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The Top 100 Games of the 21st Century
Ground Glass writes "Most top ten or top 100 lists are pure opinion, and thus a source of great debate as their objectivity is questioned by everyone with a personal favorite. Next Gen has chosen a different route — this is the top 100 games on PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube, calculated since the start of the decade by unit sales in America." As you'd expect, GTA, Halo, and Madden are in the top ten ... but did you know Smash Brothers Melee has sold 3.2 million units? Interesting stuff.
Screw 'em.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I know its a bit of a pointless argument since these lists are really just for entertainment. But I think there's a subtle detail missing:
::dramatic music::
Software piracy!
MPAA and the like are quick to quote numbers on how much revenue is lost due to illegal downloads and file sharing. Yet where are these statistics when it comes to determining a game's popularity and longevity? Industries are so quick to point these statistics out only when they cater to their own demands.
I know all my illegal downloads of "Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom" alone would've easily bumped it up from #67 to #66!
And yes, I know the stats on lost revenue are stupid since downloading a game illegally doesn't mean you would've paid for it.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that while they did try to take many factors into account, ultimately they're defining "popularity" as "sales" and I don't think that's entirely accurate.
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"A man is asked if he is wise or not. He replies that he is otherwise" ~Mao Zedong
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
"This list's order and content is copyright to Next Generation and must not be reproduced or copied without the permission of the publisher."
OK, content I can go along with. But trying to claim copyright on the rankings themselves? That's kind of like the NFL claiming copyright on the standings and prohibiting newspapers from publishing them without a license fee.
Come on kids. You're writing about VIDEO GAMES. Not exactly "War and Peace". Be happy that Slashdot picked up your link, is sending all kinds of people to visit, and get off the IP bandwagon.
11 pages for one article? It starts at 100, and gives you no option to click through to the top ten. next-gen.biz are pageview whores, and deserve their ad-free printable version link to be published.
Anyone paste the results here?
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
page has been slashdotted
who don't include PC games, I mean.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Top selling 100 games of the past 4 and a half years. How very significant.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I fully agree with you. The PC is no less a gaming "console" for a lot of people than are the "real" consoles. In fact, one could easily argue that the consoles are all trying to become PCs with media play and Internet capabilities. I won't be surprised if you can have an e-mail address specifically for the console of your choice in the near future. (After all, keyboards are supported on some consoles.)
I would guess that games like Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft would rank very highly in term of dollars produced, and last time I checked -- they're games. PC games deserve full recognition in this category as well. The fact that they're not included makes the article meaningless.
And does it really make sense to offer a Top 100 of ANYTHING where we're only five years into the 21st centry?
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Unlike box office numbers from movies and record sales in music, the US gaming industry does not publically (as far as I am aware) release their sales stats. So where do these numbers come from? I know Japan publically releases these stats, and there is a company in the US that you can buy reports from that give these numbers (how accurately, I don't know), but I have yet to see individual title numbers be made fully public. Does anybody know why the game industry in the US has not elected to release these stats like every other industry?
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This article is only talking about the last 5 years. They're skipping the first, oh, 40 or so years of video games.
Waste of time and bandwidth. My bets are lots of games from the 80's and 90's would blow most of these titles away in sales.
The 21st century is less than a decade old and already some pretentious hacks are lame enough to declare the top 100 games. Anything to suck in readership...
Trolling is a art,
...but I was under the impression that there were still 94 1/2 years left in the 21st century.
"God is nothing but a public static final variable x." - my roommate
The century's been on for 5 and a half years, really. Not that this makes it much more significant.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Yeah! WebTV, your time has come!
Mirrordot cache: http://www.mirrordot.com/find-mirror.html?http://n ext-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=3537&Itemid=2
This link works sometimes but not others. I was going to paste the article but there's about 3 sentences X 100 listings so it's not really feasible.
I don't doubt WoW has brought in more than the rest of the top 10 combined if you factor it in... come on, we're talking a BILLION DOLLARS every year just from the monthly fee.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
You underestimate the power of Halo to attract fans (even die hard old school FPS fans) and inspire those fans to rabid loyalty. Halo is not just an FPS it is the FPS to it's fan base, even if it is just OK by industry standards.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
First off, I'm a PC gamer and I couldn't agree more.
Secondly, this sentence brought a question to mind:
I would guess that games like Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft would rank very highly in term of dollars produced
If they did include PC games and they did it based purely on "unit" sales, wouldn't that unfairly underrepresent the importance of games like WOW where subscriptions are a huge portion of the revenue? Similarly, wouldn't it overrepresent them if it was based purely on revenue?
A lot of people say that Solitare is the most successful game every made, based on number of copies shipped and number of people who have played. But it arguably has brought in zero revenue. How can you compare that on a chart vs. WOW?
I'm curious what others think abou this.
TW
They chose a limited stat: sales, for a limited market: consoles. As noted in there if you included the PC version, The Sims beats out all others, though that's probalby not true if you count MMORPGs since World of Warcraft has ANNUAL revenues of over $1 billion. This list isn't inteded to be a definitive list of the best games, in fact I'd say it's a great example of the saying "popular sure don't mean right" but it's not worthless. It's just saying that, by sales, these are the most popular console games of all time.
the 100 best are spread out onto 200 click through ad revenue money pits?
