A Game of the Year 2010 Poll: Results

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This explanation will look a lot like that of previous years, but:

Every year since 2004 I’ve been hosting this Game of the Year poll for the users of some forums I read. There are a lot of GOTY polls out there, but this one I think is kind of special. Most polls, you’re given a list of four or five options and you’re asked to pick the one you liked best. This poll, people are given a list of a couple of hundred options, consisting of every new game released in the previous year– and asked to rate their top ten or twenty.

This does a few interesting things. First off, we get to see all the information about what people’s second, third etc choices are. Second off, because the second, third etc choices count, people are more likely to vote for the game they want to win, rather than the game they think is likely to win– they’re less likely to engage in “strategic voting”. Finally, because we have all this information, we’re actually able to provide somewhat reasonable rankings for something like the top hundred or so games of last year.

The full results– showing the exact number of voters who ranked each game first, second, third place etc– can be found here. In the meantime, the final results were:

  1. Mass Effect 2 (8125) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
  2. Red Dead Redemption (4887)
  3. Starcraft 2 (3930)
  4. Minecraft (3678)
  5. Fallout: New Vegas (3513)
  6. Super Meat Boy (3205)
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (3006)
  8. Halo Reach (2713)
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2505)
  10. Civilization V (2444)
  11. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (2378)
  12. Bayonetta (2257)
  13. Darksiders (1967)
  14. Just Cause 2 (1865)
  15. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (1855)
  16. Angry Birds (1740)
  17. Alpha Protocol (1677)
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops (1604)
  19. Heavy Rain (1573)
  20. VVVVVV (1523)

The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll’s ranking system. Thanks if you voted, and some more elaborate analysis of the results (plus an explanation of the scores) can be found below.

NOTEWORTHY WINNERS

  • GOTY 2010:

    #1, Mass Effect 2

  • Top-ranked PC Exclusive:

    #3, Starcraft 2

  • Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:

    #7, Super Mario Galaxy 2

  • Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:

    #8, Halo Reach

  • Top-ranked iPhone/Android Exclusive:

    #16, Angry Birds

  • Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:

    #19, Heavy Rain

  • Top-ranked DS Exclusive:

    #31, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

  • Top-ranked PSP Exclusive:

    #64, Valkyria Chronicles 2

  • Best RPG:

    #1, Mass Effect 2

  • Best FPS:

    #4, Minecraft

  • Best “Indie” Game:

    #4, Minecraft

  • Best Game Available Through A Console Download Service:

    #6, Super Meat Boy

  • Best Browser Game:

    #48, Robot Unicorn Attack

  • “Cult” Award (see below):

    #52, Deadly Premonition

  • Best Downloadable Game (XBLIG division):

    #59, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

NOTEWORTHY LOSERS

  • Best game of 2010 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #35, Alien Swarm
  • Worst game of 2010 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #200, 3D Infinity (This is an XBLIG game; Only one person voted for this at all)
  • Worst game of 2010: #237, Dead Nation (Only one person voted for this; it was their #20 pick)

There were 23 games on the nominations list no one voted for at all.

ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS

The rankings listed above are based on a version of the Borda count voting method. Each vote cast for a game gives that game a certain number of points. If someone ranks a game #1, that game gets 20 points. If they rank it #2, the game gets 19 points. If they rank it #3 the game gets 18 points… and so on. I have a script that checks a couple of alternate ways of ranking the same data, though.

For example, if we rank games only by the number of first post votes they got, we get a wildly different list, with tons of games listing that weren’t anywhere near the top 20:

First Past the Post

  1. Mass Effect 2 (231)
  2. Red Dead Redemption (69)
  3. Starcraft 2 (47)
  4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (40)
  5. Minecraft (35)
  6. Fallout: New Vegas (29)
  7. Bayonetta (20)
  8. Super Meat Boy (19)
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (18)
  10. Alpha Protocol (15)
  11. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (15)
  12. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (14)
  13. Deadly Premonition (12)
  14. Rock Band 3 (11)
  15. Civilization V (10)
  16. Alan Wake (10)
  17. Halo Reach (10)
  18. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (10)
  19. Super Street Fighter 4 (9)
  20. Call of Duty: Black Ops (9)

Most years when I look at the first-past-the-post list a “cult” game usually emerges that received very few overall votes, but where an overwhelming percentage of those votes were #1 votes; this year actually seemed to have more “cult” games than normal, but I think the cult award was pretty clearly earned here by Deadly Premonition, which went from a ridiculous #52 in the normal ranking to #13 in the first-place-votes ranking. Also noteworthy here though were Dragon Quest IX (jumps from #31 to #12) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (jumps from #37 to #15, tying with Halo).

