Hopefully not, it would be pretty sad if they did well, which they likely would due to the rabid fanbases for GTA and Naughty Dog. Frankly it would only highlight that a lot of people are not playing good games outside their comfort zone, and considering the comments in this thread that seems to be the case.
Are remasters going to count in GAF's GOTY voting?
- Thread starter Cudder
- Start date
I'd be fine voting for a remastered game with significant upgrades to gameplay. A good example would be Metro: Redux. They added gameplay sections, rebalanced everything, upgraded AI, put in new difficulty sections, added all new environmental effects, cut out loading screens, etc. It's a much more substantial change than a simple upgrade of resolution and framerate.
RespectThySole
Member
Well it depends if they've played the games before or not. In my case I never played Guacamelee, the Metro series or Diablo III before this year so they're basically new games to me even though they're remasters.
Sure, and that happens to me all the time, but being lttp doesn't mean they should be under meaningful consideration for GOTY awards. If the game was not originally released in that year, then it shouldn't be up for awards in a different year unless its a ground up remake ala Zero Mission or REmake.
It would highlight that games are not something everyone can play when they first come out on the first platform they come out on. A lot of people specifically waited for GTA V on next-gen, and more than half of PS4 owners people didn't own a PS3 to play TLOU on.
There's already a rule against voting for a late port of a game you already played a year before, so that would cut out the "rabid fanbases" already.
And whether people play games outside their comfort zone or not is up to them, really. You shouldn't need to rig the rules to hide that, if it indeed exists.
RespectThySole
Member
I don't disagree. I was just saying that just because someone included a remaster in their top 10 doesn't necessarily mean that they're not playing games outside of their comfort zone.
Messofanego
Banned
Episodic games that haven't been completed don't count, right? Or can an exception be given to Kentucky Route Zero since each episode is quite self-contained and amazing in itself.
The way people are going on about originality, creativity and comfort zones, I can't wait to see this list. I had assumed it would be full of things like Far Cry 4, Dragon Age 3, Bayonetta 2, Mariokart 8 and the like. Maybe FRAMED is in with a real chance though!
Huggers
Member
Seems kinda elitist to me. Maybe this year has just been 'that' bad for some people. Regardless of whether they've stepped out of their apparent comfort zones.
1. I'm assuming there's some actual numbers about there to back your TLOU comment?
2. There is a rule, for LttP voting. It does not cover "remasters", and as we can see from this thread many consider these to be new games and want to vote for them even though they played them last year. Ergo the problem we are faced with when we have high profile remasters. Furthermore, what do we do about remasters that have been released for games more than a year old? The current lttp rule only covers games from the prior year.
Oh I didn't think you were disagreeing. Keep in mind my original post was framed around GTA and TLOU hypothetically doing well in GOTY voting. For that to happen it would take a significant amount of votes from people who have likely played those games prior to them being re-released, ergo people are not being diverse with the game choices. You can see that in the replies to this thread. I don't think the concern here is really about people being LTTP, since there wouldn't be enough votes to influence the GOTY.
As I mentioned earlier, the rule doesn't cover remasters. At least not at the moment.
With regards to forcing diversity, it strikes me as important for a GOTY list to actually include games released in that year and not retreading choices from previous years because they have been rereleased and you want to vote for your favorite game again.
This seems awkward now that your post is gone lol.
Damnit, I never get the 'fuck it' edit done in time.
It obviously isn't important that the list includes games released this year, as games released this year are being purposefully excluded. What you probably mean is 'original' games released this year, where 'original' is utterly nebulous.
Speaking personally, I want to vote for my favourite games released this year. GTA V wouldn't get a vote (I voted for it last year), but Rogue Legacy and Tomb Raider: DE sure as fuck would. I'd have voted for TR
E last year except, well, it hadn't been released.Messofanego
Banned
New games. Which isn't nebulous at all.
Well, it clearly doesn't mean 'games that were first made available for sale in 2014' otherwise my prior example (TR
E) would count. Obviously it's OK to vote for stuff like AC: Unity (the ninth? in the series) so we're not using 'new' to mean 'wholly original'.So, define 'new' for me.
Messofanego
Banned
Well, it clearly doesn't mean 'games that were first made available for sale in 2014' otherwise my prior example (TR
So, define 'new' for me.
How is Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition new? Isn't it the 2013 Tomb Raider game but just prettier? If there were enough significant changes to the Definitive Edition, then it'd probably be considered as a sequel, which would count as a new game and probably have a different name.
Assassin's Creed Unity is an original entry in the series, there's no prior version of Unity that came out in previous years. I don't know what the overall point of this semantic argument is.
Cheesemeister
Member
I'm not sure how I missed this thread, but I ought to weigh in, as I'll be doing the tallying again this year.
