Game Of The Year Tracker 2020 - The Last Of Us Part II - Now Most Awarded Game of All Time!

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Zombie9ers said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

I'm not even talking about reviews though.  I am talking about popularity.  If you look at sales or social media/google mentions, twitch streams, etc..., the games that dominated this year were Animal Crossing and Among Us.  When I think of games from 2020, these are the first two that come to mind.  These were the games that people were actually playing.  None of the others are even close.

These GOTY picks are biased because they are so heavily based on reviews.  The critics' tastes are not the same as the average gamer's tastes.

That’s like saying The Last Jedi was the best movie of the year because it sold the most at the box office.  Besides these awards include both critic AND Readers Choice awards - of which TLOU Part II is also dominating.  Lastly - Among Us came out in 2018 - shouldn’t a game of the year count the year they come out - not when they become popular?

1. I would prefer that games that became popular during a certain year to be eligible, even if they were released in an earlier year.  (Just don't have the same game win more than once.)  Minecraft never had the top GOTY awards, but it really deserved them.  The game started out slow and its also hard to nail down which year you'd call its official release.  The way things are picked now they favor games that had a lot of marketing behind them, and marketing is not what really makes something GOTY.

2.  The year 2017 was a poor year at the box office.  On the other hand 2019 was a great year and included Avengers: Endgame which broke several sales records.  Animal Crossing is more like Avengers Endgame.  It's not just the top selling game of the year but it is breaking sales records.  I would totally be fine with anyone saying Avengers Endgame was the movie of 2019.  It's a well made movie that was fans loved got a lot of buzz going for it.  I haven't even seen Parasite and don't know anyone that has, but that was the movie that won the Oscar for best picture for 2019.  The same sort of thing is going on here for GOTY.  The pick here for GOTY has nothing to do with what most people actually like. 

3. I liked The Last Jedi, but it was a divisive movie that split the fan base.  Some loved it and some totally hated it.  The video game from this year that is most like this is The Last of Us Part II.  Some loved it and some hated it.  This system for picking GOTY is actually picking the video game equivalent of The Last Jedi.

Runa216 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

I'm not even talking about reviews though.  I am talking about popularity.  If you look at sales or social media/google mentions, twitch streams, etc..., the games that dominated this year were Animal Crossing and Among Us.  When I think of games from 2020, these are the first two that come to mind.  These were the games that people were actually playing.  None of the others are even close.

These GOTY picks are biased because they are so heavily based on reviews.  The critics' tastes are not the same as the average gamer's tastes.

Yeah, but I think the world at large needs a bit of perspective on reviews in general. Game reviews, movie reviews, book reviews, all that. Critics of all types are generally expected to play/watch/read all manner of media, from stuff they love to stuff they hate and as such usually consume more than your average consumer whether they want to or not. As a result, they are more attuned to the subtleties inherent to any media and thus care a lot more about little things like cinematography or art direction or voice acting than the average player. Most people are happy with shooty bang-bang games or vroom-vroom racing games or runny ball-kicky sports games and don't NEED innovation, they just want a well-made game that caters to their needs. 

A critic NEEDS innovation because even good or great games get boring if they're all the same. They NEED creativity or new ideas to fuel them because even shit like Call of Duty - which is an objectively well made game - is just the same thing over and over again. Consumers LOVE that shit and eat it up every year, but critics are growing weary of it and the franchise has been getting lower and lower scores despite them still selling well. Innovation and creativity in games are both very important to the critic because they're novelties in a world where 95% of games, regardless of how good they are, are unoriginal. 

That's why something like The Last of Us part 2 got so much love. Love it or hate it, it did something that got people talking. the gameplay wasn't anything great, sure, but the story was so incredibly bold that it's hard to not respect that, from the perspective of someone who sits through The Division and Anthem time and time again. 

Like I said, I personally didn't like The Last of Us, but I understand WHY it gets so much praise. I didn't care for animal Crossing but I agree with all the love it got. there are plenty of popular games that bring something new or important to the table that I love, even if I don't care for them. That's why there's so much of a disconnect between critics and consumers. One is just looking for something to entertain them, the other is looking for innovation and creativity and originality. 

I look at TLOU2 and it looks like a hundred games I've already played.  I wouldn't descrive it as innovative.  Both Among Us and Animal Crossing look a lot more innovative to me.  But both those games innovate on gameplay.  TLOU2 is trying to innovate on story telling.  

That is a big thing I object to.  Games are more about gameplay.  This sort of system would never pick Tetris as GOTY even though it is the top selling game of all time.  The critics actually have a fairly narrow view on what makes a good game.  (This isn't that different from film or music critics over the years, but I digress.)