An easy way to make GOTY deliberations less vicious: Honorable Nominations.

UPDATE: Well, there's been a ton of hate for my Honorable Mention idea to evolve things, but for what it's worth, I'm watching the Best Game deliberation now and I actually really love the way they're doing it this year: go around the table for three rounds nominating one game per round that you'll actually fight for, then start whittling down. That's a much more elegant and smart way of going about it than my idea, and I think it absolutely achieved the desired effect. I'm really impressed with how they handled it this year and I'm glad they actually followed through to make things less negative and a little more expedited.

ORIGINAL: The way I see it, a big part of this problem stems from the super long lists of nominations filled with games that have literally no chance of making it, but the person nominating just "wanted to say my piece" or "give the game its due." It might sound nice to give a game a platform to be recognized for something cool, but that also means it has to go on the chopping block to get cut, which means tearing down that game. This problem extends to when people refuse to let a game be cut from the list despite having no support or obvious path to the top three, but the person doesn't like the idea of the game getting cut so soon. Again, all this does is set it up for a more harsh teardown later. I would say Alex is probably the worst offender of this, and while I do believe it's well-intentioned ("offender" is maybe a strong word), I really think it's ultimately more harmful than good. Not only does that specific game need to get torn down, it takes up a lot of time and ends up agitating everyone else by the time you get to the real contenders.

So here's my solution: Honorable Nominations. Rather than nominating 18,000 games for every category, then immediately start cutting the ones everyone knows have no chance (but someone wanted to highlight), just separate those games into an Honorable Nominations section. They'll still get read out on the podcast but it's just a nice way to say "hey I just wanted this game mentioned but we don't need to seriously consider it or spend time on it." If someone really believes in a game, they can certainly argue it should be a real contender, but at least this could trim out stuff like Civ 6 from Best Styyyyle, for instance, a game that obviously had zero chance of winning but Alex wanted to recognize the new direction of the game's art style. You'd still get the fun intense arguments for the real contenders, of course, but now there's a platform for them to give props to other games as well.

What do you think?

Where's the fun in that?

I like it when the arguments happen. Why would anyone ever want to tone that down? We're only a year or two away from Brad pulling a knife on someone.

@hippie_genocide: I mean, they'd still have a platform to talk about those games, just removes from the pressure of forcing everyone else to jump in and say "but c'mon dude it's obviously not moving on past this." Save the tension for the games that matter.

@squirrelgod: Vinny seemed pretty genuine when he mentioned not liking that part of the process.

It needs to be vicious. I think the fact that they have a winner and two runners-up works well to cut the chaff. This is not T-Ball they hands-out "Participation Awards", this is a system where games get fairly discussed, but the science distills some choices.

This is a bloodsport. There is no second place.

This kind of method allows for legendary upsets that go down in the annals of GB history - Saints Row vs. Skyrim, Minerva's Den vs. Shadow Broker, etc.

I would personally rather they just get to talk about and celebrate/appreciate all the games that came out this year that they liked and not even bother making an ordered site-wide top 10 list in the first place, but apparently everybody else just wants to hear people be stubborn and get their way because they shouted the loudest/longest, so whatever, I guess.

@saddlebrown: the whole point is that this is dumb, they know it's dumb, and thats why they do it.

I mean how can you even have "real" GOTY talks when some people haven't played the games at the center of pivotal first-second-third arguments, and so they just side with whoever and you get a winner by pure luck? I admire your dedication in coming up with a proper system for a flawed endeavor, but as the guys have said in the past, the whole point of this is to be ridiculous and not in any way scientific or even coherent.

It's also fun listening to them tear things apart and exaggerate pebble sized nitpicks to moon sized, game breaking flaws.

@humanity:The thing is, I know it's meant to be ridiculous and silly but also what are you really losing by having the lists simply be more realistic? So many of the games they list out initially are obviously not going to win and the submitter will often immediately say "listen I know it obviously isn't going to win but I wanted to give it its due." Like, let's just formalize that process by literally just giving everybody an immediate platform to champion those games briefly without also having to throw them to the wolves to tear it apart for no real reason. Save that for the heavy hitters where it matters. Like you, I like hearing them really go into the nitty-gritty on a game, but it just seems needless when a neat but flawed game that was never going to win goes onto the chopping block and gets ripped apart. That's years of somebody's life casually dismissed. That's what I think Vinny was trying to convey last year and why it's been on my mind this year. Doesn't it just seem a little cruel to you that they'd tear apart decent games just because people on the internet like to hear things get torn apart, especially when there's a positive alternative? You'd still get to hear them go whole hog on the bigger games and they'd have a higher percentage of time to do so.

