Acclaimed Video Games site

[Moeboid]

Oh, great arbiter of worthiness, please let us know how many years must pass before we are allowed to praise a work.

Come on, this is out of line. The attitude you describe definitely exists, and I understand being frustrated by it, but 1) I'm not sure if it's fair to ascribe it to the above user based on just that one comment, and 2) it's no excuse for this level of mockery. Please respond in good faith, or, if you're sure they're being obnoxious, just ignore them.

[whuntva]

I understand. Thanks for the methodology, moebiod.

As for "feels wrong", I kind of like to go by the ten year rule for recent entries. I try to think "will anyone remember this in ten years". So I'd be okay with something like Last of Us or Red Dead being #1, but Breath of the Wild's influence still feels too recent. Maybe in 2027, it would be worthy. We shall see. Though I am happy to see Witcher 3 and Bioshock make it so high. Maybe I should revisit Zelda as a whole soon to see how it holds up.

[FrankLotion]

I understand. Thanks for the methodology, moebiod.

As for "feels wrong", I kind of like to go by the ten year rule for recent entries. I try to think "will anyone remember this in ten years". So I'd be okay with something like Last of Us or Red Dead being #1, but Breath of the Wild's influence still feels too recent. Maybe in 2027, it would be worthy. We shall see. Though I am happy to see Witcher 3 and Bioshock make it so high. Maybe I should revisit Zelda as a whole soon to see how it holds up.

Funnily enough, just last night I finally completed Breath of the Wild for the first time and I was pretty stricken with it. I can understand why so many people are anointing it as the best of all time given how phenomenally fun and novel it is but your point is well taken.

I actually find it interesting how influential the game has not been since its release. It might be that it’s philosophy towards exploration is just too difficult to replicate but it feels like the only AAA game that has really taken the torch of BotW and ran with it is Elden Ring. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, there have been great open-world games since BotW that are great for entirely separate reasons but it’s easy to see why the game is held in such high esteem given that it’s still one of the only games like it.

[BleuPanda]

I understand. Thanks for the methodology, moebiod.

As for "feels wrong", I kind of like to go by the ten year rule for recent entries. I try to think "will anyone remember this in ten years". So I'd be okay with something like Last of Us or Red Dead being #1, but Breath of the Wild's influence still feels too recent. Maybe in 2027, it would be worthy. We shall see. Though I am happy to see Witcher 3 and Bioshock make it so high. Maybe I should revisit Zelda as a whole soon to see how it holds up.

But why? What suddenly changes in 2027 that isn't true now? The whole point of media criticism is to analyze works for their qualitative purposes. What does time passing have to do with anything? Why would you be okay with The Last of Us being higher even though all known data points to Breath of the Wild being better received? It's completely arbitrary, and it's guided by a notion that people don't actually know how to analyze the works they engage with. What is the basis for that belief?

Like, this might be true if we were constantly seeing a shift in what was acclaimed 10 years ago and what is acclaimed now, but that really does not happen all that often. All delays do is make the compiler look systematically behind the curve. The only thing that I ever see meaningfully change is a few more obscure games rising up over time, but that is not justification to hold those with an immediate impact back. And, if anything, those slow risers are hurt even more by this sort of delay.

Like, do you wait ten years before adding a movie to your personal movie ranking? Do you really let your opinion sit unspoken for an entire decade before you believe it has any worth? I highly doubt that, so I don't know why you would want to enforce that on a societal level. People are already going to be biased towards the works they grew up with; it takes a lot for a game like Breath of the Wild to earn this massive amount of acclaim.

Like, yes, it's important to let a work sit with you before making judgment, but for most people, I imagine their opinion of a work after a few weeks isn't much different than their opinion on it a decade later. Not to any meaningful degree that justifies ignoring contemporary art entirely. Like, how is art supposed to grow when people are constantly told not to value the works they are experiencing in the current moment? Art is a constantly shifting mode of expression, and any artist worth anything is most likely paying keen attention to their contemporaries; why should critics pretend not to have that awareness, especially when they are the likely reasons people are able to follow the trail to the important acts of their generation?

