A Link to the Snitch said:
EDIT: Whoops, thought I had to spend three points on at least one game. I like to spread my points around as much as possible - this way, I can give more games cred instead of giving one game more cred.
Perfect
Glad that worked out for you!
Alts said:
I don't want to shit this thread up any more, but I still have a few questions.
What does this system accomplish that Anihawk's wouldn't?
How many people have explicitly said they prefer ranking games in tiers to creating a Top X list?
Where Anihawk's threads asked "What are your top 10 games this year", this thread seems to be saying "Vote up your favorite games". While similar, I feel the spirit of the question is different, especially after enforcing the point limit. Do you agree/disagree, or do you find the distinction unimportant?
Cool, I thought that since it was the last post on that page that it might be missed :lol
Thanks for the questions. Before I begin let me say I really enjoyed your page looking at the previous results and different algorithms on them, and I think I mentioned that in your thread. I found it really interesting, and right up my alley.
I haven't gone through counting how many people have said that, but I've gotten a few PMs to that effect and I've seen a few people say it in this thread as well:
jcm said:
For what it's worth, I like the voting system. It's a classic Good Better Best sorting, with the stipulation that there can be only one best, and a limited number of points. It's no more arbitrary than any other voting system.
Several posters have also said simply
that they like the new system (just one example), though they haven't necessarily given specific reasons. And of course a ton of people simply voted.
I'll try to be concise but also address most of the things I've been seeing in this thread.
I think this system is more flexible and I think works more realistically for people who don't want to rank each and every one of their choices. A lot of people don't have "#1" games, and just have a list of games that they enjoyed and feel should be recognized. Other people do have #1 choices. I aimed to meet both types of people with this system. The previous system forced people to order them, and while that accomplishes certain things and I'm not saying it's a bad system, I do prefer this style of voting. I also feel that this system enables those who only wish to vote for one game to do so without totally skewing the end result. I also like that this method is flexible enough to give the same "net impact" to people who want to list a lot of games as well as the people who were passionate about a smaller list of games.
Something else that I like about this system is that your "first-place" vote is never more than 3x the amount of points you give your other games... in the previous system, one game could receive up to 10x the amount of points that another got. Under this system, if four people vote for a game, it will always outrank a game that only one person has voted for. In the previous system you could have up to 9 people vote for a game (with a score of '1') and it wouldn't rank above a game that one person voted a '10'. I don't think that would really accurately reflect the community's feelings towards the game as well as in the new system. I think Top 10 lists can become kind of arbitrary as well... you're implicitly encouraged to "complete" the list, but to me it can be hard to say one game is a 6 and one is a 5. Is my first choice really 10x better than my last choice? Etc. Noshino also pointed out in this thread that this system avoids the situation where a person votes for a title at #1 and then throws out a couple other games at #9 and #10.
bcn-ron said:
I think it's good that this one doesn't make you order everything. You can now name several games that you enjoyed as much as each other.
Noshino said:
With the old system, people had to put their games in order of preference, hell, even if one wanted to just name 3 games, they couldn't put the 3 of them at the top, one HAD to be better than the other. That problem is solved this time around.
To answer your question about the "spirit" of the voting, I do think this is about voting for your favorite games, while not necessarily about voting them "up," so to speak. I think it's much more interesting to see what GAF's favorite games are, and I think it's more fun that way. Making it about the "Top" games makes it seem more about critically appraising and objectively ordering the top games. I think it's more fun to see what people simply enjoyed and stuck with them. To me this system makes it so when a game appears on your list, it's a game that really stood out to you and one I should take note of. I also think a Top 10 list would cause people to populate the list "just because," sometimes to fill the list or sometimes to put in more prestigious titles or such. Lostconfused said something about it:
Lostconfused said:
Well I guess that's my problem but I would end up listing those games anyways. Because they were pretty good. This point system made me think about which ones I had more fun with this year rather than just listing an ok AAA game.
Of course, if people were really concerned about niche titles getting recognition compared to the big titles, the most effective way to do that (in both systems) is to leave off the AAA games from your list and only vote for the niche titles. You know others will vote for the big AAA games and you will have avoided pushing them even higher by not voting for them at all. Same issue for both systems, but I feel mine mitigates that by pulling the numbers closer together.
People also were worried about niche titles not getting recognition. flabberghastly touches on this:
flabberghastly said:
I like this approach even more for niche titles, because the niche titles making the cut are ones that people cared enough about to devote their meager points to, which means they're more likely to deserve some interest from other people. I know that I personally had three niche titles on my list, Flower (3 pts.), Machinarium (2 pts.), and Noby Noby Boy (2 pts.). Many other people have been doing similar things with their points.
You said something earlier in this thread that I disagreed with: that I "shifted the complexity of the system to the voters." I don't really see this as being true... in both systems, we are simply asking GAF users to count to 10. But in the previous system we are also asking them to rank every single one of their choices in comparison to the others, which I think can be more complex than what I am asking in the rules for this year's voting.
Lastly, and again not to "shit up the thread" as you mentioned... what are your thoughts on the theoretical revision I posted on the last page (the 20/4 example)? In that system you'd have more games (which seems to be the primary issue for some people, still) and still have the flexibility we have now. It also might be fun to limit it to 10 points maximum per platform, to address the console warrior issue people were discussing earlier as well as promote variety in the voting.
In the end we may have to agree to disagree. There are always going to be tradeoffs, but I think that along AniHawk's directive and suggestions were to use this opportunity to experiment and try and improve the way we do this. And damn it, I typed too much :lol