Poll of the Day > Game of the year!

(+) Yeah! (+)

I haven't played either... so I'd have to vote for something like Chained Echoes

What are the runner ups?

It's funny how no one was talking about the Zelda game until BG3 came out and then people started randomly going "No the Nintendo game has to win!"

Pikmin 4

TotK came out, and most of what I heard for the first couple of weeks was how it was bad because it was just a rehash of BotW, and then it disappeared off my radar completely.

BGIII came out and everyone's talking about how it's the greatest RPG in years and making YouTube videos about how it takes a massive steaming shit on every other studio showing that you can in fact make a robust and engaging RPG in the modern era without falling into all the same traps every other dev seems to. And people are still talking about it and posting clips from it months later.

Just from my perception alone, TotK was a fart in the wind while BGIII was apparently a masterpiece. Only one of those really deserves GotY status.

Not that GotY status really means anything or matters all that much. Like the Oscars, it's mostly just an excuse for an industry to masturbate for a bit once a year.

Mineko's Night Market

Octopath Traveler II.

Xenoblade 3 again.

Haven't played either. Of the games I have played: hogwarts legacy

BoomerKuwanger posted...

?

If you aren't into the game personally that's fine but it irks me when people act like their opinions are shared by everyone. TotK was getting tons of praise and excitement

Everything is relative man when you say things like "tons". Previous Zelda entries got wide spread attention that you would see even if you didn't actively go looking for it. This entry was pretty silent, no one was talking about it in the wider gaming sphere that I saw. It didn't get as much attention as BG3 did and I feel pretty justified in feeling surprised when it's getting put up as GOTY against a game getting so much attention for going above and beyond when totk sounds fairly average.

Spider-Man 2

progamer2290 posted...

Which one do you think youre going to win?

Win what and how? Like, a specific reviewer's GotY ranking? And aggregate of all publications GotYs? Personal taste on what I think vs. the court of public opinion?

For me, the consensus was it is TotK's to lose, and still is. It is the sequel to an already consensus GotY game, and improved upon it in virtually every way, in new and exciting ways.

Not that BGIII doesn't deserve heaps of praise, especially for showing a strong focus on storytelling and really laying into traditional DnD experience in game form. But it has a ton of bugs, glitches, and performance issues, and a lot of clunky and unintuitive mechanics and UI. It's hard to award a game like that GotY...but not as if the review industry hasn't done that before *glares at Bethesda games*.

If anything, I can see reviewers being swayed to give it to BGIII, to "encourage" and "reward" more games like it being, whereas TotK is too "familiar."

For me personally, I struggled to finish BGIII for a variety of reasons.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Everything is relative man when you say things like "tons". Previous Zelda entries got wide spread attention that you would see even if you didn't actively go looking for it. This entry was pretty silent, no one was talking about it in the wider gaming sphere that I saw. It didn't get as much attention as BG3 did and I feel pretty justified in feeling surprised when it's getting put up as GOTY against a game getting so much attention for going above and beyond when totk sounds fairly average.

All this does is to show bias in what gamesphere you dwell in. As said, it's all relative. In reality, TotK is STILL hugely talked about, and the immediate months that followed had an enormous amount of articles and content published about a variety of aspects with the game, but mostly the Ultrahand ability that allows you to create insane vehicles, contraptions, and whatnot. Korok abuse became/is a widespread meme and viral aspect of the game alone. Entire TikTok channels were/are devoted to showing builds and gameplay elements, secrets still being discovered, etc. It's social following and cultural impact has been massive.

Both have died down as of late, due to the time lapse since both were released. BGIII's initial blitz was about the story, face animations, how well it incorporates DnD battle mechanics, and of course, perhaps above all else, who you can have sex with.

But in a broad context, the TotK reception has been anything but silent.

BlackScythe0 posted...

It's funny how no one was talking about the Zelda game until BG3 came out and then people started randomly going "No the Nintendo game has to win!"

no one was talking about TotK? what?

BGIII should pretty easily, but I'll post my thoughts from the GotY thread on that board.

Literally who cares

GotY is like being inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame and devalues it's genuine candidates by mere association.

That said, I do want it to win for the sake of the people involved in making the game because I know it's a big deal to them. I also want the VAs to get more recognition and Lae'Zel's actress in particular has bigger ambitions than the game industry. I'm hoping this opens the door for her to jump on the Marvel train or something similar.

BoomerKuwanger posted...