@ajamafalous: I'm only halfway to where you are. I actually really like all the categories, even the negative ones (I do think it's worth discussing the failures of the industry as well and to acknowledge flaws even in great or critically acclaimed games), and enjoy hearing them create a site-wide top 10, but to me where I get a little uncomfortable is with games that obviously aren't going to stand up to any real scrutiny get thrown into the mix just to "give them their due" and then by necessity need to get torn apart. I think it's worth going a bit in your direction by offering a formal way to acknowledge those games' strengths while also recognizing that they don't need to go up for serious consideration and therefore don't need to be torn apart. But yeah, it does seem like the general consensus here is "fuck video games, tear them down for my amusement."

@dharmabum: Dude I'm not saying to remove serious contenders. I literally said that's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm saying is when somebody adds a game to the list and knows it obviously has zero chance to even make it past the first round, rather than waste time halfway considering it and tearing it apart, let's just give the crew a chance to champion a few games they think are neat then move on to the bloodsport you mentioned with the games that actually need the discussion.

I love hearing the nitpicks and tear aparts of otherwise good games. Rip and TEAR!

I think the "problem" you are talking about here is only disturbing those who are too sensitive to listen to criticism. I know it might seem a little ridiculous that games need to get slammed when they are being nominated for best of the year in a a certain category, but "honourable nominations" doesn't solve that because A. it narrows the group down in such a way that there are less deliberations for us to listen to and B. even if they started with a smaller group of 3/5 games, they too are inevitably going to be torn apart to determine their position on that list.

Oh, I'm not against talking about criticisms of games that were disappointing/fucked/popular, nor am I against breaking things into categories and voting on standouts or whatever; I just wish the podcasts were more of a 'let's talk about a year-end review of video games and the industry, both good and bad' instead of the 'I'm going to dig my heels in and yell and be unreasonable until you get tired of it so that the game I like gets 4th instead of 6th on our site-wide top 10 list' that they are. I think specifically that the fighting over which game slots into which spot on the site-wide numbered list is the part that should go; all other conversations are fine with me.

If anyone feels strongly enough for a game to be on a short list, they should be articulate enough to pull a Kanye and go "Imma let you finish, BUT...". If they don't feel that strong about a category, well...

Maybe it's just me, but listening to people discussing games for 3 hours over 4 to 5 days is the fun part. The lists themselves can be damned.

@saddlebrown: I don't think it's cruel when it's done with the distinct purpose of comedy. Vinny even mentions that these are all good games before they started the cuts. I get where you are coming from, those are hard years of someones life, but if they had to realistically think about that each time they critiques a game they wouldn't be able to really speak their mind - especially in non-jokey content like an actual review. For example Game-A took a ton of work to make, but Game-A also turned out to be a really poor game; so as much as I feel for those folks that worked on it that still doesn't change the fact that several years of their hard work boiled down to a subpar product. I mean it is what it is.

But once again, this is Giant Bomb, these lists are made as entertainment and not a true measure of quality, and they're not about to put in some straight laced rules onto something that is absurd in the first place as that would go against the spirit of it all.

Making the list of nominees is basically an honorable mention already.

I really feel like the current setup of breaking down what games excel in certain categories is the best way you can do it. It gives a game that was low on a top 10 list a chance to outshine others in an area it crushed.

Everyone's individual Top 10s are in essence an honorable mention anyways.

most of the time they acknowledge that many of the games they tear apart are good and well worth playing. but most people don't want to hear those parts. ;)

People seem to forget why they do this: fun.

@squirrelgod: I think you mean he's about to pull a bat on the crew.

Vinny is also the kind of person who is so sensitive that he is genuinely bothered by a lot of things that don't affect the vast majority of people.

@hankrazorbeard: For me it's less that I'm sensitive to the criticism and more that a) I was interested as a thought experiment in finding some kind of elegant solution to Vinny's issue because it was an opinion that once he said it, I felt like I understood where he was coming from and why, and b) honestly I get a little tired of the "hey I know this game has absolutely zero chance of getting past this group because I'm the only one who liked or maybe even played it but I just wanna say my piece on it" cycle that only ends when somebody's like "dude that game sucked because x, y and z, let's please just cut it and move on." Sometimes I just get kind of impatient with that cycle because it takes time away from going really deep into the actual contenders and wears everybody on the podcast thin over time, so by the time they do get to those contenders, they're more likely to be like "ugh I'm too tired to care anymore, your game wins."

