Contest and Stats Discussion - Part 1385

Years was so bad.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6692-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-2-2001-vs-2014

2001
Halo: Combat Evolved
Final Fantasy X
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Grand Theft Auto III

2014
Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U
Destiny
Dark Souls II
Bayonetta 2

We had this match pegged as a massive beatdown, and we were right. 2001 was considered one of the favorites (along with 1997) to make it to the finals for the honor of losing to 1998. 2014 was considered one of the weakest years that wasn't in the vote-in. Just look at those lineups. This couldn't have gone any other way.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6693-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-2-2008-vs-2009

2008
Metal Gear Solid 4
Fallout 3
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Persona 4

2009
Uncharted 2
Minecraft
Street Fighter IV
Batman: Arkham Asylum

2008 winning big was no surprise. We all knew that was a great year with lots of hype, even if some of those games have lost steam over time.

pjbasis posted...

I get why but 1986 really deserves to have the launch of the NES and smb1 attached to it.

That oct 1985 date that everyone refers to was just some NYC test launch, and nothing would be done again until mid 86.

From the admittedly limited looking I've done into the matter before, it seems like - while the October 1985 NYC launch was a test - that also was genuinely the NES's mass-market release date in the New York City area. Then it released in the Los Angeles area in February 1986, and gradually through the rest of the US during mid-1986.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6694-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-3-1997-vs-1999

1997
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Final Fantasy VII
PaRappa the Rapper
GoldenEye 007

1999
Sonic Adventure
Final Fantasy VIII
Silent Hill
Planescape: Torment

As stated previously, 1997 was one of the most popular picks to make the finals on this side of the bracket, so this blowout was no surprise. Also I'm glad FFVIII made the rotation for 1999, but then it had to be directly across from FFVII! Come on, let it have the spotlight for just a second!

Also Allen loved putting a random game in 1997's rotation (foreshadowing for later).

FFVIII > FFVII
SA1 > Parappa
SH1 > SotN

Haven't played planescape or goldeneye but how did 97 win???

More votes.

Classic Legitimacy Fallacy. Assuming a result is not because of cheating

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6695-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-3-2007-vs-2012

2007
Mass Effect
Portal
BioShock
Super Mario Galaxy

2012
Borderlands 2
Dishonored
Journey
Xenoblade Chronicles

2007 is decidedly in the "pretty good but not great" category, at least in terms of contest strength. However, 2012 might be the weakest year of this century. That's a rough lineup, which includes our GotY winner, Borderlands 2. I'll have to review the X-Stats at the end, but I'd be shocked if 2012 didn't finish bottom 5.

pjbasis posted...

Classic Legitimacy Fallacy. Assuming a result is not because of cheating

Yeah, since The Curse of Monkey Island came out in 1997, I'm sure those Monkey Island fans were up to no good once again.

Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, I'm not sure. I'd have to see if I can find the Guru picks at some point.

https://thengamer.com/guru/BYIG/

There's not much to really say. We mostly figured that the years would act as avatars from the most popular game from each year, and that depth would be a pretty good secondary factor, and that's pretty much how the contest largely went down.

Huh, my bracket wasn't too bad! I only missed five matches (and one of them was that dumb 2001 > 1997 result).

Which was good for 72nd place in the Guru lawl, so yeah, pretty easy bracket, especially since three of the five matches I missed were against the Guru consensus.

The Guru Cookie bracket finished 16th.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6696-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-4-2000-vs-1990

2000
Perfect Dark
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Final Fantasy IX
Deus Ex

1990
Final Fantasy
Super Mario Bros. 3
Wing Commander
River City Ransom

There was some debate about this match, although 2000 was the clear favorite. This was another matchup of top level strength against depth. If you picked 1990 (like me), you were banking on the power of Mario 3 and FF1 to carry it over 2000's clear lineup advantage. As you can see, 2000 won easily, although this was (sadly) our closest match so far. We'd only had one match under 70% up to this point (1989 vs. 1983) and that was just under 70%, to boot.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6697-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-4-1996-vs-1989

1996
Resident Evil
Super Mario 64
Crash Bandicoot
Super Mario RPG

1989
Tetris
Dragon Warrior
Bomberman
Guardian Legend

People were divided on how good they thought 1996 could be, especially with a matchup against 2000 coming up next round. It looked pretty good here, but it was hard to know what these results meant at this point.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6698-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-5-1991-vs-1988

1991
Sonic the Hedgehog
Super Mario World
Final Fantasy IV
Street Fighter II

1988
Metal Gear
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Wasteland
Phantasy Star

It's no surprise we got another massive blowout looking at these lineups. 1991 was considered one of the favorites to make it to the final four of this contest, and it showed why right away.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6699-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-5-2002-vs-2010

