Mass Effect 2 (8125) *** GAME OF THE YEAR *** Red Dead Redemption (4887) Starcraft 2 (3930) Minecraft (3678) Fallout: New Vegas (3513) Super Meat Boy (3205) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (3006) Halo Reach (2713) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2505) Civilization V (2444) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2378) Bayonetta (2257) Darksiders (1967) Just Cause 2 (1865) World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (1855) Angry Birds (1740) Alpha Protocol (1677) Call of Duty: Black Ops (1604) Heavy Rain (1573) VVVVVV (1523)

GOTY 2010: #1, Mass Effect 2

Top-ranked PC Exclusive: #3, Starcraft 2

Top-ranked Wii Exclusive: #7, Super Mario Galaxy 2

Top-ranked 360 Exclusive: #8, Halo Reach

Top-ranked iPhone/Android Exclusive : #16, Angry Birds

: Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive: #19, Heavy Rain

Top-ranked DS Exclusive : #31, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

: Top-ranked PSP Exclusive: #64, Valkyria Chronicles 2

Best RPG : #1, Mass Effect 2

: Best FPS : #4, Minecraft

: Best "Indie" Game : #4, Minecraft

: Best Game Available Through A Console Download Service : #6, Super Meat Boy

: Best Browser Game : #48, Robot Unicorn Attack

: "Cult" Award (see below): #52, Deadly Premonition

(see below): Best Downloadable Game (XBLIG division): #59, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

Best game of 2010 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #35, Alien Swarm

#35, Alien Swarm Worst game of 2010 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #200, 3D Infinity (This is an XBLIG game; Only one person voted for this at all)

#200, 3D Infinity Worst game of 2010: #237, Dead Nation (Only one person voted for this; it was their #20 pick)

Mass Effect 2 (231) Red Dead Redemption (69) Starcraft 2 (47) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (40) Minecraft (35) Fallout: New Vegas (29) Bayonetta (20) Super Meat Boy (19) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (18) Alpha Protocol (15) World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (15) Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (14) Deadly Premonition (12) Rock Band 3 (11) Civilization V (10) Alan Wake (10) Halo Reach (10) S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (10) Super Street Fighter 4 (9) Call of Duty: Black Ops (9)

Mass Effect 2 (440) Red Dead Redemption (284) Starcraft 2 (241) Minecraft (235) Fallout: New Vegas (217) Super Meat Boy (210) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (182) Halo Reach (177) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (165) Civilization V (163) Bayonetta (155) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (146) Darksiders (144) Angry Birds (137) Just Cause 2 (135) Scott Pilgrim vs The World (115) Alpha Protocol (115) Call of Duty: Black Ops (115) Heavy Rain (114) World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (114)

Mass Effect 2 Red Dead Redemption Starcraft 2 Minecraft Fallout: New Vegas Super Meat Boy Super Mario Galaxy 2 [/b] Halo Reach Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Civilization V Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Bayonetta Darksiders Just Cause 2 Angry Birds World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Alpha Protpcol Call of Duty: Black Ops Alan Wake Heavy Rain

Mass Effect 2 Red Dead Redemption Starcraft 2 Fallout: New Vegas Minecraft Halo Reach Super Mario Galaxy 2 Super Meat Boy Civilization V Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Darksiders Bayonetta World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Just Cause 2 Alpha Protocol Angry Birds Call of Duty: Black Ops Heavy Rain God of War 3



Every year since 2004 I've been hosting this Game of the Year poll for the users of some forums I read. There are aof GOTY polls out there, but this one I think is kind of special. Most polls, you're given a list of four or five options and you're asked to pick the one you liked best. This poll, people are given a list of a couple ofoptions, consisting of every new game released in the previous year-- and asked to rate their top ten or twenty.This does a few interesting things. First off, we get to see all the information about what people's second, third etc choices are. Second off, because the second, third etc choices count, people are more likely to vote for the game they want to win, rather than the game they think is likely to win-- they're less likely to engage in "strategic voting". Finally, because we have all this information, we're actually able to provide somewhat reasonable rankings for something like the top hundred or so games of last year.The full results-- showing the exact number of voters who ranked each game first, second, third place etc-- can be found here . In the meantime, the final results were:The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll's ranking system. Thanks if you voted, and some more elaborate analysis of the results (plus an explanation of the scores) can be found below.NOTEWORTHY WINNERSNOTEWORTHY LOSERSThere were 23 games on the nominations list no one voted for at all.ALTERNATE SCORING METHODSThe rankings listed above are based on a version of the Borda count voting method. Each vote cast for a game gives that game a certain number of points. If someone ranks a game #1, that game gets 20 points. If they rank it #2, the game gets 19 points. If they rank it #3 the game gets 18 points... and so on. I have a script that checks a couple of alternate ways of ranking the same data, though.For example, if we rank gamesby the number of first post votes they got, we get a wildly different list, with tons of games listing that otherwise weren't anywhere near the top 20:Most years when I look at the first-past-the-post list a "cult" game emerges that received very few overall votes, but where an overwhelming percentage of those votes were #1 votes; this year actually seemed to have more "cult" games than normal, but I think the cult award was pretty clearly earned here by Deadly Premonition, which went from a ridiculous #52 in the normal ranking to #13 in the first-place-votes ranking. Also noteworthy here though were Dragon Quest IX (jumps from #31 to #12) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (jumps from #37 to #15, tying with Halo).I also did two more ways of sorting the rankings: an "approval" vote, where nothing is counted except thea game received (i.e. a first-place and a twentieth-place ranking count the same-- all the matters is if the game was on someone's list); and an instant runoff vote . Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, and these rankings very rarely differ from the Borda rankings, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the official rank. A small observation: 858 people voted this year.placed some sort of vote for Mass Effect 2.FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNSSince like I mentioned there are a couple other small forums participating in this poll, I also went through and ran numbers using only votes from people who, as far as I could tell from the logs, came from the penny arcade site specifically. These numbers aren't totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but either way, here you go.(666 voters)