[BleuPanda]

Also, to look at it another way - part of the reason Ocarina of Time has slipped is due to the release of Breath of the Wild; Ocarina is no longer the indisputable top game in its own series. As such, there is now an occasional gap that games like The Last of Us are able to take that they might not have without Breath of the Wild. So I don't know how The Last of Us would be an acceptable alternative when part of its relative success is due to BotW.

Ignoring works from the past decade decontextualizes the actual discussion around mediums. Things shift around each other, they don't exist in a vacuum.

[Moeboid]

I understand. Thanks for the methodology, moebiod.

As for "feels wrong", I kind of like to go by the ten year rule for recent entries. I try to think "will anyone remember this in ten years". So I'd be okay with something like Last of Us or Red Dead being #1, but Breath of the Wild's influence still feels too recent. Maybe in 2027, it would be worthy. We shall see. Though I am happy to see Witcher 3 and Bioshock make it so high. Maybe I should revisit Zelda as a whole soon to see how it holds up.

You may feel that way, but the critics whose lists I'm aggregating clearly don't, and if my list doesn't reflect what critics are actually saying then anyone with more than a passing familiarity with critic lists will wonder if my methods are sound. I mean, if Breath of the Wild were anywhere other than first, what data could I show to justify that? Everything I have shows that it should be first by a mile.

I also feel like the only way I could justify this is by assuming that critics don't know what they're doing. More specifically, assuming that they are unaware of when they're being caught up in the hype of something, or unaware of when they haven't fully processed the experience yet. A few times I have had to play a game twice before feeling confident in my assessment, and if I know when I need to do that then it's reasonable to assume that critics do too. And even if critics aren't that professional, part of me thinks it's better for my list to reflect that in order to being these problems to the surface.

[whuntva]

Well, I heard all the arguments, and I feel my spur of the moment judgment may have been misguided, but I have learned to accept it.

Yes, the air of snobbery, elitism, and "older is better" mentality exists, but so does recency bias. You don't want to overemphasize recent works TOO much. There has to be some kind of middle ground when evaluating works on this large of a scale. My movies and album lists do have some shifts every poll, but they are works I really have to sit on and think about how much I like them. Personal ratings can be arbitrary, but all-time lists are different. The Acclaimedmusic formula does a good job of assessing all-time value while giving new works their due, but I was just surprised to see a game like Breath of the Wild take #1 so soon. Not to say it is a bad game, or unworthy of accolades, but not a game I was seeing on the tip of everyone's tongues.

Part of this could be due to the relative youth of the medium. As sort of a tangent, I am actually okay with TreasureTV skewing somewhat newer since most of the "game changers" of the television medium came within the last forty years. The formula reflects this. Perhaps the big game changers of video games are already happening now, with titles like Zelda and Elden Ring attracting as much media attention as tentpole blockbusters. In this case, Breath of the Wild may be perfectly aged given the state of gaming. After all, there is a world of difference between Zelda and Tetris. But I was unsure of if the game had stood the test of time quite yet.

I initially thought #39 for Breath of the Wild on Playthatgame was fair. It allowed the game to rise or fall depending on how time treats it while acknowledging its greatness in the present, but the gaming medium is changing fast and going in new places. So maybe having Breath of the Wild as a standard bearer is a good thing. The game is the same age as the Vegas Golden Knights, and they won a Stanley Cup. So maybe Breath of the Wild can be judged on influence now and rise the ranks. Don't know if the title will *hold*, but there is something to be said about a current gen console game getting there this quickly.


Or maybe it's because I didn't really follow Zelda much. Who knows? I started playing the game and it's pretty good so far.

[Moeboid]

Well, I heard all the arguments, and I feel my spur of the moment judgment may have been misguided, but I have learned to accept it.

Yes, the air of snobbery, elitism, and "older is better" mentality exists, but so does recency bias. You don't want to overemphasize recent works TOO much. There has to be some kind of middle ground when evaluating works on this large of a scale. My movies and album lists do have some shifts every poll, but they are works I really have to sit on and think about how much I like them. Personal ratings can be arbitrary, but all-time lists are different. The Acclaimedmusic formula does a good job of assessing all-time value while giving new works their due, but I was just surprised to see a game like Breath of the Wild take #1 so soon. Not to say it is a bad game, or unworthy of accolades, but not a game I was seeing on the tip of everyone's tongues.

