Love, Hate, and Everything in Between. Weird “Games of the Year” Lists
2018 passed a long while ago (What? It’s been only three weeks?), and all the media outlets have posted their visions of Year in Review. But do we remember only the best games? And what other important charts do we miss? Let’s see what we have.
Officially, RAWG launched its open beta only in February 2018. Since that month, we have been aggregating all sorts of data. By the end of the year, we got well over 100,000 game ratings in the database. Which is very cool. But do you know what is also cool? We could not only build the top-100 games of all time with that data but also compile the very first humble stats report — the tops for most controversial games, games with most fans and some others. Scroll down for the tops and some math.
The 20 Most Controversial Games
What’s the math: These are the games that were equally rated as “Exceptional“ and “Skip.” The first place is the game that has a close to 50/50 ratio in ratings.
Naturally, the list includes many online games. Whether you like it or not depends not only of the game itself but also on the community you get into — there is nothing which kills the mood so quickly as bad teammates and irritating “Git gud” comments. Besides, these games evolve. No Man’s Sky before and after the 2018 updates is two different games.
Single-player games are represented by Beyond: Two Souls, David Cage’s games are always a new wave in digital arts for some and dull, pretentious movies for others. Assassin’s Creed III also made it to the list with fully remapped controls, some questionable mechanics, and a Shyamalan-esque story opening. Finally, there is Fallout 4. Is it the best Fallout game or the betrayal of New Vegas’ ideas and fans?
The Most “Mixed Feelings” Games
What’s the math: The games that got equal shares of all ratings. Same, but different from the previous top.
They say that the real art leaves no one indifferent. There are two games not featured in the “most controversial list.” Rust is yet another online shooter that doesn’t make everybody happy. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is more interesting. Some praised the sequel to the cult-classic original, but some annoyedly called it a “walking simulator” — the worst insult to a game these days.
The 20 Most Loved Games
What’s the math: We ranked the games by how many people listed them as “favorites” in their profiles.
It is no wonder that The Witcher 3, The Last of Us and GTA V are there. But then the list gets more interesting. What is surprising though is that Sony’s exclusives are so high among the favorite games for all gamers. Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4, God of War and Bloodborne are all dear to the average gamer. Another thing to note: Bioshock is the only series with two entries on the list.
Essentially, you may think of this list as the games you should know to hold a conversation with any gamer you meet.
The 20 Best Games of 2018, Mathematically
What’s the math: Well, we couldn’t live without our own GOTY list. We limited the list to games released only in 2018 (duh), applied the so-called “Bayesian estimation” formula to those games (the one that IMDb uses for its top-rated lists). We set the minimum ratings required to be on the list at 10, which let me include indies. To put it simply, not only the average rating mattered but also the number of people who rated the game.
God of War, RDR2, Celeste, and others made it to the list. But there are also lots of indies: new Toby Fox small game Deltarune, hole simulator Donut County, watercolored whimsical platformer Gris and mobile-only Florence. The Red Strings Club also made it unexpectedly high for a cyberpunk pixelated adventure with all the “high tech, low life” attributes.
Hope you enjoyed the read! We are just starting to share the stats we have compiled so far, so I’d be happy if you shoot me a message and tell me what you’d like to read in the future. How big is the average gamer’s backlog? How many games do they complete and buy a year? Do people beat games more or just try them and drop? Follow RAWG for more stories like this and don’t forget to smack that clap button 50 time — just like you are playing Diablo.