2002
Metroid Prime
Kingdom Hearts
Warcraft III
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

2010
God of War III
Mass Effect 2
Red Dead Redemption
Super Mario Galaxy 2

These are both two pretty good years, but 2002 had more top end strength, so it came out on top easily.

what's a rough estimate on KH1 vs ME2

pjbasis posted...

what's a rough estimate on KH1 vs ME2

Kingdom Hearts gets ~55.75% on Mass Effect 2 if you assume Fire Emblem: Awakening had the same strength in 2015 and 2020. (And if you assume KH1 and ME2 have stayed static relative to each other since then.)

(Mass Effect 2's last two 2015 matches unfortunately occurred in circumstances that make them mostly useless for extrapolation, and VLR was on the opposite side of the bracket in 2020, so the next best thing is to choose another game to hold even between 2015 and 2020. There is fortunately exactly one game that shared a division with both Kingdom Hearts in 2015 and Mass Effect 2 in 2020 - Fire Emblem: Awakening - and in neither case did significant occluding circumstances obscure a read on it, and contextual factors combine with the eye test to make holding it even seem reasonable to me.)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6700-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-6-1994-vs-2004

1994
Sonic & Knuckles
Final Fantasy VI
Super Metroid
Mega Man X

2004
World of Warcraft
Half-Life 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Tales of Symphonia

Man, two amazing years for games. 2004 probably got the worst draw of any year in the bracket because it could've won a match or two elsewhere. This (and the other match of the day, which we'll get to later) was the first match where the winner finished below 60%, and it was the first match where the board owned the casuals. 2004 was actually the overall bracket favorite.

it's tough when a tales game makes it into your top 4

Looking at the bracket, 1994's dominance is the main reason the board monopolized the top 50 in the contest I feel like.

Well we had just had the Year of the SNES in the most recent contest.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6701-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-6-2011-vs-2006

2011
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Dark Souls
Mortal Kombat

2006
Okami
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Gears of War
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

This was the first match where the board consensus was wrong (2011 was the overall favorite, too, so the board and casuals split on the day) and the first match where the one leading at the freeze didn't end up winning. It's hard to know how much game selection (2006 not having KH2) and order (2011 getting Zelda first and 2006 getting Zelda last, and Oblivion and Skyrim being on the same line) played a factor, but it was a close match, so it could have.

Leonhart4 posted...

2011 getting Zelda first and 2006 getting Zelda last

this probably evens out as being bad for both of them

2011 vs. 2006 was one of the few times that the rubric of "Which year is closer to 1998?" failed.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6702-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-7-1998-vs-1993

1998
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Pokémon Red/Blue
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Metal Gear Solid

1993
Myst
Star Fox
Doom
Shining Force

1998 was the prohibitive favorite to win it all and showed why right away. 1993 had a pretty solid lineup and it just didn't matter.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6703-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-7-1992-vs-2016

1992
Kirby's Dream Land
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Super Mario Kart
Wolfenstein 3-D

2016
Final Fantasy XV
Overwatch
Street Fighter V
Dark Souls III

Come on, it's a year from the 90s against the most recent year in the contest. How did you think it would go? Especially with the lineup 2016 was trotting out there, yikes. I'm kinda surprised 1992 didn't win by more.

I wonder if LttP actually beats DSIII by that much

2017 could have surprised a bit given the right bracket placement.

Leonhart4 posted...

1993 had a pretty solid lineup

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree there, at least based on the lineup Allen went with. IMO it has, in order, an unknown that's surefire fodder, an unknown that probably doesn't match Secret of Mana, a game that's never shown much here, and a game that's already shown it's (sadly) terrible here. An optimal 1993 lineup probably would have been pretty solid, but not one without Link's Awakening, Secret of Mana, or Mortal Kombat II.

2016 was a fantastic year if you were a shooter fan, considering both Doom and Titanfall 2 came out that year. Of course, neither were in the poll, and instead we got FFXV...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6704-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-8-2013-vs-2003

2013
Grand Theft Auto V
The Last of Us
BioShock Infinite
Fire Emblem: Awakening

2003
Final Fantasy X-2
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Disgaea

This was a fairly debated match. 2003 was the favorite, but this certainly wasn't a strong lineup. Also this is your friendly reminder that GTAV is now 13 years old and GTAVI still hasn't come out.

I could see 2003 vs. 2013 going very differently if it was run on most other websites and each year still had those games representing them.

