The announcements of our Game of the Year 2012 winners will begin later today. We’ve spent the past couple of weeks nominating, deliberating, voting, counting, collating and charting our top picks in a number of categories. We’ve even asked you to select your choices, the results of that vote will appear towards the end of our announcements.
First, we wanted to explain a little bit about how our process worked this year.
For 2012’s Game of the Year awards, we moved away from our recent method of using platform-based categories. This year, we didn’t vote for a PlayStation 3 exclusive, an Xbox 360 exclusive and so on. We tried to form categories which were based on genres. The modern videogame landscape is so diverse and creative that shoehorning every game into a nice neat little box would be impossible.
Certain games fit into more than one category, some don’t conveniently fit into any. Some genres didn’t have many game releases this year and as such, we didn’t create a dedicated category for them. To ensure that everything could be considered, we created a category for the odd stuff – the impossible to categorise and the games without enough competition in their genre – and we called it “Genre Agnostic.”
The process begins with an email to all TSA staff and our most frequent contributors, asking for nominations in each of the categories. They’re encouraged to nominate any game they think should be included in consideration, rather than simply nominating the one they think should win. In this way, we hope to unearth a wider range of titles and potentially jog everyone else’s memory as to what might be eligible for this year’s awards.
Once the nominations are in, we place everything into a form and the same list of staff and frequent contributors are asked to vote for their top three in each category. Selecting a top three, rather than just one choice, ensures that a wider range of games are considered and represented. It is not essential that voters cast a vote in every category or include a second or third preference if they don’t wish to.
When voting is finished, we pull the data from the form and rank the games in each category using a weighted score based on how many times it was selected as first, second or third preference in that category. As a game is selected for a person’s first, second or third preference, it is awarded three, two or one points respectively and a total score is calculated.
We’ll represent each of our results’ top five as a chart to show how close – or not – voting was at the top but we’ll also show our final league table in each category so that every game we voted for is shown.
Our announcements will begin later today with the Soundtrack category before moving on through Mobile and Handheld categories and then into some traditional genres. We’ll culminate with the announcement of our Community Game of the Year 2012 (based on your votes) and our Overall Game of the Year 2012 on January 1st 2013.
avengerrr
I hope AC3 doesn’t get GotY like on the PS EU blog. Fair enough if people like it but if it really becomes that popular I’ll release one of my uncompleted projects and sell it to the public with a day one patch which enables them to actually play the damn thing and then another 4 or 5 to actually finish the coding off…. oh and perhaps I’ll cut corners.
After all if the public are not bothered, I’ll just rake in the money. (I’m feeling particularly sarcastic this morning :P).
jimmy-google
AC3 wasn’t even the best AC game released this year.
Gamoc
Even if AC3 wasn’t buggy at release, it still wouldn’t deserve GOTY. Not even close.
yiddo
I personaly think Far Cry 3 should get overall GOTY. But still, look forward to seeing all of the results.
Kennykazey
Agreed, Far Cry 3 is fantastic. I love Journey too, and it’s a better experience, but Far Cry is the better game.
Alex C
If it’s not Journey I quit.
The Lone Steven
Al, you can’t threaten to quit if it doesn’t win as TSA legally owns your soul. Twas clause 9 in your contract. :P Suspect it will win PSN game of the year followed by caused Nofi to plaster TSA with it and annoying some members as well as cosplaying as the character from it, award. Can we just name that the Nofi award? :O
Sympozium
…..Or the Unfinished Swan?
Peter Chapman
Don’t want to give too much away but I’ll say this: I was surprised at our overall winner this year.
jimmy-google
Vita game?
dave87fez
It isn’t Journey then!
The Lone Steven
Peter, i have 5 crates of Mountain Dew from EA sitting outside of TSA Towers, where do you want to put them or are those days over? :p *gets a toeshoe shoved up somewhere for making that joke*
This year has proven to be diffculty as Peter disccussed with a few of us on Twitter if a certain game would qualify for GOTY depsite it being a beta. Will be interesting to see if it’s included or if it’s getting it’s own award or not at all.
If there is a weakest ending to a trilogy award, i think ME3 has won that. ;) I would say that FC3 is my GOTY as it’s not been a disappointment. Although i would also say that Dishonoured is as well. Will the winning games be the games for Weview for all of January if they’ve not already been covered? Just wondering.
Shall vote and i can rig it if the right amount of hobnobs and PG tips make their way to me. ;) Disclaimer:This may or may not be true and Steven may just be scamming you as well as charging you for Admin costs, he won’t accept that soft drink. :p
TSBonyman
It has to be Dishonored! :)
jimmy-google
Admitted I haven’t played the whole of Journey as I only bought it yesterday (but played some at GameFest last year) but LBP Vita and Golden Abyss are my personal favs.
Max Payne 3 was my favourite home console game. Haven’t played much from the PSN and almost nothing on my mobile.
wirralsman
What contingency plans do you have in case the world does end tomorrow?
Peter Chapman
I’ll start to scream our list of winners as soon as I start to notice the faint whiff of brimstone.
Moshbag
Come on X-com!
xdarkmagician
If it isn’t FarCry3… it better be Borderlands 2!