The whole premise of the topic is admittedly silly because it's basically a complete guess as to which of the two would take it, so I bet people are just voting for the one they liked more. They've been pretty equally positioned as contenders

Which is what I asked. Are we talking about the poll GameFAQs will inevitably do on the subject? Or what IGN thinks? GameInformer? An aggregate of all reviewers?

TotK for me so far(currently on the last quest) and then Hogwarts. I haven't played BG 3, Final Fantasy XVI or Spider-Man 2 though.

Gollum

Wak! Its gonna be starfield!

Pikmin 4

wwinterj25 posted...

TotK for me so far(currently on the last quest) and then Hogwarts. I haven't played BG 3, Final Fantasy XVI or Spider-Man 2 though.

XVI is just Devil May Cry, certainly not FF.

Tora_Sami posted...

Its gonna be starfield!

Skyrim in space?

I would prefer it go to a game that's doing something new and original that we haven't played before, like Spider-Man 2

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

All this does is to show bias in what gamesphere you dwell in.

This is something that really can't be overstated. The social media we consume (which includes virtually everything that comprises the public discourse around a given game unless there's enough controversy to make news headlines) is actively tailored to our interests. That means people who are interested in BG3 and other CRPGs are going to see lots of BG3-related content, and people who are interested in TotK and other Zelda games are going to see lots of TotK-related content. Those who aren't interested in one or the other are going to end up seeing very little content related to it.

Personally, I saw TotK-related content for much, much longer post-release than I did BG3 content. But that's because I've played TotK, actively sought out discussions about it, watched youtube videos that seemed interesting, and paused scrolling through Facebook when TotK content popped up. I haven't played BG3 (not for lack of interest, I just have a sizable backlog of older CRPGs that I want to play before dropping $60 on a new one) and haven't sought out discussions or media content around it, so very little shows up in my media feeds. When I finished TotK and stopped engaging with related content, it slowly disappeared from my feeds, not because content stopped being made, but because the algorithms delivering content to me figured out that I was less likely to engage with it. I expect that if I got back into it, there'd be plenty more content. I also expect the same would be true of BG3 if I picked it up and started looking up videos and articles and memes.

It's always been the case that people tend to underestimate how popular something is if they don't care about it, just because not caring enough to engage with discourse around it introduces a bias, but that bias has become quite dramatically enhanced by media algorithms preferentially showing us stuff we've shown we care about and hiding stuff we don't. Now more than ever, you really can't draw conclusions about how little attention something has received if you haven't been paying attention to it personally.

BoomerKuwanger posted...

If you aren't into the game personally that's fine but it irks me when people act like their opinions are shared by everyone. TotK was getting tons of praise and excitement

You might want to reread what I wrote again:

"most of what I heard"

"Just from my perception alone"

I didn't say it was universally panned. I didn't say it was objectively bad. I have no personal opinion of the game because I haven't played it (or Botw either, for that matter). I also haven't played BGIII.

But from my perspective, without ever having sought out information or reviews on either game, I've heard tons of people crapping on TotK for being repetitive and lazy, and I'm not sure I've actually heard a single negative opinion of BGIII. TotK barely blipped on my radar when it came out, while I still see people talking about BGIII. Even when dipping into the GameFAQs game boards I saw tons of posts on the TotK board complaining about the game while most of the BGIII board posts were way more positive.

Just from my viewpoint, solely via pop culture osmosis, one of those games is dramatically more well-received than the other.

Like it or not, that's a factual statement - and literally nothing you say or do will actually alter that in any way.

RE4 is the correct answer.

Not interested in either. For me it's currently Jedi Survivor, but there is a strong possibility of Spider-man beating it

Far-Queue posted...

Skyrim in space?

I would prefer it go to a game that's doing something new and original that we haven't played before, like Spider-Man 2

Oh I'm not serious.

Why so?

Obviously it will go to Everybody 1-2-Switch

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Just from my viewpoint, solely via pop culture osmosis, one of those games is dramatically more well-received than the other.

Like it or not, that's a factual statement - and literally nothing you say or do will actually alter that in any way.

It's a factual statement, but the significance of that factual statement hinges on the sort of content you're delivered and the biases that colour your perception. As you enjoy reminding everyone whenever you get the opportunity, you don't care about Zelda, the Switch, or Nintendo games in general. You do, however, care about CRPGs and TTRPGs. Obviously algorithms are going to deliver you more positive BG3 content than positive TotK content, and even when you're seeking things out without being manipulated by algorithms, you've primed yourself to be more receptive to negative TotK content and positive BG3 content.