I would personally prefer to end the Port Rule. The Port Rule is just an excuse for being too cheap to shell out for a new system when a game has its big premiere on one system in a year, but goes back for sloppy seconds (and diminished attention) on other systems the following year. It's just like owning the debut system to begin with, but not getting around to it until the next year. It was still officially available in the debut year, when it had its best shot at ranking in. Technically, region-exclusive games in a given year can be bought and played anywhere in the world upon initial release, but those cases clearly lack official releases required for adequate attention.
Basically, situations like Minecraft and Xenoblade appearing for 3 consecutive years due to completeness, localization, or other issues are things to be avoided if at all possible. Note that alpha and beta editions are no longer eligible.
The LTTP voting has been underutilized and produces uninteresting data. It's an overhead hassle that distracts from the year actually being voted on. The desire to find out about missed games would be better served by simply going back to read previous GOTY voting and result threads.
Expansion packs and DLC that serve as expansion packs can count as individual titles. Mario Kart DLC Pack 1 yes, horse armor no.
If the mods want to require comments, perhaps it would be better for them to take disciplinary measures against members who fail to include comments? This would stop people from "setting and forgetting."
In terms of voting duration, I want to go back and examine the time distribution of posts in the last voting thread. I suspect that it's heavily front-loaded with a small, statistically-insignificant spike at the end. I'd prefer not drag it out with few votes happening in week 3, and the top 20 not even really changing in week 4, but some people would scream bloody murder at shortening the term, so I won't push it.
Fan translations are super-niche and rarely of new games from the year in question. These would receive far more attention in their own threads than a statistical blip that has to be maintained alongside all the Windows Phone exclusives. They're not even exactly official, licensed releases. That said, they're not difficult to include.
I would personally prefer to end the Port Rule. The Port Rule is just an excuse for being too cheap to shell out for a new system when a game has its big premiere on one system in a year, but goes back for sloppy seconds (and diminished attention) on other systems the following year. It's just like owning the debut system to begin with, but not getting around to it until the next year. It was still officially available in the debut year, when it had its best shot at ranking in. Technically, region-exclusive games in a given year can be bought and played anywhere in the world upon initial release, but those cases clearly lack official releases required for adequate attention.
Basically, situations like Minecraft and Xenoblade appearing for 3 consecutive years due to completeness, localization, or other issues are things to be avoided if at all possible. Note that alpha and beta editions are no longer eligible.
The LTTP voting has been underutilized and produces uninteresting data. It's an overhead hassle that distracts from the year actually being voted on. The desire to find out about missed games would be better served by simply going back to read previous GOTY voting and result threads.
Expansion packs and DLC that serve as expansion packs can count as individual titles. Mario Kart DLC Pack 1 yes, horse armor no.
If the mods want to require comments, perhaps it would be better for them to take disciplinary measures against members who fail to include comments? This would stop people from "setting and forgetting."
In terms of voting duration, I want to go back and examine the time distribution of posts in the last voting thread. I suspect that it's heavily front-loaded with a small, statistically-insignificant spike at the end. I'd prefer not drag it out with few votes happening in week 3, and the top 20 not even really changing in week 4, but some people would scream bloody murder at shortening the term, so I won't push it.
Fan translations are super-niche and rarely of new games from the year in question. These would receive far more attention in their own threads than a statistical blip that has to be maintained alongside all the Windows Phone exclusives. They're not even exactly official, licensed releases. That said, they're not difficult to include.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I'm baffled how this has reached 9 pages. I didn't realize things GotY meant so much to Gaffers.
Fattony12000
Member
Journey for PS4.
Game of the year for the third year running.
So long as they get it out this year, c'mon Jenova!
Game of the year for the third year running.
So long as they get it out this year, c'mon Jenova!
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
@Cheese:I imagine Miles Edgeworth 2 would be quite popular as far as fan translations go.
We could also just allow people to vote for whatever has released that year, no matter if they played a previous version already and then hand out the results with an optional filter for only new games, not counting ports, remakes and so on whatsoever. Discussing the semantics of port vs. remake vs. remaster does not sound too fun to me.
We could also just allow people to vote for whatever has released that year, no matter if they played a previous version already and then hand out the results with an optional filter for only new games, not counting ports, remakes and so on whatsoever. Discussing the semantics of port vs. remake vs. remaster does not sound too fun to me.
The port rule serves to fit the reality of NeoGAF, where the vast majority of its users can't own all video game systems.
I think the point of these awards is so people on GAF can express and celebrate their favorite games of the year. I can't see the point of excluding several games besides making the list less representative of the forum's reality.
Yes, that's from Shuhei Yoshida.
Tal Shiar Agent
Banned
I'm glad that it seems like HD remasters will not qualify this year.
That said, when does voting start? I can't remember from last year.
