Throughout these last two weeks, we’ve been examining how to make choosing a Game of the Year a simple task, using SCIENCE! Well, let’s put that another way: we’ll be taking a completely sarcastic look at choosing a GOTY, using methods that are generally nonsensical and farthest from efficient.
We’ve looked at what Editors have to say. We looked at what our wallets have to say. Now, let’s look at a method for selecting a Game of the Year that literally makes the games fight it out.
Using Googlefight.
For those unfamiliar with Googlefight, the website is a way to compare numbers of search results between two items in a graphical street fight. Each topic is represented by a stick figure, and the battles, usually pretty quick, are determined by the number of Google results.
But, why use search results to choose a GOTY? It’s said that any press is good press, and the same can generally be said about conversation. The games that usually have the most conversations about them would generally be the ones being played (or enjoyed) most. We know: it’s farthest from the truth and it will literally tell us nothing about actual game quality. But sometimes quality takes a back seat to controversy, buzz, and hype. Call of Duty: Black Ops hardly cracked a top ten list, yet it is one of the most-played games since its release.
People are talking about it, enjoying it, hating it… but it remains in everyone’s minds nonetheless.
In order to gauge what people were playing and talking about last year we’ve combined the lists of the average ratings and sales, turning it into a Mortal Kombat-style tournament ladder, and pitted the games against each other. We started with the bottom contenders of the lists and alternated back & forth between the two on the climb with the winner moving on, beginning with the epic Halo Reach v Gran Turismo 5 battle.
On to the results.
“Halo Reach” v “Gran Turismo 5”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Super Street Fighter IV”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Kinect Adventures”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Shantae: Risky’s Revenge”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Pokemon Black”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
Hmm. This is becoming a trend…
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Pokemon White”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “God of War III”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Super Mario Galaxy 2”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Starcraft II”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Pokemon Heart Gold”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Pokemon Soul Silver”
Winner: Gran Turismo 5
Not even Pokemon could bring down the mighty Gran Turismo 5.
“Gran Turismo 5” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
A STUNNING blowout by Rock Band 3 over GT5!
“Fifa Soccer 11” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
“Pac-Man Championship Edition DX” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
“Red Dead Redemption” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
Looks like Rock Band 3 just wiped the floor with John Marston and Spike’s Game of the Year.
“Mass Effect 2” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
Though Mass Effect 2 is at the top of many a list, it couldn’t even put a dent in Rock Band‘s rise to the top. Just CoD:BlOps and Angry Birds are left. The suspense is killing me!
“Call of Duty Black Ops” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
RB3 edges out CoD BlOps, but it was a tough battle! Time for the final fight versus Shang Ts—, er, Angry Birds!
“Angry Birds” v “Rock Band 3”
Winner: Rock Band 3
And the GOTY goes to…
ROCKBAND 3
Who’d have thunk it? Rock Band 3, thanks to its generic keyword-happy name and its excellent gameplay, has won the Googlefight/Google search result game of the year. It was a major release, had extremely high marks, but lower sales than its predecessors. Yet, it took down the Mass Effect 2s, the Marios, and the Angry Birds. It just goes to show you: sometimes having an easy-to-digest name can help win gaming gold. Now, let’s get to work on that Viagra iPad Football Obama game that we’ve been putting off.
[Source: Googlefight]
*Note: Googlefights probably includes each individual word in its searches, instead of just the full phrase. Meaning, Rock Band 3 equates to searching for Rock + Band + 3, vastly inflating the numbers. Hey, Harmonix was smart, even if Googlefight isn’t.
3 Comments