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Bundling a game with an operating system is a totally different thing. This list is based on sales. With respect to games, there's a direct 1:1 correlation. People bought the game for the game. People did not buy Windows for Solitaire.
In fact, that makes the inclusion of PC games into this list even more critical. It shows that games like World of Warcraft could easily be the most popular games of all. Why? Because people keep paying the monthly subscription fees!! After all, if people suddenly don't play the game, why would they continue to pay subscription fees? Yes, I know, some people think "We'll I might get back into it." But then if the person doesn't get back into it and keeps paying, that's his fault, not Blizzard's.
Subscription fees are definitely relevant because they show that a particular game is popular enough that people want to keep paying for it. That makes the inclusion of subscription-based gaming that much more important when it comes to lists like this.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Absolutely. PS2, GC and Xbox were all released in or after the year 2000. So, this list is effectively telling you what the best selling console games were of the PS2-GC-XBOX era.
Personally, I was surprised by a couple of the list's findings. One was how few XBox games were on there and the other was the complete dominance of the PS2.
Uh ... how exactly can you copyright numbers that have no direct bearing on your entity and that you did not plan for before they became those numbers? If I write "he had a .245 batting average last year" I'm violating a copyright? o_0
Where's my duck/duct tape? My head's about to explode thinking about that one.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I don't think it would over prepresent them because if you were not happy with the game then you would no longer subscribe. The monthly cost completely represents the popularity because the people are paying for gaming they enjoy. I would however agree that it is very hard to compare these games to games of the other pricing model but from a publishers point, revenue is revenue.
Halo wan't bundled with the Xbox 1 ouside of a very limited edition run of green consoles sold no where near the Xbox launch. You seem to assume that Halo sold well because there was nothing else on the Xbox to play. If anything it was Halo that got people to go out and buy an Xbox. Exactly how did the game reach #2 on the list if the Xbox only had Halo worth playing and the only reason people bought Halo was because there was nothing else to play? What do you think got people to buy an Xbox in the first place? It certainly wasn't MS's reputation.
You seem to be forgetting that a number of early Xbox 1 titles are on that top 100 list, games like Project Gotham Racing, Dead or Alive 3, Splinter Cell, and a few others (some of the best games in their respective franchises IMO). I personally can't stand the Halo series (or FPSs in general) yet I still amazingly found quite a few good games to play around the Xbox 1 launch. To this day I don't have a copy of Halo, yet I have about 30 titles for the Xbox console.
Collector's Edition
For the magazine that is. It has people talking about what appeared even if the content is a load of tripe. Summer is traditionally a low point for game releases and they need content. Stuff like this always gains an audience. Does it make them relevant as a conduit for game info? Well, you decide.
And does it really make sense to offer a Top 100 of ANYTHING where we're only five years into the 21st centry?
Sure it does... there won't be any new games made after Jack Thompson shuts the video game industry down for good later this year!
It gives you a nice, ad-free, single page article.
Wow look, another steaming pile of shite... !!
(And I feel I am being nice....)
I think you give Halo itself too much credit. The single player campaign had a story that was mediocre at best and the level design was boring as hell.
What made Halo what it is and as a result sell many XBoxes (XBoxen?) was the multiplayer over XBox Live. It was the first console that had LAN/Internet networking integrated and a nice simple interface. Without it the game might have been just another FPS that faded away. Without XBox Live we wouldn't have Halo fanboys.
MS could've put out Halo without the single-player game and it would've still sold tons which really doesn't say much about the game itself. Honestly, how many people bought Halo 2 for the story?
Halo is like tittie magazines, you don't buy it for the story.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
The PC is no less a gaming "console" for a lot of people than are the "real" consoles.
Yeah, I'd suggest never buying a Gamecube. Updating the graphics drivers is always a fight.
Also:
-viruses/malware
-anti-virus/anti-malware
-software bugs
-hardware bugs
-hardware performance
-installing new drivers (a version that actually supports your game)
-installing the game
-waiting for the patch
-finding and installing the patch
-defragging your drive
-tuning your system (killing tray programs, reading readme files, etc)
Of course, some yahoo will claim "but you can do so much MORE with a PC!!1". That isn't the point here. The parent said "PCs are basically equal to consoles". In some respects, this is true. In all others, it's not.
Ground Glass, are you a fanboy? The only way you wouldn't know that Smash Bros sold so many copies is if you are a Microsoft or Sony fanboy, or are just not that knowledgeable about video games. Most gamers who aren't fanboys know that Smash Bros did exceptionally well. I can see it now: "But Nintendo is too kiddie! They COULDN'T have sold that many games!!!!11!!"
1. USA is not the world.
2. The 21st century is only 6 years old.
3. PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube are not the only ways to play computer games. Where the hell is the PC?
4. I don't think you can copyright the _order_ of a list.
Seriously, is that site done by 10 year olds?
P.
That's great, except for one thing, Halo didn't support Xbox Live. The only Multiplayer supported by Halo was either split screen or system link over a LAN. No bots either, so if you split your screen to play with a friend, it was just the two of you and a big empty level. XBL didn't show up until the console had been out for a year or so, Halo being a launch title couldn't have supported it simply because it didn't exist yet.
Halo 2 supported Xbox Live Multiplayer, but that came well after Halo 1 had cemented itself as a system seller.
Collector's Edition