One of the great pleasures of working for Crispy Gamer – and there are many – is how many of colleagues have very different opinions on games and how many of them can express those opinions artfully and eloquently.
Then a seven member Game Trust panel – to which I was not invited – narrowly decides that Peggle is a better pick for Game of the Decade than Civilization IV. I mean, seriously guys? I love Peggle, but no way is a better or more significant game than Civ.
Follow the voting over at Crispy Gamer. Not that it will matter since World of Warcraft should win this in a walk, even if it does face The Sims in the next round.
Something idiotic like this was bound to happen the moment they decided to break this into brackets.
But it’s kind of ridiculous to see how people will fall all over themselves to heap praise on “Peggle”. It’s become the gaming equivalent of drinking Budweiser to prove you’re just a regular guy. Of course it’s a great game and its design includes lots of brilliant features and enhancements, but it’s also cotton candy. I played it obsessively for a couple days and have scarcely touched it since. It is a great little game, a wonderful distraction, but it doesn’t hold a candle to “World of Goo” much less “Civilization” in terms of substance and depth.
Here is the trap that people have fallen into with PopCap: they see PopCap is great at making games, and in their efforts to recognize PopCap for its skills, they make the mistake of thinking PopCap makes great games.
I think they should have clarified exactly what they mean by ‘Game of the Decade’, whether it be the most influential game, the most well designed game, or perhaps the game that best represents the gaming zeitgeist. If I were doing a GotD poll I’d go for either the former or the latter, and I’m afraid on both counts Civ IV loses out to Peggle. While Civ was certainly the more impressive of the two, it doesn’t particularly have much reach outside of the strategy genre. Meanwhile, Peggle could stand for trends in the rise of “casual” gaming, which of course currently dominates both online and off.
Never even heard of Peggle.
Everybody knows that Bejeweled is the Game of the Decade (like Tetris before that) …
cheers,
Don’t mind that noise, its just a tiny part of my soul breaking.
… besides, real men play Bookworm.
Good grief.
Oh dear, a good old fashioned popularity contest.
I was disappointed that a number of titles which I regard as fantastic, didn’t make the list. I tend to feel the same whenever these things come about (GotY etc). They can be quite interesting, but with such a huge time frame, there simply isn’t one best game even for one person, let alone a large and diverse community like Crispy Gamer.
And, as someone above said, it depends best in what category. Number of hours sunk would go to World of Warcraft or Peggle over Civilization. Most rewarding hours spent would go to Civ, (I don’t think anyone walks away from Peggle feeling satisfied, just wanting more).
The problem I have is, if you accept Civilization as a concept as fantastic, then you could argue that Civ 4 is a refinement of a fantastic idea that dates pre this decade. (I can’t comment on this, Civ 4 is the first and only Civ game, excepting Alpha Centuari). In which case, its importance is significantly reduced.
Also, the obvious point is that you can’t compare Civilization and Peggle. They share no common ground other than people play them and so there are few ways to actually compare them. If you are in the frame of mind to play Civ, then you probably don’t really fancy a game of Peggle and vice versa.
It is perfectly possible to like either one, absolutely hate the other one, and still be a normal person. The debate therefore boils down to, what kind of gamer are you, and which gamer is in the greater majority.
People I know personally who play Civ IV “a lot”:
Me
Best Friend
People I know personally who play Farmville AND Farmtown “a lot”:
Mom
2 Daughters
Brother
Sister In Law
at least 2 Aunts
at least 4 cousins
My brother’s Dog (seriously, but I strongly suspect he’s just the figurehead … )
Clearly Farming Sim is the Genre of the Decade.
This contest makes absolutely no sense.
As always democracy showing how shitty it can get D:
From here on in, it is user votes, I think and I can’t say that the users are being too crazy. I think democracy is working just fine.
It’s hardly democracy in the real sense of the word. The games are still divided into brackets and groups and still have to “beat” each other. This would be democracy if elections were made in a knock-out tournament style. Which it isn’t. OTOH, who cares. Gamespy used to run those every other month and I don’t recall anyone claiming that had merit. It’s supposed to be fun for the fans.
I like the way Heinlein put it: “Does history record any case in which the majority was right?” Civilization IV may not be the game of the past decade, but Peggle certainly isn’t. My main concern with Peggle is it’s historical accuracy.
We can’t seem to get beyond popularity (hours played, units sold, current subscribers, etc.) and financial success when it comes to recognizing great games. If it were the same with movies, pornos and Michael Bay films would sweep the awards regularly.
Personally, I’d not go with Civ IV simply because it’s just a refinement of an existing game.
Wasn’t there a site that’s main focus was running these sorts of brackets? You go to the site, click a button and get a bracket filled with random games (the list of possibilities was somewhat customizable: by decade, platform, maybe some others). You pick the winners through the bracket until you come up with a “winner”. The site would store the results of how often a game “won”. The results were quite interesting.
Man, I wish I could remember the URL. Or maybe I dreamt the whole thing, I don’t know.
Mere Refinement | RobZacny.com // Dec 3, 2009 at 1:08 pm
[…] other day, Troy Goodfellow was lamenting Crispy Gamer’s rather silly “Game of the Decade” bracket challenge, which saw […]
Can we assume the Crispy Gamer reviewers actually liked and played the games they chose? No Scott Jones “Critic in Exile” confessions that it felt like “the right thing to do” at the time to fit in, but secretly were bored by the “Game of the Decade”.
That’s why I don’t read Crispy Gamer at all. No offense to you Troy but that site is always trying too hard to be hip.
@Mulayim
I think it is a tough balance to strike. I like Crispy because they are posting interesting articles discussing games in an intelligent manner that seemingly few other game news sites actually seem to do .
I agree that sometimes it strays in to pretentious or being different for the sake of being different (case in point, Scott choosing a game he didn’t actually like). However, I feel that, overall, the site is good because at least they are discussing points which makes for a far more interesting read.