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But literally every single time that a game sits above another game with much less #1 votes it also has more votes and higher spikes around #3 or lower.
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Personally I find this interesting, other places don't show the data so I'm just kind of diving into it now because I like to understand what's happening. The reasons for the higher vote count can of course be debated, sometimes it happens on the same platform, sometimes when one is an exclusive, sometimes when one is cheaper or just a crazy popular IP as with Pokémon.
I'm less interested in talking about that because I don't think the data itself can illuminate why we're seeing that.
I completely agree that a game that is played more will accumulate points because most voters fill out their ballots.
To get a bit on a tangent:
Unfortunately the GOTY don't have the full list of what everyone voted for in a good data format, but I did the E3 votings for a few years and I was confused by
individuals that only listed games by a single platform holder.
I think E3 is interesting in the sense that basically 99% of people don't play anything at E3, so it's all just based on trailers and impressions. That's free for all and still some
individuals can't find anything interesting outside their preferred platform holder's upcming catalogue?
You could be uncharitable and say they only do it to pad the lists for their team because everything is a platform war.
You could be more charitable and say that they limit themselves to the one place they decided to spend their entertainment hours and everything else would be a distraction.
What I'm however pretty certain about is that it's not a genuine reaction to seeing 150 games and somehow with the diversity of genres represented is only captured by a single publisher.
But I found that there is no point in worrying about these individuals, because while I think they are odd in their selection there isn't a smoking gun to show they act in bad faith and there is no reason found in the data itself that they are intentionally sabotaging the process.
We all come to this voting with different perspectives, values and what gets chosen is quite personal for a variety of reasons. This year I've decided to only include 4 games that I thought were really good. I played more but I didn't consider those to be worthy of even being included.
Others choose differently and then the system creates the rest. As I said in a previous post I don't think I'm alone in that the point system doesn't capture my feelings:
My approximately subjective feelings tried to be expressed relatively:
God of War > Red Dead Redemption 2 >>>>>>>>>> Spider-Man > Shadow of the Colossus Remake
Converted to the ERA point system:
God of War > Red Dead Redemption 2 = Spider-Man 2 > Shadow of the Colossus Remake
Now add in the selection bias from what we attempt to even play, what we have access to and ultimate we do actually have different tastes and you get a hodgepodge of data out of which some limited conclusions can be drawn. It isn't God of War is the best game, it's that out of the demographic that visits ERA, which is different from the global video game player demographic, the demographic that decided participate in voting, which is not identical to the MAU included God of War in their ballots and if it was included with a relatively high point average.
It's a popularity contest viewed through a very specific lense. And like all popularity contests, that which has more visibility will be included more.
(See previous posts of mine for more examples on how I think the ERA demographics differs from the global video game market.)