Voting information
As many of you might've noticed, we've been reviewing every year of the past decade in gaming (2010-2019) and it's all been leading to this. Game of the Year votes have always been popular, but now we're doing something special: The community will have the chance to decide the GAME OF THE DECADE!
The same team behind our retrospective of notable games from the past decade (shout out to tgr_williams) are to thank for this event as well. We'd like to thank not only tgr_williams, but Muzy, Hecht, Rösti, DownUnderCoder, ColdSun and B-Dubs for their contributions to this effort.
Furthermore, this vote marks the first time that we will be using our new Ballots voting tool! Previously we relied on a hodgepodge collection of bots and scrapers to run Game of the Year votes; this involved a lot of work and manual effort every time. Thanks to our tech team we have now developed a native voting tool incorporated directly into the forum software which will make it easier to vote and easier to organize votes.
Please review the announcement thread and/or the instructions below, as the new tool works differently and has necessitated some changes in the rules (most notably, ballots are no longer ranked choice due to the way the software counts votes).
Information
We ask each user to limit their choices to their 15-20 favorite games of the last decade. Any more than that and the vote will get far too unwieldy for everyone involved.
Pay attention to the instructions below because voting works very differently this year as a result of the new vote counting method.
Pay attention to the instructions below because voting works very differently this year as a result of the new vote counting method.
As you can see, with Ballots active the thread now runs a constant countdown until the end of the vote tally. This countdown is available at the top and bottom of each page, so it is impossible to miss. If need be, the length can be adjusted at our discretion (if members are having a hard time making their choices, for example).
If we zoom in on the Quick Reply Box at the bottom of the page, we will see a small button marked [Vote]. If you click that you will be brought to the section of your post where you input the games you want to vote for.
It is a simple fill-in field that will create another fill-in once text appears in it. Just click to the next box and fill in your choices.
There is a special feature here though.
You'll be able to see the choices that everyone has made so far. So if someone has already voted for the one of the games on your list, all you need to do is find it and check the box in order to vote for it!
When you're all done a post will be created that looks like this. No more worrying about how to format your posts, Ballots will do that for you.
When you are putting in how you feel about the games on your list, just put your thoughts in the basic reply box. They will appear above your list and will not affect how your vote is counted at all.
Information
If you decide part way through the voting that you would like to change your vote, just use the vote tool to cast another vote. The tool will only count a user's most recent vote in the thread, so even if you cast multiple ballots only a single one will be counted.
IN ADDITION: There is no more ranked choice in voting. The order you choose does not matter. While this tool greatly simplifies the amount of effort all of you need to go through in order to vote, it does not allow for a point value to be awarded to individual votes. So picking something first on your list isn't going to affect how well it does, just pick your favorites games as you think of them.
IN ADDITION: There is no more ranked choice in voting. The order you choose does not matter. While this tool greatly simplifies the amount of effort all of you need to go through in order to vote, it does not allow for a point value to be awarded to individual votes. So picking something first on your list isn't going to affect how well it does, just pick your favorites games as you think of them.
------ FAQ ------
Is (insert game here) eligible?
So long as the game was originally published in the last decade (2010-2019) it is eligible. Ports don't count, so if an Xbox360 game was published in 2009 and it's PC port was published in 2010 it is not eligible.
Are Early Access games eligible?
No, Early Access, beta, demo, and Greenlight games are not eligible. PC games must reach full release, or version 1.0 in order to be eligible.
Can I talk about somebody else's list?
Discussion is encouraged! Want to talk about another poster's list? Quote it.
Can I use images in my ballot? I want it to be BEAUTIFUL!
Absolutely. You can do whatever you want to your voting post, so long as you DO NOT touch the actual vote created by the vote tool. If you do, it will likely cause a bug and your vote might not be counted.
My ballot is too long! Can I split it into two posts?
You should NOT split your ballot into two posts as the vote tool will only count the most recent post's vote.
I want to change my list. Do I have to make a new post?
No, but it would probably be easier for you if you did.
My ballot was disqualified! Why?
Most likely, you didn't follow the rules above. What you probably did: You didn't number things correctly. You didn't write any comments. You listed the same game more than once. You didn't follow the formatting rules.
Can I order my list from 10 to 1?
It doesn't matter, so go nuts.
OMG what about Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts III? Lots of people are using Arabic numerals. Will they be counted?
We'll be fairly lenient on variations, but the only way to guarantee that your vote will be counted is to copy-and-paste from the spreadsheet. But again, just because a game isn't listed doesn't mean you can't vote for it if you're sure it's a 2010-2019 title. Just use the most complete and official title available.
When will the results be posted?
As soon as is possible given the copy-paste technology at our disposal.
Happy voting, everyone!
