2016 Community Game of the Year - Results posted (at last)!

I think game length is already implicitly factored into the rankings each player gives. If I play a long game, like The Witcher 3, that manages to keep a high quality experience throughout, I'm probably going to rank that higher than a game I liked a lot for 5 hours. Now a 5 hour game that gave me a much better experience would still probably get ranked higher than a 100 hour game so it's a balancing act that we all already do based on what's important to us.

Demyx wrote:

Yes, but do you love kittens and beer more than I love spreadsheets?

I love kittens and beer and spreadsheets more than you love spreadsheets. That's a scientific fact. I've got pivot tables to prove it.

Jonman wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Yes, but do you love kittens and beer more than I love spreadsheets?

I love kittens and beer and spreadsheets more than you love spreadsheets. That's a scientific fact. I've got pivot tables to prove it.

I think this conversation guarantees a Paradox game will win in 2017.

Tanglebones wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Yes, but do you love kittens and beer more than I love spreadsheets?

I love kittens and beer and spreadsheets more than you love spreadsheets. That's a scientific fact. I've got pivot tables to prove it.

I think this conversation guarantees a Paradox game will win in 2017.

I dunno, dude. You Need A Budget is looking mighty tempting.

Why are guys so obsessed with length?

Jonman wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Yes, but do you love kittens and beer more than I love spreadsheets?

I love kittens and beer and spreadsheets more than you love spreadsheets. That's a scientific fact. I've got pivot tables to prove it.

I feel like this is a conflict that can only be resolved in a rap battle.

Demyx wrote:

I feel like this is a conflict that can only be resolved in a rap battle.

A rap battle? Please. I flow Seattlese.
My rhymes are like Dracula, I'mma cut you with a spatula.

IMAGE(https://www.colourbox.com/preview/3441261-portrait-of-boy-10-years-with-crossed-arms-in-the-attitude-of-hip-hop-dancer.jpg)

Demyx wins.

robc wrote:

I think game length is already implicitly factored into the rankings each player gives. If I play a long game, like The Witcher 3, that manages to keep a high quality experience throughout, I'm probably going to rank that higher than a game I liked a lot for 5 hours. Now a 5 hour game that gave me a much better experience would still probably get ranked higher than a 100 hour game so it's a balancing act that we all already do based on what's important to us.

Speaking for myself, game length has nothing to do with how I'd rank something. If something overstayed its welcome or felt incomplete, that would be one thing, but I just don't buy that more always equals better. It can sometimes equal worse. Addition by subtraction is a real thing when it comes to creative experiences.

The Witcher 3 is pretty good, but it is quite flawed (IMO.) Its length is appropriate for what it is though, just like Inside's length is appropriate for what it is attempting to accomplish.

Speaking to your last point there, Gone Home's length is perfect for what it is trying to do and if I had played Gone Home this year, I'd be putting it higher than The Witcher 3.

I think what a person values is the only thing implicitly baked in to their rankings - which is why rankings are fun. If a person truly values quantity as an independently positive thing regardless of context, then sure - game length is factored in for them. I think the cool thing about lists and is that it gives us all a chance to look at things through each other's eyes and gives us all a feel for what types of qualities we place value on. It is interesting to see where our median taste lies in comparison to other people / communities / websites / etc.

Your spreadsheets are weak and your rapping is too
The rhymes you just dropped are full of poo
I can't think of more things that rhyme with oo
I'll have to admit I didn't think this one through.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/MwqAn.gif)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Demyx wins.

Never mind then.

Clearly the multiplier bonus should be proportional to the number of posts in the thread that aren't a list of games by the poster

shoptroll wrote:

Clearly the multiplier bonus should be proportional the number of posts in the thread that aren't a list of games ;)

I like the way shoptroll rap battles.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Demyx wins.

You don't understand my art, you philistine

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/1GbbJOflyXvFK/giphy.gif)

Wow! It's been a while since so many people banded together to tell me I'm wrong about something. It warms the gaping hole where my heart should have been.

As the walking embodiment of Poe's Law, I have to admit that I wasn't actually kidding, but I wasn't proposing it as an end all solution either. It was more of a brainstorming thing than anything else.

I was about five hundred words into an explanation of my logic before I realized I could make it into an interesting think-piece, so I'll sum it up with a crude analogy here:

Imagine a list of your favorite love affairs. On that list there will likely be a tryst and, hopefully, your spouse if you have one.

Which was more exciting? Which would you spend a life with?

(Note: I won life's lottery in that my answer to both of those questions is the same)

That is, of course, more instructive to making a personal list rather than an aggregate of multiple lists, so it makes sense that length is not in Clock's calculations. Still, I think it's useful to balance passion and stamina. If the game you spent twenty hours with isn't your preference over one you spent two hours with, why did you play for twenty hours?

