This seems excessive to me. It's not like telling people to vote Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony will change anything. If the people were going to do so, they'd have done so whether someone requested them to or not. And there shouldn't be anything wrong with saying "NO! (insert game here) can't lose this soon! Don't let it die yet!" or something to that effect. If we have to keep adding rules and making it really serious to the point that you can't even chat about the state of the game, that to me takes the fun out. It's a stupid, silly forum game. It means nothing. It's an amusing pastime, that is all. Trying to make it serious ruins the entire point. These games are NOT a way to determine which game/system/company/whatever is better, or even which is most popular among the community. The results say absolutely nothing about the games in question beyond the general tastes of the users that participated. The game is layered with too many variables and potential for strategizing (not even necessarily with other people, there's plenty you can do by yourself) for it to be an even remotely objective measurement of anything beyond a vague opinion of the participants. Complicating the rules won't change that simple fact, it'll just make the game less fun.

Besides, I only ever hear requests like that come from the "losers" of these games, and the losers often employed the same strategies.

Congrats to Zelda! It's a great franchise and it deserved to win!

Wait, what?  I may have misunderstood.  I thought Sound Of Rain was talking about people who post in other threads, on people's walls, etc, trying to get others to come to the game and vote a certain way.

But if HylianSwordsman is interpreting this correctly then I have to agree with him.  I'm not against banning someone who is making a genuine attempt to rally votes, but I think banning such comments altogether could be problematic because people say a lot of stuff in jest during these games.

I see a lot of comments that I'm certain are only intended as lighthearted banter: "Argh!  Why do you keep voting up that crap?"... or... "Don't you dare!  Zelda rocks!  You leave it alone!"... That kind of thing.

Now, it's possible that I'm misinterpreting things, but most of the comments I see in these games don't strike me as being intended too seriously.  More like people having fun with each other.

Having said this, I do acknowledge that this is pretty subjective, and the "seriousness" of a comment (especially in text) can be difficult to quantify.  To be absolutely clear, I don't condone anyone genuinely trying to manipulate other people's votes, and I'm ok with keeping that in check.  But if we are to do so then I think we also need to be careful that we don't end up policing anyone who makes a playful comment.

SO, perhaps the top "secondary sereis" next? So from Nintendo it could be fire emblem or kid icarus, while 3rd parties perhaps streetfighter from capcom?

that would be far more interesting as results would be less predictable! =D

I would also love to some mass effect, portal, dark souls, final fantasy, rayman. I think it may be harder ( at least for me ) to vote against them even if there is nintendo game.

Same here! Make it happen Rain!

No point, the end result will be the same - all non Nintendo titles will get voted out of the top slots.

Yes well popular franchises will always be on top...

Well, on VGchartz anyway.

Ho hum.

Zelda and Mario usually top most popular games polls all over the internet.