Well yeah GTAV

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6705-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-8-2015-vs-2005

2015
The Witcher 3
Rocket League
Undertale
Fallout 4

2005
God of War
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Resident Evil 4
Shadow of the Colossus

Whoops, forgot to post this earlier! Last match of round 1! There was some fear of a rally for 2015 due to Undertale's presence, but of course, nobody cared enough about this contest to bother. 2005 was the only year from the Wild Card round to win a match in the main bracket.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6706-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-1-1995-vs-1987

Allen reused the round 1 pics for round 2 (to the chagrin of many), so I won't rehash the lineups here. 1995 was a darkhorse pick to challenge 2001 next round on the strength of Chrono Trigger, but that hope died with this result. 1987 never really threatened to win, but the match was basically a giant stall fest most of the way after 1995 jumped out to a nice lead early.

Nobody knew it at the time, but sans was actually referring to the Years Contest when he threatened us with having a bad time.

87 really deserved that, a rare case of being too old for gamefaqs

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6707-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-1-2001-vs-2008

There was such a massive gap between a lot of these years. 2008 had gotten 70% in 2009 in round 1, and 2001 got almost 70% on it in round 2.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6706-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-1-1995-vs-1987

Allen reused the round 1 pics for round 2 (to the chagrin of many), so I won't rehash the lineups here. 1995 was a darkhorse pick to challenge 2001 next round on the strength of Chrono Trigger, but that hope died with this result. 1987 never really threatened to win, but the match was basically a giant stall fest most of the way after 1995 jumped out to a nice lead early.

Pretty big divergence in Geolocation results for this one. Normally USA/Canada are pretty similar, but not here. 1987 actually won in the USA, but 1995 got 57% in Canada. Consider this another notice of how much Canada loves Chrono Trigger.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6708-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-2-1997-vs-2007

Not much to say about this one. This was the expected result. The other match of the day definitely hogged the spotlight.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6709-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-2-2000-vs-1996

This was one of the three most debated matches in this contest (along with 1997/2001 and 1991/1994), and in this case, it lived up to the billing, but not without controversy. After all, 2000 didn't get its optimal lineup (which would have included Pokemon G/S/C, for instance). Despite that, 2000 held the early lead. 1996 quickly came back and the match was neck and neck all night. Once the morning vote hit, 1996 took the lead and held 2000 at bay for the victory.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6710-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-3-1991-vs-2002

If you had 1991 winning next round against 1994 (as I did), you were certainly hoping for a more convincing win than this. Still, 2002 was a pretty solid year, so you could rationalize it as just being stronger than we thought (for now anyway).

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6711-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-3-1994-vs-2011

1994 was actually pushing a tripling at the freeze, but it dropped quite a bit from there. It still did well enough to cement itself as the favorite against 1991 next round.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6712-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-4-1998-vs-1992

If there was any doubt 1998 was winning this contest, it was hard to argue against it after all we saw in round 2, including this dominant performance.

I think I enjoyed Years more than most people, but it was still hard to get excited for a series of blowouts.

I dunno. It was a weird concept for a contest, but I'm also not the kinda guy who remembers what year things came out.

Not to mention this was the first time the vote totals truly felt sad. We had matches where the winner had less than 10k votes. I'm pretty sure that was part of the reason Allen instituted the registered user double vote bonus (in addition to it being an anti-rally measure), just to make the vote totals look less sad.

I think for a lot of the earlier years in particular, release differ a good amount by region, so as someone not from the region used for the contest it was a little rough to proberly judge what games were actually from the given year at the time, unless they were in the picture. On top of that there were lots of uncertainties in match pictures that made predicting less fun.

I don't think the contest was instead of another contest, so I still appreciate it, but it's the reasons why I didn't get as excited as usual.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6713-best-year-in-gaming-round-2-day-4-2003-vs-2005

Last match of round two and the last day of two matches per day! For some reason, I picked 2005 to win this. I guess I needed a darkhorse pick and I didn't really respect 2003. Turns out I was right about 2003 being a weaker year, but it still wasn't enough for 2005 to pull it off.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6714-best-year-in-gaming-quarterfinal-1995-vs-2001

1995
EarthBound
Twisted Metal
Yoshi's Island
Breath of Fire II
Chrono Trigger
Command & Conquer
Donkey Kong Country 2
Full Throttle

2001
Final Fantasy X
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Silent Hill 2
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons
Grand Theft Auto III
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Paper Mario
Halo: Combat Evolved

Round 3 meant user made pictures, and Allen expanded it to eight games per year. I believe it also displayed two games at a time for each year to compensate for the additional games. 1995 may have lost here, but it definitely proved that it was a worthy upset pick. 2001 was looking a little shaky now headed into its big showdown against 1997 next round.