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Gamasutra Debuts 'Top 12 Games Of Decade'
by Staff [PC, Console/PC]
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December 30, 2009
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Gamasutra has announced its readers' Top 12 picks for Game Of The Decade vote, after yesterday's Honorable Mentions, with titles like Wii Sports and The Sims battling for the top spot for the last ten years.
To divine the top titles, readers responded to this question of naming a game released this decade for any console, handheld, PC or online platform, and why they believe it outdid any other:
"Gamasutra is asking its users to vote for their 'Game Of The Decade' -- the video game title that they think was the absolute best of the last ten years, from January 2000 to date. Name the game, and then explain why it mattered to you and what differentiates it from the multitude of others released in the last decade?"
The best responses have being compiled into a two-part Gamasutra feature article, with the 'Honorable Mentions' part, debuting yesterday.
However, today's feature includes all of the Top 12 Games, as voted and commented on by you, the Gamasutra reader. In one extract from the list, Carlos Obregon notes of Wii Sports:
"The Game of the Decade has to be a title that impacted in a profound way all of the industry, like Super Mario 64 did making 3D games the newest standard in 1996. There have been great titles but none of them has been groundbreaking as Wii Sports.
"As a traditional gamer I found Wii Sports to be a little simple, but it was the first game that got me gaming with my family and non-gaming friends. The game is also pretty significant because it was a system seller for the Nintendo Wii, a platform that expanded the market.
"And not only that, Wii Sports was also the first game to show that you can innovate in the I/O paradigm that has reigned for 35 years, while others were trying to push the hardware paradigm."
Elsewhere in the list, John Richardson focuses on Will Wright and Maxis' The Sims, explaining in his vote justification:
"The Sims, for me, defined this decade. I can remember in 2000 picking it up for the first time, completely pessimistic as to how such an idea could actually play out. It seemed like a concept that would be impossible to make fun -- the mundane, often trivial lives of virtual dolls, essentially. But it was very much the opposite.
"The game turned tasks as simple as sleeping or meeting people into a kind of social experiment, merging the postmodern acknowledgment of fictionalizing reality with the emotional human-computer connection that most game designers strive for. It made addicting gameplay out of something simple -- deceptively so, as the mechanics gained complexity as Sims progressed through their lives.
"Everything felt so carefully defined, yet chaotic; the fun came in seeing how far you could (or would) push your little denizens. Beyond the gameplay itself, The Sims ushered in a wave of new gamers into what was in the 90s still a very narrow demographic. For better or worse, it also showed us how a franchise could turn into a genre unto itself, along with a once unique and now much-imitated business model."
You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including the full countdown and write-ups on Game Of The Decade from our game professional readers.
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