I also did two more ways of sorting the rankings: an “approval” vote, where nothing is counted except the number of votes a game received (i.e. a first-place and a twentieth-place ranking count the same– all the matters is if the game was on someone’s list); and an instant runoff vote. Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, and these rankings very rarely differ from the Borda rankings, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the official rank. A small observation: 858 people voted this year. More than half placed some sort of vote for Mass Effect 2.

Approval

  1. Mass Effect 2 (440)
  2. Red Dead Redemption (284)
  3. Starcraft 2 (241)
  4. Minecraft (235)
  5. Fallout: New Vegas (217)
  6. Super Meat Boy (210)
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (182)
  8. Halo Reach (177)
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (165)
  10. Civilization V (163)
  11. Bayonetta (155)
  12. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (146)
  13. Darksiders (144)
  14. Angry Birds (137)
  15. Just Cause 2 (135)
  16. Scott Pilgrim vs The World (115)
  17. Alpha Protocol (115)
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops (115)
  19. Heavy Rain (114)
  20. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (114)

IRV

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Red Dead Redemption
  3. Starcraft 2
  4. Minecraft
  5. Fallout: New Vegas
  6. Super Meat Boy
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  8. Halo Reach
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  10. Civilization V
  11. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  12. Bayonetta
  13. Darksiders
  14. Just Cause 2
  15. Angry Birds
  16. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
  17. Alpha Protpcol
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  19. Alan Wake
  20. Heavy Rain

FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS

As mentioned before, this poll mostly exists for a handful of video game forums where some people I know post. Since a couple years ago when I started posting the results on this blog, I’ve tried to actually run some extra results, in each case counting only those voters who– as far as one could tell from looking at the logs– had come to the poll from one particular forum or other.

So, here you have it– these numbers aren’t totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but here’s an approximate by-forum breakdown of these results. Links go to color-coded full listings.

Penny Arcade Forums (666 voters)

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Red Dead Redemption
  3. Starcraft 2
  4. Fallout: New Vegas
  5. Minecraft
  6. Halo Reach
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  8. Super Meat Boy
  9. Civilization V
  10. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  11. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  12. Darksiders
  13. Bayonetta
  14. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
  15. Just Cause 2
  16. Alpha Protocol
  17. Angry Birds
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  19. Heavy Rain
  20. God of War 3

Tigsource.com (39 voters)

  1. Super Meat Boy
  2. VVVVVV
  3. Minecraft
  4. Mass Effect 2
  5. Super Crate Box
  6. Starcraft 2
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  8. Hero Core
  9. Halo Reach
  10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  11. Fallout: New Vegas
  12. Red Dead Redemption
  13. Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
  14. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  15. Alan Wake
  16. Donkey Kong Country Returns
  17. Limbo
  18. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
  19. Alien Swarm
  20. Hydorah
Platformers.net (38 voters)

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  3. Bayonetta
  4. Super Meat Boy
  5. Fallout: New Vegas
  6. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
  7. Red Dead Redemption
  8. Minecraft
  9. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  10. Super Street Fighter 4
  11. Bioshock 2
  12. Robot Unicorn Attack
  13. Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All Stars
  14. Game Dev Story
  15. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  16. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
  17. Shin Megami Tensei
  18. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
  19. Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver
  20. Just Cause 2

Thearcadians.net (27 voters)

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Red Dead Redemption
  3. Halo Reach
  4. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  5. Starcraft 2
  6. Fallout: New Vegas
  7. Rock Band 3
  8. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  9. NHL 11
  10. Minecraft
  11. Bioshock 2
  12. Limbo
  13. Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver
  14. Monday Night Combat
  15. Angry Birds
  16. Alan Wake
  17. Super Street Fighter 4
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  19. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
  20. Blur

2 Responses to “A Game of the Year 2010 Poll: Results”

  1. mcc Says:

    By the way, I also did run the numbers on people who voted after discovering the poll through this blog. There were eleven of you, and apparently you really liked Super Mario Galaxy 2.

  2. Nfinit Says:

    With the way the PA forums tend to dominate this poll, it’d probably be a good idea to open it up to GAF or maybe Digg/Reddit next year.

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