Should Giant Bomb do GOTG awards?

I hate "Game of the Year" because some categories comparisons are nonsense. I would hate "Game of the Generation" because it utter nonsense to compare games that span so many years.

nope

I agree, some of the categories are nonsense. But there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to compare games from years apart.

That would be great if they do it right. But the GB guys are too much about humor and silliness (which I love of course), so they're not serious enough to provide a really meaningful and memorable Game of the Generation kind of shindig.

I'm not saying games are serious business per se, but there is greatness to games and their evolution that seems to be lost on these guys. Which is fine, they do their thing well.

Sure, it means more content, and better produced content at that.

Nah, let Gametrailers, IGN, Gamespot deal with that nonsense.

lol

I don't think the GB staff played enough of the best games of the generation. The best games tend to also be time sinks and Giant Bomb doesn't have the resources to cover them. The three games that I see the giant bomb audience put forward as great games from this generation that people should play are Dark Souls, Valkyria Chronicles and Neir. I don't think anyone on staff has played enough of those games to argue for them in committee. They'll all argue for shorter games like Uncharted 2 or Saints Row. While those games are great, they aren't the greatest of the generation.

How do you compare Uncharted 2 to Journey? How do you compare Gears 3 to Fable 2? I don't know where I'm not even sure it worth the time to even consider trying.

I've never ever liked GotY content on any site. I would much rather have a retrospective "The year in review" than trying to figure out if disparate games are "better" than another. Trying to stretch that out over a generation of technology is an even bigger folly.

To put it another way: A poor question would be "What is the best Kinect game?" I have no interest in people having a mental splooge fest trying trying to answer a question with little value. A much better question would be "Was the Kinect worth it?" Explore the games and discuss what worked and what didn't instead of trying to figure out which game sucked more than the other.

@mosespippy said:

Maybe then instead have them do individual "my favourite games of the past generation", and maybe let them break that down into console-specific lists.

It doesn't have to be THE definitive list. Just their personal favourites.

Not awards, but I'd enjoy a segment of a Bombcast discussing it. I'm sure it will come up naturally toward the end of the year on some live show or podcast.

@extomar said:

Have you looked at the GB personal GotY lists? It's simply their favorites of that year, and I don't think the problems you mention apply to that.

So my answer is yes, but not as an award but as personal lists and additionally talk on the Bombcast.

Yes, because I like the GotY podcasts. No, because I think it is pointless. Might work better if they concentrate on plattform exclusives instead of taking every game into account.

Doing an "ultimate" GotG award makes no sense, as it depends too heavily on what you percieve as important factors. If they narrowed it down to what game they enjoyed the most (or something else like most important or most innovative) it makes more sense. Although, as a primary PC player, the thought of a generation specific award seems sorta silly now that consoles basically are just modified computer, especially since they'll probably ignore any and all PC only games that came out during the same period.

Eh, why not? Some kind of retrospective would be fun. Although I'd prefer if they would choose to highlight some more obscure games over the stuff we all know they love. So maybe not so much a game of the generation top 10 debate, but rather a series looking back at their own favorites, along the lines of the Encyclopedia Bombasticas or the SNES and other console retrospectives they do every once in a while.

Yep, I always found the personal lists to be the most enjoyable to read even if some of the lists do not necessarily reflect my own, seeing it from their POV and how they articulate what they found enjoyable about the games makes it far more interesting then a "definitive GOTG" list.

Absolutely. I find the comparative discussions a Game of the Year/Generation spawns to be totally fascinating because it causes people to really hammer down on what they loved about their favorite games and what they didn't love about their slightly less-favorite games. Keeps us humble.

Also, it ultimately is just for the conversation's sake, so if they were to do it, I would literally only be interested for the Deliberations podcast.

@mosespippy:

Actually this gives me an idea, what if there were a feature where the dudes would check out games recommended (not sure how) by some of the GB audience?

Nah, that's probably dumb. But if someone could figure out how to arrange this sort of feature, I sure would watch it.

@chibithor: Yes and I have and as I wrote I don't like "Game of the Year" content ever even on GiantBomb.com. And for the record I never do 'top N of YYYY" either for the same reason because it boggles my mind I how I could even compare Journey to Dishonored let alone suggest one is better.

