things like this:

Our government is fundamentally broken in a way that necessitates radical change rather than incremental electorialism

I think it's fair to say media has become agenda-driven propaganda. It sounds more like something that should be in a communist revolutionary pamphlet than a video game review. There are many other examples, but this one perfectly encapsulates the issue.

You are then trusting that radical propaganda mouthpiece to provide you with fair and trustworthy analysis. Forgive me if I dont buy it.

To understand how we got to this point, where such a common bias pervades media, you must first understand how academia was hijacked by ideologues. And to understand that, I recommend looking into Jonathan Haidt and his research on the matter.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Krull

@JaxonH I think describing the traditional media as radical propaganda vastly exaggerates the level of bias as a way of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Any functioning society, let alone a democracy, needs a critical, functioning media to hold those in power to account. The NYT is as blue as they get, but it didn’t shy from reporting on Biden’s assault allegations, for example.

Stormfront = radical propaganda
New York Times, Fox News, The Telegraph (UK), The Guardian = media with an acknowledged political slant

The value of the traditional media is that it has a stake in its reputation - to readers, to viewers, to stockholders. If it makes stuff up, or exaggerates excessively, it gets sued, people tune out, everybody loses, and the fourth estate winds up in the hands of bloggers, word of mouth and smoke signals. The people tearing down the media are those at odds with having one.

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Krull

By the way, I apologise for derailing the thread!

Hades is a really good game...

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JaxonH

@Krull
I agree with you about the importance, and value, of media, and I do agree not all are as extreme in their bias, but I've done a lot of research on this, and it's... alarming, to say the least. Finding a single corporate media entity that is not in some way trying to persuade their viewers how to think, that is not selectively covering stories that advance their agenda and burying stories that work against it (see Biden scandal and how big tech and media worked together to suppress it before the election, to the extent even Pulitzer Prize winning progressive Glenn Greenwald resigned from his own company he founded because they forced censorship against him - which regardless of what your political beliefs, is flat out corruption of the highest order), is becoming increasingly difficult.

Glenn Greenwald Resigns

The bias is much, much worse than most realize, and runs much deeper than most realize. The solution is smaller, independent sources who prove trustworthy. The larger a company, the more likely it has succumbed to agenda and bias. And this is true for almost all sectors of media, even gaming.

Good media still exists. It's just no longer the traditional corporations. Its youtubers. And even then you have to follow the age old "trust, but verify", which itself is becoming increasingly difficult as corporations such as google censor search results against sources countering their own ideology. That's why I use duckduckgo, and seek out independent youtubers I can trust. One must take ample precautions in this age of information warfare.

I at least appreciate sites like polygon and kotaku so brazenly betraying their agenda. It's the more subtle ones you have to watch out for.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

jump

The bias of American media can be traced back to the 80s with the removal of Federal Communications Commission which Dick Cheney oversaw and meant news could then become about opinions rather reporting with both sides or facts which led to Fox News. On a side note Dick Chaney whilst Vice President would also have focus groups on how better to sell BS to people like calling "estate tax" to "death tax" so the average joe would buy it and also in the focus groups talk about connecting Iraq to 9/11 as Al-Qaeda was too complicated to for people who wanted to be angry at a country.

I do find it funny people complain about "big tech" whilst getting their information from "big tech" distributors. Youtube, Facebook and other social media is full of empty views and opinions which lacks true regulations and accountability for myself to take seriously but those much needed rules will never happen as those rules would then have to apply all news like Fox so wouldn't get through with too many Republicans blocking it. I will still take newspaper and news shows as dedication to true journalism isn't a replacement for the fluff on social media.

Edited on by jump

Nicolai wrote:

Alright, I gotta stop getting into arguments with jump. Someone remind me next time.

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JaxonH

@jump
Fox played a big part, I agree there. And they're still part of the problem even today. Only now, CNN and MSNBC and every other major outlet have far surpassed them as this new wave of ideologues from academia started flooding the corporate world.

At this point, there is no regulation or accountability in the media. It's all just the propaganda arm of the DNC, with Fox being the propaganda arm of the RNC. You can either watch both and suss out the truth in the middle, or determine any glass with poison in it isnt worth drinking. After seeing all the examples of suppression and bias over the years, I'd sooner trust my magic 8-ball from Walmart before I trust them. Even fact checkers are biased now. They have near total control.

Youtubers can be very professional, if you find the right ones. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), independent media is the only ones left where you can find truly independent thought without narrative or agenda. But again, always "trust but verify."

I've found ACG, YongYea and SkillUp to be reliable reviewers, and very professional. No political slant, no agenda. Just honest opinions on video games. There's plenty more, but these are the ones I follow. As for Nintendo, theres no single reviewer I wholeheartedly trust, but SwitchUp is pretty good.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

jump

@JaxonH The solution is not to trust American news at all, including Fox and Youtubers ;p

Nicolai wrote:

Alright, I gotta stop getting into arguments with jump. Someone remind me next time.

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