I could easily remove the down-vote option and make it more akin to Facebook's like system. I could maybe do a neutral thread asking people for their opinion on the value of the down-vote.

I'm going to assume you mean a different article because I just checked to see if it had changed and it had not.

Here are some comments that were down-voted and "hidden" because they were below the threshhold:

JRPGfan (on 09 January 2016)

Well deserved. This game is huge in denmark imo. Its like everyone of my friends plays it.

midrange (on 09 January 2016)

People need to stop trying to put the staff's decision down. It's simply opinion. There is no "correct answer." There is no game that "deserved" the win. Rocket league is a great candidate that went beyond expectations. Who would have that the sequel to an obscure indie game would go onto be in the hands of 9 million users (and growing)?

hush404 (on 09 January 2016)

For me personally, Rocket League surprised me more. Sure, it had help getting recognized with PS+ (That's how I initially learned of it), but having played the predecessor (after RL), to see such success off of RL and not SRPBC is quite a surprise as they're quite similar. That and I'm never surprised that a Nintendo IP does well, regardless if it is new.

I see nothing wrong with those posts that they should be taken out of the discussion or hidden as though they are offensive.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/262732/break-out-sales-surprise-of-2015/

Say one positive thing about halo or xbox and you get a bunch of dislikes XD

Or sometimes I see it for other games too for no reason :P

I agree that somethimes comments get downvoted for no reason at all, personally it only happened to me a couple of times, while in other situations I think/hope it was because I had an opinion that was in the minority...

I'm sorry!? The thumbs down system? Am I missing something here? Or is it a feature not available on safari? (I don't own a PC/laptop anymore due to donating it to people who havnt got one)

That's still not a valid reason for using Safari

He's talking about the up/down votes  on VGC articles.

Lol I agree, Safari is terrible but it's my only option 😄

Indeed the system can be flawed. I remember for several months pointing out that the ps4 vs wii comparison was using an extra month of data for the wii. But something I noticed, just saying it while true wasn't enough, I had to back it up for people.
When you state a conclusion without the evidence even if it should be right there, people vote against it.
It is likely to be more front loaded then last gen, but not because this gen is some exception. The last gen was. We can't expect the peak year to be as late this generation.

I myself consider the thumbs down as a badge of honour. It simply means someone was butt hurt over your comment and has expressed that butt hurt in the form of a thumbs down.

And on the 8th day, Al Gore created the internet and he saw that it was good.

To its denizens, he gave one simple law.

"Never read the comment section."