Part of this could be due to the relative youth of the medium. As sort of a tangent, I am actually okay with TreasureTV skewing somewhat newer since most of the "game changers" of the television medium came within the last forty years. The formula reflects this. Perhaps the big game changers of video games are already happening now, with titles like Zelda and Elden Ring attracting as much media attention as tentpole blockbusters. In this case, Breath of the Wild may be perfectly aged given the state of gaming. After all, there is a world of difference between Zelda and Tetris. But I was unsure of if the game had stood the test of time quite yet.

I initially thought #39 for Breath of the Wild on Playthatgame was fair. It allowed the game to rise or fall depending on how time treats it while acknowledging its greatness in the present, but the gaming medium is changing fast and going in new places. So maybe having Breath of the Wild as a standard bearer is a good thing. The game is the same age as the Vegas Golden Knights, and they won a Stanley Cup. So maybe Breath of the Wild can be judged on influence now and rise the ranks. Don't know if the title will *hold*, but there is something to be said about a current gen console game getting there this quickly.


Or maybe it's because I didn't really follow Zelda much. Who knows? I started playing the game and it's pretty good so far.

I think questioning the placement of Breath of the Wild is perfectly reasonable, all I'm saying is that it's not the result of a flawed aggregation method. My personal view is that it's overrated, but it's the critics themselves who are overrating it, not my algorithm. I could try to "correct" this, and justify that by saying that critics have a recency bias, but is it really my place to do that? I don't think it is. I think I should be trying to reflect what the critics are saying as accurately as possible, and if they over/underrate something then that's their problem, not mine.

With PlayThatGame, I don't think their placement of Breath of the Wild has anything to do with their algorithm being better, I think it's more a case of their bias towards older games accidentally producing a reasonable ranking (in my opinion). To be clear, I'm not trying to say that my algorithm is "better", because wanting to emphasise games with a long history of being highly acclaimed is a valid way to make a list, and if people find it more useful than my website then power to them. But while I might agree that 39th makes a lot more sense than 1st from a taste perspective, it's hard to justify in relation to the source data.

Anyway, in other news, AVG got a major visual update today. The list is the same, but there is now a genre filter (genre data is from IGDB), the homepage has a news/changelog section, and the mobile layout is way better. I'd say it's out of beta now. I'm comfortable with the list, and the presentation. Time to start promoting it, I guess.

[Nassim]

I was surprised to see that Capcom had "only" 19 games but I guess the real surprise is seeing only 1 SNK game, though I guess it doesn't help that most of their games were only playable on Arcade or on a console nobody had, and that most are parts of series where unless you are a fan it can be hard to know the difference between episodes (like the first 10 King of Fighters)

[Moeboid]

I was surprised to see that Capcom had "only" 19 games but I guess the real surprise is seeing only 1 SNK game, though I guess it doesn't help that most of their games were only playable on Arcade or on a console nobody had, and that most are parts of series where unless you are a fan it can be hard to know the difference between episodes (like the first 10 King of Fighters)

Well it's 2 if you count Metal Slug (published by SNK, but developed by Nazca), and there would be one more if the list went to 600 (Puzzle Bobble at 554). I know I have a few more in the database, but can't say precisely how many because I haven't bothered to enter developer data for much outside the top 500. The algorithm doesn't reference it at all, so developer data is purely for the website.

I might actually increase the list to 700 or so for the next update. I'll have to check where I start finding games with only a single mention, because that's where I'll stop it. The data just isn't good enough at that point. But I could easily add another 100 entries. Puzzle Bobble has six mentions from three different publications, so that's more than good enough.

[Nassim]

I was surprised to see that Capcom had "only" 19 games but I guess the real surprise is seeing only 1 SNK game, though I guess it doesn't help that most of their games were only playable on Arcade or on a console nobody had, and that most are parts of series where unless you are a fan it can be hard to know the difference between episodes (like the first 10 King of Fighters)

Well it's 2 if you could Metal Slug (published by SNK, but developed by Nazca), and there would be one more if the list went to 600 (Puzzle Bobble at 554). I know I have a few more in the database, but can't say precisely how many because I haven't bothered to enter developer data for much outside the top 500. The algorithm doesn't reference it at all, so developer data is purely for the website.

