Our next "Best Game of All Time" Tournament

[Hipolito]

Hello hello!

As you longtime GG/OOers know, every now and then we have a tournament to determine our favorite PC game of all time. In each tournament, voters nominate a number of their favorite games. The top nominees are placed in a bracket tournament and we vote on each matchup. It's a lot of fun to watch the tournament progress, see how weird the matchups can get (Half-Life 2 versus Starflight?!), and stamp our feet at the results.

It's been five years since our last tournament and I think now is a good time to have another one. It "fell to me" to chair the last several tournaments and it would be my pleasure to chair another. But before I do so, I'd like to know how you feel about changing things up.

We've always kept the tournament limited to PC games but I wonder whether we should now open it to console and handheld games. With the increase in convergence, genre variety, console ownership, and independent game development in the last several years, console games have become a significant part of my gaming regimen. I no longer think of PC and console games as separate interests and I think many of you would agree. So please vote on whether we should let PC, console, and handheld games compete against each other for the first time.

Also, while a bracket tournament is fun, it has drawbacks. Chiefly, that it takes a while to get through each round of the tournament and voter participation tends to decrease as we progress. Also, while the unpredictability of a bracket tournament is fun, some may see the upsets as inequitable to the games that received more nominations. Therefore, I offer that we can do "straight-up voting" (for lack of a better term) instead of a bracket. In straight-up voting, we would simply have the nomination round and that's it. Whichever game receives the most nominations is declared the winner. Please vote on which system you'd prefer.

EDIT: New poll options have been added per the discussion. In addition to the above, please indicate whether you'd like to have a Best of Last Five Years plus Best of All Time Tournament per the discussion below.

A few other issues for which I'd welcome input:
- The name of the tournament has gone back and forth between Tournament of Champions (the original name) and Best Game of All Time Tournament. I'm thinking of going with BGOATT as it's more descriptive. But maybe we can think of something more clever and snappy. The best I can come up with is Survey of People's Electronic Entertainment Diversion Options, or SPEEDO. Ugh.
- One of the important rules of the tournament has been that past winners cannot compete in future tournaments. I think it's a fine rule that has kept the tournament interesting and fresh. However, if we take the very significant step of opening the tournament to all platforms, I would consider the tournament to be essentially rebooted. Fairness would require the past winners to be allowed back in. (Those past winners, by the way, are X-COM, Fallout, Baldur's Gate II, Planescape: Torment, and Civilization IV.)

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your votes and any suggestions you have to make the tournament better. For your information pleasure, below is a chart of the last tournament's results. The game that received the most nominations, Half-Life (14 noms) lost to fourth-seeder TIE Fighter (7 noms) in the second round. Civilization IV, which received 12 noms, won the tournament.

[Pyperkub]

Even better, how about best game of the past 3 (or 5) years? Then maybe put it up against some of the older greats...

[Blackhawk]

I'd be all for a 'best of the last five years' and a 'best of all time' division.

[Smoove_B]

The lines are so blurry (and there have even been some interesting...mobile games) that I'd vote for a PC/Console/Portable tournament.

I'd also like to see a best of the last 5 years and best of all time -- otherwise people are just going to be voting for Deus Ex or System Shock...again.

[Carpet_pissr]

The lines are so blurry (and there have even been some interesting...mobile games) that I'd vote for a PC/Console/Portable tournament.

I'd also like to see a best of the last 5 years and best of all time -- otherwise people are just going to be voting for Deus Ex or System Shock...again.

Or if it's me, Civ IV, again, but I have no problem with that, as it still has not been trumped IMO.

Only half-joking there, but I would like to see Civ IV up against anything that has been released since the last poll.

[AWS260]

I like Smoove's idea of a best of the past 5 years bracket + a best of all time bracket. Maybe do the past-five-years bracket first, and let the top 8 from that tournament move on to the best-of-all-time tourney.

[Hipolito]

It's quite interesting to see this much support for an idea that hadn't occurred to me!

For the poll, I've incorporated options on whether to have Best of Last 5 Years + Best of All Time tourneys. In the process, the poll was reset so all votes have been lost. With apologies to the 17 people who already voted, I ask that you vote again. Have faith, I'll run the tournament more competently! I do remember that we were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the brackets and slightly in favor of allowing all platforms.

I love AWS260's idea of having the Elite Eight from the past five years move on to the all-time tourney, so I'll plan to do that if we go the dual tourney route. Just to be sure I understand, the all-time tourney would still include the past 5 years, right? If not, let me know.