First Annual IV Community Game Awards: Voting Time!

[Xocrates]

Borda count or gtfo.

That's actually an interesting proposition. Modified Borda count should work fairly well, I think.

Of course, the problem would be that people would need to vote with mail in votes (though that's a problem with preferential voting as well)

[bert_the_turtle]

Yeah, I was assuming the inferior C and D had already been eliminated, of course.

Borda count

No.
Nonono.
Just... No.
I think that would be a horrible choice for the given case where not every voter had the chance to evaluate all candidates, because the order of items lower on your list is just as important as the order higher up, and modified borda especially practically forces me to rank everything, even things I have no clue about. And it encourages nomination spam; adding similar titles to your favorite increases the chances that your favorite will win. What would work better is: give every voter N votes, let them distribute them almost freely, just not more than n on the same title. N=infinity, n=1 would be approval voting, N=10, n=3 (I think) is used in some communal elections in Germany.

[xander]

Borda count or gtfo.

That's actually an interesting proposition. Modified Borda count should work fairly well, I think.

I was being factious. :P I should have used a smiley. I love the Borda method, but it is not really appropriate for this election, for pretty much the reasons that bert outlined. A runoff system might work (i.e. vote; eliminate the lowest N candidates; repeat until one item has a majority). Or, as bert suggests, give each person a pool of votes to use.

xander

[Xocrates]

I was being factious. I should have used a smiley. I love the Borda method, but it is not really appropriate for this election, for pretty much the reasons that bert outlined.

I see. I expected a modified Borda count could work provided we didn't have many candidates per category Clearly, I should have done the math.

[bert_the_turtle]

Ah. Phew. You got me there.

Anyway, updated the rules. You can now nominate as many titles as you deem worthy, and I'll just sort them over to the other categories they apply to. Keep 'em coming, no need to hold back because you're waiting for Black Ops. I'll probably be nominating Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Limbo later.
And the categories are now strictly divided between the low and high price ranges, a game can't be in both any more.

I haven't changed the voting rules yet. Shall we have a vote? I'd still be for instant runoffs, either just with public votes (downside: late voters can game the system) or just PMing them in for later publishing/verification/transparency. Main reason is that I think the 'less played, but superior game' case is handled better there. And the game part of ballots could just consist of one list, for the individual platform results, one can just remove the titles that don't apply. Multiple rounds of forum polls would work, too, but they'd take longer, and there's also the risk of late voters peeking at the current standings.

[Cooper42]

Multiple nominations then?

So:
Amnesia: Dark Descent - $20 from developers, less on Steam - not sure what category then?
In any case, excellent horror adventure game. Different in the way it does everything. Well worthy of the accolades it got. And bloody terrifying in places.

[NeatNit]

I've played about half of it but saving the rest for when I can convince the game to output 7.1 surround sound.

[bert_the_turtle]

I put Amnesia in the "20$ or less" categories, it seems to fit better there. I should play it myself. Soon.
Also, Jordy's R.U.S.E. nomination is now accepted. Forgot about it.

[Xocrates]

Well, if we can make more than one nomination, then I guess I can toss the "Secret Armory of General Knoxx" (Borderlands) for best expansion/DLC

[bert_the_turtle]

Also exploiting the multi-nomination rule: Limbo, XBox 360, <= 20$. A shortish, extremely stylish puzzle platformer. This stands out among the crowd of puzzle platformers by the fact that the four phases of progression are balanced against each other splendidly: figuring out the rules of the world, finding out what your immediate goal needs to be, determining what you need to do to achieve them and finally executing your plan consume about equal mindshare. It tops Braid's "no recycling" philosophy by also minimizing reuse of game elements, at times, it plays like a point&click adventure game, just without the pointing and clicking and running and pulling replacing it. The setting and presentation are eerie, mysterious and simply beautiful. This is a game that lingers on in your mind long after you are done playing.

[DTNC Vicious]

can some of my nominations be accepted?

[xyzyxx]

You mean the ones that aren't from 2010?

[ynbniar]

Wow I've played so few 2010 released games this year...but then I'm a bit of a bargain hunter

I'll nominate Red Dead Redemption for PS3...I love the atmosphere, the feeling of being in a living world, something I haven't felt since GTA3. I've heard some complaints that it's a bit empty but I think that's part of the charm...I imagine the old frontier west as being quite empty and it's an interesting contrast with GTA4's crowded megacity. Some great visuals particularly at sunrise, and even after a few months of playing a little bit at a time (I'm only at about 50% complete) I'm still interested to see how it all turns out for Marston.

[bert_the_turtle]

can some of my nominations be accepted?

No, because they are not from 2010. You'll probably want to nominate Black Ops and Halo Reach.

ynbniar: since the two versions are similar enough, I'll take that also as a nomination for the 360.

[xyzyxx]

I nominate Splinter Cell: Conviction (PC/X360) as it's easily the game I've had the most fun with this year (besides Minecraft.) It expands significantly on the stealth-based gameplay of the previous four games in the series: The gameplay is highly engaging and addictive, with a variety of different game modes, including single player campaign, single player missions, versus missions, co-op missions, and a co-op campaign.

The controls are great, the graphics are great, the storyline is a little contrived, but ah well.