I might actually increase the list to 700 or so for the next update. I'll have to check where I start finding games with only a single mention, because that's where I'll stop it. The data just isn't good enough at that point. But I could easily add another 100 entries. Puzzle Bobble has six mentions from three different publications, so that's more than good enough.

I don't think there is an issue in the list here, I really think critics are overlooking those games because they were not played that much ! (And also because they all blend together, one game a year in a série is too much).
A bit surprising they wouldn't chose Metal Slug X over the first one (Metal Slug X is Metal Slug 2 with Metal Slug engine to increase performances, don't know if you'd count them as one or 2 games) but then again, releasing very similar games every year probably leads to vote splits which hurts in those rankings.

[Moeboid]

[I don't think there is an issue in the list here, I really think critics are overlooking those games because they were not played that much ! (And also because they all blend together, one game a year in a série is too much).
A bit surprising they wouldn't chose Metal Slug X over the first one (Metal Slug X is Metal Slug 2 with Metal Slug engine to increase performances, don't know if you'd count them as one or 2 games) but then again, releasing very similar games every year probably leads to vote splits which hurts in those rankings.

Yeah it looks like they just don't get a lot of votes.

Believe it or not, I don't even have Metal Slug 2/X in my database, which means neither has ever appeared on a list (Metal Slug 3 is there, however). If they're the same game then I would definitely want to combine them. Sometimes it's a grey area, like with sports games, but that one seems pretty clear cut. And yeah, I agree: games with quick, iterative releases probably do cannibalise each other's mentions. Finding some kind of solution to that would be nice, but it's not a priority at the moment.

Also, I checked what the highest ranked game with a only single mention is, and it's Dwarf Fortress at 862nd. Its only mention was 24th on Polygon's all time list from 2017. Curiously, the game that was 23rd on that same list, Rogue: Exploring the Dungeons of Doom, also has that as its only mention, and it is just behind Dwarf Fortress at 872nd (it's lower because it's older and therefore was eligible to be beaten on more lists). So I think I could extend the list out to 750 without any problems.

Other little bits of trivia:
- The highest ranked game with only two mentions is "No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way", which is 606th. Both of its mentions are on European lists, so I guess it was more popular there than elsewhere.
- The highest ranked game without any all time mentions is just one place higher: Returnal at 605th.
- The highest ranked non-2022 game without any all time mentions is Halo: Infinite at 641st. Surprisingly, if you only looked at the end of year lists then it would be the most acclaimed game of 2021. But since it's never had an all time mention, a lot of 2021 games beat it.

[Alena_03]

BTW, you do realize that for major Nintendo EPD games, they contract one of their second parties for assistence?

[Moeboid]

BTW, you do realize that for major Nintendo EPD games, they contract one of their second parties for assistence?

I get the developer data from IGDB. They have "supporting developers" data as well, which I assume is where these second party developers would be listed, but I don't copy it over. I might put it on the individual game pages at some stage, but there's not enough room to show it on the main list.

[Alena_03]

BTW, you do realize that for major Nintendo EPD games, they contract one of their second parties for assistence?

I get the developer data from IGDB. They have "supporting developers" data as well, which I assume is where these second party developers would be listed, but I don't copy it over. I might put it on the individual game pages at some stage, but there's not enough room to show it on the main list.

Hey uh, your page 2 link seems broken

[Moeboid]

Hey uh, your page 2 link seems broken

Are you sure? Everything's working for me.

[BleuPanda]

Nice to see the new update, and I'm happy Pokemon Legends: Arceus and SMT5 were jettisoned into the sun with the changes.

[Moeboid]

Nice to see the new update, and I'm happy Pokemon Legends: Arceus and SMT5 were jettisoned into the sun with the changes.

Ha! Yes, they're both well out of the top 1000 now. For the last update, I went through and redid the reputation scores for all of the sources. Some were removed completely as they didn't meet the new minimum requirements. One such source was the one that had put SMT 5 and Pokemon Legends: Arceus on an all-time list (neither had any other all-time mentions). As you would expect, that nuked their rankings pretty hard.

I've actually updated the list again since then, this time with an improved ranking algorithm. No doubt someone will come along the point out some egregious mistake that it's making, but for the moment I'm feeling really good about it.