I agree with your initial point but the staff outright ignoring PC-only games though seems a bit hyperbolic considering that Brad preferred to play Starcraft 2 for almost half of this generation and now he is playing a lot of DOTA 2 and one of Patrick's favorite games is Amnesia.

I don't know about actually crowning games GOTG but I think it would be cool to have a few podcasts where they actually discuss it the way they do with GOTY. It would be cool to hear those discussions and reasons without having to actually call this game or that the winner.

Only if they pick the games I want to win.

No. I don't think they should do an award show. I would however like to see them do a video series where they sit down for each year of the generation and play/talk about a game or two of that time that really meant a lot to them or that they felt did something amazing. Do a 2-3 hour live show once a week for a month or so until they are up to the current time.

Not in the same way they do GOTY. Really a series of livestreams (or one massive one) where the crew went back through their favorite games of the generation and maybe some games we voted on in the community - that would be awesome. It's been a long ass gen and revisiting the beginning would be fun.

How do you even determine the beginning and end of the generation? Does the generation start with the first console of the generation? Do games released during this generation for older platforms count? If they don't, then does that mean the last generation is still going until the last game to ever be released on one of those older platforms comes out? If that's the case, this generation won't end for at least a couple more years, if not longer. That puts any sort of GotG discussion quite a ways off, unless you simply assume that nothing good will come out on the 360 or PS3 after the new consoles launch.

The whole concept is just way too nebulous. I guess you could talk about Best 360/PS3/Wii game, but what about PC games? What about games that were on the consoles but which were best on PC? I don't think there's really a good way to handle it. Discussions of the best/most important games to come out in a particular span of time (Month/Year/Decade/etc.) make more sense to me.

I think a retrospective would be cool (something like the Xboxalypse or the other game marathon livestreams), as well as personal lists from each dude.

I think that all game of the ____ awards should be based on aggregation of the staff lists, using a logarithmically weighted algorithm. It would be a much better system than their 'who cares most' style arguments.

@scrawnto said:

I think it's pretty clear that it'd be PS3, 360, and Wii games (as well as DS and PSP). Sucks for the games that come out after the new consoles launch, but it's the same as games coming out so late in the year that they can't be considered for that year's GOTY stuff. Sure, they're eligible for the next year's, but they're often forgotten by then.

As for PC games, whatever. Just do November 2005 to November 2013.

@extomar said:

Surely you can suggest you like one more than the other? A GotY list isn't necessarily trying to be some compelling argument as to why their chosen #1 game is better than everything else. I like Journey more than Dishonored and I don't think there's any problem there

I think it's pointless. But at the same time, it's an excuse to hear the guys' opinions about an entire generation's worth of games, and that sounds awesome. so I'm for it.

Yeah, I totally agree with this as well (see: every GOTY podcast here since like 2009. see, especially: 2011).

I don't think they will do it, and I'm not fussed about it, but I always like the GotY content, so more of that type of stuff would be A-OK with me.

They can do an unprofessional fridays kind of thing where they play some of their favourites but awards are dumb.

Yes, as long as turn it into a click-bait article, where each game is mentioned on its own separate page.

I don't think should do a specific award ceremony for it. But maybe a podcast just looking back at some of the best or most influential games this gen would be awesome. That would probably be pretty cool actually. They could even pick a few of their favorites and just stream em. Almost like a "look back through the generation".

I wouldn't want them to use the same categories as they do for GOTY, but if they came up with a bunch of stuff specifically tailored to this award then I could see it coming out interesting. Basically I really love the GOTY content and I think people would happily watch this if they did it. My only concern is that if they did it before the holidays it might contain some spoilers for GOTY proper.

People in this thread are thinkin' game-of-the-blank awards are some magical, irrefutable judgment of the quality of the games in question, calling for personal favorites instead.

That's what game-of-the-blank awards are! The staff's favorite games as a group! There's nothing official about it, it's all subjective! Opinions!

It's kinda dumb to compare launch titles with games made like 5 years later. Like not talking about gameplay or story or anything, but look at the technical differences between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3.

The GB crew battling it out to make a top 10 of the generation would make a pretty good podcast, so yes.

I love Game of the Year deliberations, because I think it forces the guys to put their money where their mouth is, and I think we need something similar (hopefully bigger) to GOTY deliberations. I doubt you could (or should) narrow it down to one game. But if they narrowed it down to 10 or 5, in no particular order, then that might be better.