That said, when does voting start? I can't remember from last year.
I typed out a reply earlier but Chrome shat the bed. Rather than go over the same stuff (and bearing in mind that it's already been decided anyway), I'll just quote this part of Massa's post that I think sums up my view perfectly:
That's the top and bottom of it, for me. Put artificial restrictions in place - get artificial results.
Late reply but I own a wii u. Only bought smash bros and Mario kart 8 this year but yeah I didn't play a lot this year because of school reasons. Gta still remains better to me this year than the Nintendo exclusives though.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I agree in part and disagree in part. I agree that if the game was released on a platform in 2014, that game should be eligible (on that platform alone of course). Like I've said repeatedly, games like FF XIII (PC), SMT IV (EU), TLoUR (PS4) and Halo: MCC should all count as the specific release occurred in this calendar year.
But I don't necessarily think we should have people voting for games they've voted for already. That being said, if the mods were to require, on threat of junioring or bans (or something), that people require comments with their votes, it might be fairly interesting to see why people are revoting for games they've played. And of course, a filter would also alleviate this.
What do you think of my suggestion to have a continuously running GOAT thread where everyone casts their vote for each GOTY and the GOAT on a single post and edit it as they play new games? Votes can be counted yearly, and then no one feels like their vote is meaningless, but there is still a push for votes before counting. Note that this should be automated like the NPD thread if possible. Remasters, DLC, and region late released games can have their votes compounded into the originals release year regardless of region specific and other delays.
New games have an opportunity, they're eligible to vote for.
Not sure if serious.
Cheesemeister
Member
For the amount of data on games for a single year that has to be generated for the detailed reports I create, opening it up to any game ever made would be a nightmare. So, no.
Hawaii Jeff
Member
I agree.
If a remaster is good enough to beat out other 'new' games, it should be worthy of inclusion.
This is kind of a random question, but why does GAF do GotYs when they do them? Like, why don't they wait until March or April? By the end of last year I didn't want to vote because I didn't feel like I had played enough games by then. March/April makes sense because by then the hype for lat year releases has died down and people have more time to play the games. And yeah, I know this is why LttP exists, but like Cheesemaster said, the LttP category feels redundant and gets in the way of the year actually being voted on.
charlequin
Banned
FWIW, I think the tally data is extremely interesting in aggregate, but I also find the GOTY voting thread valuable for giving people a good excuse to write out explanations of the titles they've enjoyed in the last year. Personally I tend to like the cross-year-break port rule, and to include fan translations, just because in many years both make up a decent portion of newly-available stuff I've played during that year and I like the opportunity to write 'em up here, since we're not exactly going to start a second write-up thread with different rules. So... that's where I'm coming from, at least.
If we were going to change the voting window, I'd suggest lopping off the first week or two rather than the last, just because the holiday break's a really convenient spot for a lot of people to clear off a few extra candidates.
I'd prefer to force people to comment meaningfully on their list if possible, but we kind of don't have a lot of fine-grained tools for that on the mod side.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
I'd prefer to force people to comment meaningfully on their list if possible, but we kind of don't have a lot of fine-grained tools for that on the mod side.
When Cheese parses the thread, can't he just check each posting if there is text behind a semicolon without a line-break in-between and forward the list of people without comments to you
? Seems rather simple for someone who writes such strong parsing scripts.Yup, absolutely. Fuck Dark Souls 2 imma vote for the better 8 year old game instead. That and RE4 of course, and FF7.
With remasters and ports all over the place, and people discovering games for the first time all the time... the term game of the year has a pretty good chance of losing all meaningful purpose.
Cheesemeister
Member
When Cheese parses the thread, can't he just check each posting if there is text behind a semicolon without a line-break in-between and forward the list of people without comments to you
I can do that. I've been detecting the absence of comments this way.
The problem is, no matter how much bold and highlighted text we use in the OP, some people will always break from the prescribed format and put comments on another line or with the wrong delimiter, creating false positives. Others post lists without comments saying they'll edit them in later, but never do despite replies and PMs. We can require comments as a matter of policy while picking up conforming comments, and leave enforcement up to the mods.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Maybe people on a forum should learn to read then. Your rules are stated quite clearly and are easily understood, even for a non-native speaker like me, so I cannot understand people who still feel unable to conform to the rules.
If mods don't want to do anything about it, you would still have the option to just only count such postings where there are comments in there, this would at least give some incentive to write comments.
charlequin
Banned
When Cheese parses the thread, can't he just check each posting if there is text behind a semicolon without a line-break in-between and forward the list of people without comments to you
Oh, I read the thread already so it wouldn't be too hard to find the posts, we just don't have a lot of mild but discouraging things we can do to people and I don't think mass bannings would be particularly proportionate.
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