Hello you lovely fruitcakes. I'm John Walker, one of RPS's editors, and I'll try to explain a few of the things about which people are confused/VERY CROSS.
1) So yes, Rock, Paper, Shotgun is a PC site. Not "tends toward PC", or "is mostly about PC". It's about PC. We're a site that has exclusively covered PC gaming for over six years. We all own consoles, we all play console games, but our website is about PC games alone. Why? Because six years ago there were no PC-dedicated sites, so we started one. That seems to have worked out okay.
An awful lot of people seem annoyed we don't point this out "often enough". We kindasorta figured that having it written at the top of the site on every page might give it away? Perhaps we'll make it flash.
So that hopefully goes some way to explaining why there aren't any console games in our articles about our favourite PC games of 2013.
2) Let me explain, in its entirety, how we pick our list:
Our annual calendar is a list of our ("our" being the six of us - Jim, Alec, Nathan, Graham, Adam and me) favourite 24 games from the year. There's no agenda, no conspiracies. We list out all the games we covered favourably in the year in a Google Doc, everyone puts their name by games they want to see on the list, and we get rid of those that no one picks. That gets us down to about 30-40. Then we go through again, looking at games with only one name by them, and see how passionate that person is that it make it. So, say Hexcells. I was the only name, but I would have gone on a rampage with a scythe if it weren't included. But then I was also the only name by Ittle Dew, and wasn't passionate that that make it. If that still leaves us with over 24, we begin the arguing. Or we gang up on one person and tell them their pick is stupid and they smell. Eventually, through a combination of complaining and giving up, it's wittled to 24, and that's the list. Everyone with their names by the games writes a contribution for that day's article.
Those that are left over, all those games that didn't make the cut, get put into the Leftovers - articles we put up over the holidays that give them their honourable mentions. So to all the "Where's Shadow Warrior/Gunpoint/Binfinite/etc?" questions, the answer is in the Leftovers. Games that either didn't receive enough votes, or enough passion, to get in the top list, but still may well be great, and in another year may well have got in. You may well STRONGLY disagree. Awesome! Good stuff. I'd be interested to see your list too.
3) The indie to mainstream ratio surprised us too. Which hopefully indicates that this is not our attempting to, um, look cool? Good heavens, I wouldn't know how to try. We just picked which games we liked best! As a website we don't distinguish between AAA, AA, indie, or whatever, in terms of what gets coverage. We just write about PC games. This year more of our favourite games happened to be independently published. Sorry to disappoint hipster-spotters. But AssCreed 4, Dishonored DLC, XCOM, Gunslinger, Saints Row IV... they're not exactly from indie studios!
4) I didn't make Gunpoint, more's the pity. That's Tom Francis, formerly of PC Gamer, sitting atop that pile of gold. We all know Tom very well, and have seen how he dances when drunk, and have played Peggle on his digital projector.
5) Yes, Kentucky Route Zero is episodic, and only two of those episodes are out. HOW DARE WE?! It's pretty simple. The first two episodes of KRZ were our favourite gaming times this year. It doesn't matter if the next three episodes are just the developers' farting onto a table. It doesn't change that our favourite time with a game in 2013 was KRZ. That's it.
6) DOTA 2 was on last year's list. You will eventually come to terms with this.
7) Robert J. Sullivan - our talent has just reached 4.8% of IGN's, so not long to go.
I think most of people's outrage could be addressed if they read the big piles of lovely words we've written explaining why each game has been picked. I mean, I realise it's much easier to instead post here rhetorically DEMANDING to know why, but then I'm passive-aggressive.
I shall forever remain surprised by people's fury when our list doesn't uncannily match their own. But then I shall also go on to become furious when I read someone ele's list that doesn't match mine. I'm nothing if I'm not a hypocrite. So I get it - it's frustrating when your own opinions aren't reflected. But shhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh, it's going to be fine, shhhhhhh, just go to sleep now, c'mon, that's it, shhhhhhh now.
John Walker
Editor -
www.rockpapershotgun.com
