A Game of the Year 2011 Poll: Results
CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE PRETTY COLOR-CODED FULL RESULTS
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:
- Portal 2 (6571) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (6253)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (4234)
- Batman: Arkham City (4134)
- Bastion (4094)
- Saints Row: The Third (2547)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2126)
- Battlefield 3 (2071)
- Dark Souls (2034)
- Dead Space 2 (1681)
- L.A. Noire (1639)
- The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (1515)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (1505)
- Gears of War 3 (1447)
- Terraria (1421)
- Dragon Age II (1411)
- Super Mario 3D Land (1261)
- Pokemon Black & White (1255)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (1170)
- The Binding of Isaac (1164)
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 2011:
#1, Portal 2
- Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:
#7, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
- Top-ranked PC Exclusive:
#12, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
- Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:
#14, Gears of War 3
- Top-ranked 3DS Exclusive:
#17, Super Mario 3D Land
- Top-ranked DS Exclusive:
#18, Pokemon Black & White
- Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:
#21, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
- Top-ranked smartphone game:
#24, SpaceChem
- Top-ranked smartphone exclusive:
#48, Jetpack Joyride
- Top-ranked PSP Exclusive:
#45, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
- Best FPS:
#1, Portal 2
- Best RPG:
#2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Best “Indie” Game:
#5, Bastion
- Best Game Available Through A Console Download Service:
#5, Bastion
- “Cult” Award (see below):
#42, Dungeon Siege 3
- Best Browser Game:
#103, Escape from Puppy Death Factory
NOTEWORTHY LOSERS
- Best game of 2011 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #23, Magicka
- Worst game of 2011 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #215, Stronghold 3
- Worst game of 2011: An incredible three-way tie between #251, Rugby Challenge; #252, “Leedmees” (??) and #253, Fishing Resort for Wii. (Each of these games scored only one vote each, each from someone who considered it their 19th best game of the year.)
There were 22 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 place votes they got, we get a wildly different list, with a different first place winner and lots of games listing that weren’t anywhere near the top 20:
First Past the Post
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (141)
- Portal 2 (92)
- Batman: Arkham City (50)
- Dark Souls (41)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (31)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (29)
- Saints Row: The Third (25)
- Bastion (24)
- Battlefield 3 (17)
- The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (16)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (16)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (11)
- Gears of War 3 (10)
- Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (10)
- Terraria (9)
- Dead Space 2 (8)
- Dungeon Siege 3 (6)
- The Binding of Isaac (6)
- Bulletstorm (5)
- Pokemon Black & White (5)
Most years when I look at the first-past-the-post list a “cult” game emerges that received very few overall votes, but where an overwhelming percentage of those votes were #1 votes (I think of this as the “Persona award”); this year actually didn’t have an incredible standout in this category, but I think the award fairly goes to Dungeon Siege 3, which scored a relatively poor #42 in the overall rankings but made it all the way to #17 counting first place votes only.
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, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the official rank. A small observation: Although these counts usually don’t differ much from the “main” count, this year the IRV list actually looks pretty different to me, I think mostly due to the number of near ties in the official count. Witcher 2 and Star Wars TOR were only within a couple points of each other on the official list; as were Pokemon and Mario 3D Land; as were Ghost Trick, Binding of Isaac, and Uncharted 3 (barely off the list at #21). One more or fewer ballots for any of these games would have changed the rank order. Another small observation: 670 people voted this year. Not only did more than half place some sort of vote for Portal 2, independently counted more than half placed some sort of vote for Skyrim.
Approval
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IRV
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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 few 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 (516 voters)
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Tigsource.com (42 voters)
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Platformers.net (32 voters)
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Thearcadians.net (27 voters)
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This blog you are reading right now (19 voters)
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