EDIT:

Note: I ask that last question as someone who has played short games over and over until my playtime with them overshadows longer games that I never finished.

I am, for example, on my third playthrough of Duke Nukem Forever.

I understood your post was more "thinking out loud" than an actual platform that you were putting forth.

I think someone said that basically everyone already calculates "time spent" into their own lists so the vote accounts for it already. That I agree with.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

If the game you spent twenty hours with isn't your preference over one you spent two hours with, why did you play for twenty hours?

Because some games take 20 hours to play and some take 2.

Demyx wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

If the game you spent twenty hours with isn't your preference over one you spent two hours with, why did you play for twenty hours?

Because some games take 20 hours to play and some take 2.

I picked up Firewatch based on all the votes it got (it'll undoubtedly be on my list next year), and it was a perfect length at what, 5-6 hours? Any longer and it would have become a chore. Alternatively, I've put something around 250 hours in Elite: Dangerous, and expect I'll double that or more. Five hours into Elite I barely knew how to fly.

Both are great in their own ways, and I feel like I've played both the right amount of time.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/dqVTD.gif)

Demyx wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

If the game you spent twenty hours with isn't your preference over one you spent two hours with, why did you play for twenty hours?

Because some games take 20 hours to play and some take 2.

But why did it take 20 hours to play?

Was it obligation? Bloody mindedness? Or were you actually having fun?

I'll play a 2 hour game for 20 hours if I'm enjoying it. I won't play a 20 hour game for even 2 if I'm not.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I picked up Firewatch based on all the votes it got (it'll undoubtedly be on my list next year), and it was a perfect length at what, 5-6 hours? Any longer and it would have become a chore. Alternatively, I've put something around 250 hours in Elite: Dangerous, and expect I'll double that or more. Five hours into Elite I barely knew how to fly.

Both are great in their own ways, and I feel like I've played both the right amount of time.

This is exactly my point. You got five hours of fun out of Firewatcj, but would not have enjoyed the sixth.

It's up to you to decide if the density of enjoyment for those five hours is sufficient to outweigh the 250 hours of Elite Dangerous.

Because I'm an engineer and therefore believe that everything is explainable through math:

Let's say you enjoyed Elite and Firewatch equally. Let's make up an imaginary unit of measure for fun. Let's call them Squees.

You got 100 squees out of Firewatch, leading to about 20 squees per hour. Meanwhile you only got 0.4 squees per hour out of Elite Dangerous.

On an hourly basis, would you say that you enjoyed an hour of Firewatch fifty times more than you enjoyed an hour of Elite Dangerous?

Given that you'll play more Elite, and setting the Squee cap at 100 for both, that means your squee density is only going to decrease as time goes on, which means you are enjoying Elite Dangerous less, on an average, hourly basis, than you enjoyed Firewatch.

That being the case, why would you keep playing?

I'm almost certainly overthinking this, but I can't see how the math works on this. Either the squee density of Firewatch is through the stratosphere, while simultaneously not being high enough to warrant even another hour (to say nothing of a second play through) or you enjoyed Elite more than Firewatch.

And at this point, even I don't know if I'm kidding.

I think it's best to just say that a lot of people don't measure fun like that.

Also, not all hours are created equal. My first (only) two hours of Journey were better than my first two hours of Persona 4, which is 95% clicking through text and you don't even get to play a dungeon in that time. But my 90th hour of Persona 4, where I was confronting the final dungeon, was way better than my 90th hour of Journey would have been if for some daft reason I decided to play 90 hours of Journey.

All I'm hearing is "Rocket League wins every year" and I'm OK with that.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:
robc wrote:

I think game length is already implicitly factored into the rankings each player gives. If I play a long game, like The Witcher 3, that manages to keep a high quality experience throughout, I'm probably going to rank that higher than a game I liked a lot for 5 hours. Now a 5 hour game that gave me a much better experience would still probably get ranked higher than a 100 hour game so it's a balancing act that we all already do based on what's important to us.

Speaking for myself, game length has nothing to do with how I'd rank something. If something overstayed its welcome or felt incomplete, that would be one thing, but I just don't buy that more always equals better. It can sometimes equal worse. Addition by subtraction is a real thing when it comes to creative experiences.

The Witcher 3 is pretty good, but it is quite flawed (IMO.) Its length is appropriate for what it is though, just like Inside's length is appropriate for what it is attempting to accomplish.

Speaking to your last point there, Gone Home's length is perfect for what it is trying to do and if I had played Gone Home this year, I'd be putting it higher than The Witcher 3.

I think what a person values is the only thing implicitly baked in to their rankings - which is why rankings are fun. If a person truly values quantity as an independently positive thing regardless of context, then sure - game length is factored in for them. I think the cool thing about lists and is that it gives us all a chance to look at things through each other's eyes and gives us all a feel for what types of qualities we place value on. It is interesting to see where our median taste lies in comparison to other people / communities / websites / etc.