So like, part of it for me is making the overall tone a little less negative on games that might not necessarily deserve it, and part of it is because I get kinda tired of hearing people waste time nominating 40 games for Best Styyyyyle, for instance, when only 20 of those games actually have any styyyyle and the other 20 are just people's pet favorites. Like again, Civ 6. Just because they marginally changed the art style doesn't mean suddenly it has styyyyle and can hang with the likes of Superhot, Hotline Miami, Jazzpunk, etc. It's such a silly nomination but it's only there because Alex wanted to "give the game its due" even if it's a completely inappropriate category for that. I'm sure Civ 6 is great but nominating it for styyyyle means you have to unnecessarily start tearing it apart for something it's not even trying to be and that's why I say some games don't deserve it. I pick on that example because it was such a "c'mon really dude?" moment but that happens a lot with almost everybody.

Basically I would rather expedite that process by giving everybody a spot to mention the game and maybe one quick reason why but without the need to actually pretend like it's a serious contender that deserves the time. But I get that people aren't into that idea because people on the internet want things to be vicious rather than merely contentious so it's whatever. I guess then it really just falls on the staff to be able to be realistic about the games they're nominating and which ones they're actually going to try and make a case for.

That's what they do already though. They "say their piece" about a game they want to talk about and move on, usually cutting it from the list themselves. Aside from that, there have totally been games put on by people who don't think it'll make it onto the list, and then doing really well (I think Vinny didn't expect Kerbal to even make the top 10 last year, and it got pretty high up on that list).

And this is more personal, but most of the games I liked this year have only come up in the "I'm going to say my piece and then delete it from the list" portions, so I'm against getting to hear even less of them being discussed. It's cool if you want the deliberations to be faster but... c'mon dude you can just skip ahead or something.

@teddie: I get what you're saying. For me it was just an idea that maybe if you formalize that process, you'd get the best of both worlds and maybe also cut out some of the negativity that it seemed like Vinny and maybe Brad and some others seemed a little uncomfortable with. Just an idea to evolve the format. But I get where people are coming from on it.

While I get what you're saying and I agree in thought, but that suggestion to me doesn't get rid of the negative issues that come up with this system. They'd be debating and arguing over who deserves the "Honorable Mention" tag and at a certain point that'd evolve to just stating the entire rough draft list they have at the start of each category.

That was Brad. Vinny said he liked it vicious and 'dark' and to 'cut deep' and all that.

@zevvion: Oh man yeah! You're totally right. Yeah, haven't listened to it since then. Thanks for the correction.

@saddlebrown: Other notable statements includes Ryan saying: 'Cut something so I can feel'.

Nah fuck that. We don't need participation trophies. If your game ain't good enough to make the top three tough shit for you. I already think they're too lenient in that regard, with the constant "well this game already got its due elsewhere to let something else get it now" mentality.

Well, there's been a ton of hate for my Honorable Mention idea to evolve things, but for what it's worth, I'm watching the Best Game deliberation now and I actually really love the way they're doing it this year: go around the table for three rounds nominating one game per round that you'll actually fight for, then start whittling down. That's a much more elegant and smart way of going about it than my idea, and I think it absolutely achieved the desired effect.

I'm really impressed with how they handled it this year and I'm glad they actually followed through to make things less negative.

EDIT: Added this post to the OP so people don't feel the need to jump in against the original idea anymore.

I honestly wish they could trim the shows down to about two hours a podcast if they could, 15 or so hours of podcasts is so much. Also the day with best music and moment was pretty weak they should have moved worst game to it to give it some juice.

I think we've all not recognized, or at least not said out loud, that this year's game of the year podcasts were the most tame of ALL of theirs, at least that I can remember. The biggest issue is that there really isn't much diversity among the staff in terms of the games played. Many of the interested games this year were only played by one or two people so that inherently means those games have no chance anywhere other than being an honorable mention or getting a quick nod from someone like Alex...which is weird considering the lack of writeups/reviews/special coverage that comes from people at the site (at least that I can see). If they were having to do reviews all the time, constantly book meetings for preview events or something I could see why they wouldn't have a chance to try out different games but at the same time I don't think they should be required to so...

@utterances I don't think you're going to get any steam on that. Even Jeff has said in the past that pre-podcast this was how they did these awards for sites like Gamespot and they wanted fans to listen in. What you're asking, basically, is that they make up their minds ahead of time then they come in for the podcast and just speed through who won and any special nods. No thanks :(

I enjoyed the podcasts but this year was kind of boring because 2016 tapered off in terms of quality. Especially a weak year for console exclusives.

Doom, Overwatch and Hitman are the only locks for me in that top 10. From the sounds of everything I've heard, The Witcher 3's last expansion seems higher quality than almost everything that truly came out in 2016. Last year (2016!) showed me that having a console for exclusives really means very little this generation, all of the best games were multiplatform and best on PC.

...will still be picking up a PS4 for Persona 5 though.