I think we are in agreement and that's what I said (or at least tried to). In the general sense I said, "I think game length is already implicitly factored into the rankings each player gives." and "...so it's a balancing act that we all already do based on what's important to us." I guess what I meant is that there doesn't need to be any extra consideration based on game length because we already factor in what is important to us (and a game's length isn't equally important to everyone).

Then in my particular case for me I stated that a game that stays great for 100 hours will probably outrank a great game that is 5 hours, but that may not be true for everyone (like yourself). That also doesn't mean that a 5 hour game can't be better than a 100 hour game. I also agree with you that padding a game's length isn't going to make games better. I don't know if I could play 150 hours of Inside. I loved Inside, but when it wrapped up I was OK with that.

ccesarano wrote:

Perhaps the real question is if, after playing Witcher 3 for 100 hours, would it retain that same degree of fun if you started over from the very beginning and went through another 200 hours? For some, I'm sure the answer is "yes", but given that most of the responses are discussing how the expansions added more content...

Oh goodness, the answer to that question, for me at least, is "nooooo". Which is interesting because I'm jumping into a second playthrough of Dishonored 2. But I don't think I'll ever be ready to jump back into the Witcher 3 which is so huge.
(I kinda regret not ranking D2 before W3)
This kinda makes me think, because I've several playthroughs of 100+ hours for Elder Scrolls games. Hum.
There's also an "era" bias, with a huge break between pre-kids and kids eras, with less gaming time, for sure.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I am, for example, on my third playthrough of Duke Nukem Forever.

You monster.

+1 to era bias. I used to be good at MOBAs!

Clocky is just deliberately withholding the results now, to see how much longer this insanity will last.

Gravey wrote:

Clocky is just deliberately withholding the results now, to see how much longer this insanity will last.

I'm okay with that.

Jonman wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Yes, but do you love kittens and beer more than I love spreadsheets?

I love kittens and beer and spreadsheets more than you love spreadsheets. That's a scientific fact. I've got pivot tables to prove it.

I feel that the fact that one of my suggested tags was "Spreadsheet Seamstress" means that I'm the one who loves spreadsheets the most.

Eleima wrote:

I feel that the fact that one of my suggested tags was "Spreadsheet Seamstress" means that I'm the one who loves spreadsheets the most. ;)

Well you weren't around to drop rhymes so how could we possibly know?

I'll admit, my love of spreadsheet is inversely proportionate to my skill in dropping rhymes. ^^ You win indeed.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Demyx wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

If the game you spent twenty hours with isn't your preference over one you spent two hours with, why did you play for twenty hours?

Because some games take 20 hours to play and some take 2.

But why did it take 20 hours to play?

Was it obligation? Bloody mindedness? Or were you actually having fun?

I'll play a 2 hour game for 20 hours if I'm enjoying it. I won't play a 20 hour game for even 2 if I'm not.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I picked up Firewatch based on all the votes it got (it'll undoubtedly be on my list next year), and it was a perfect length at what, 5-6 hours? Any longer and it would have become a chore. Alternatively, I've put something around 250 hours in Elite: Dangerous, and expect I'll double that or more. Five hours into Elite I barely knew how to fly.

Both are great in their own ways, and I feel like I've played both the right amount of time.

This is exactly my point. You got five hours of fun out of Firewatcj, but would not have enjoyed the sixth.

It's up to you to decide if the density of enjoyment for those five hours is sufficient to outweigh the 250 hours of Elite Dangerous.

Because I'm an engineer and therefore believe that everything is explainable through math:

Let's say you enjoyed Elite and Firewatch equally. Let's make up an imaginary unit of measure for fun. Let's call them Squees.

You got 100 squees out of Firewatch, leading to about 20 squees per hour. Meanwhile you only got 0.4 squees per hour out of Elite Dangerous.

On an hourly basis, would you say that you enjoyed an hour of Firewatch fifty times more than you enjoyed an hour of Elite Dangerous?

Given that you'll play more Elite, and setting the Squee cap at 100 for both, that means your squee density is only going to decrease as time goes on, which means you are enjoying Elite Dangerous less, on an average, hourly basis, than you enjoyed Firewatch.

That being the case, why would you keep playing?

I'm almost certainly overthinking this, but I can't see how the math works on this. Either the squee density of Firewatch is through the stratosphere, while simultaneously not being high enough to warrant even another hour (to say nothing of a second play through) or you enjoyed Elite more than Firewatch.

And at this point, even I don't know if I'm kidding.

I think this probably breaks down in a lot of different, amazing ways, but the biggest one for me is that games aren't always "fun". The math doesn't work, because enjoying a game doesn't necessarily mean I had fun with it. And I can love a game that left me never wanting to see another frame more than one that made me start another playthrough.