Sordel

My first prediction is that what gets announced on a long lead time will be as nothing to what just 'comes out': a lot of indie ports together with puzzle games, JRPGs and visual novels. There looks to be a move from 3DS publishers to bring some of those games over as well.

I think Fallout 4 will come this year: Skyrim was received very well and it's probably made enough money to justify that. GTAV is more likely than Red Dead Redemption 2, but I wouldn't rule out The Warriors or Bully because Rockstar does like to support its old games.

Ubisoft will have a second Mario + Rabbids in development of course, probably for the end of the year, but I wonder about their larger franchises. Could we see a Watchdogs port? AC: Syndicate? Steep will be this year or never, but I'm not sure which.

I think we'll see a Nier:Automata port and something from Final Fantasy ... I hope it's XV but I could also see a case for XIV. Squenix has already got one of the lead JRPGs of the year in Octopath but I think we'll see more from them including the announcement of Bravely 3 for 2019. Most hoped-for would be Persona 5 but I've heard it said that there are exclusivity obstacles to that?

First party: I think Metroid Prime 4 is 2019 so a trilogy re-release would be great mid-year. So would Super Mario Galaxy in Autumn. I'm not convinced about Super Mario Maker: that one would be a surprise to me. Also, HD Skyward Sword would be a tough proposition unless they really overhaul that game, but they may be willing to do that. Yoshi & Kirby are not big enough to be the main titles for the year but would Animal Crossing or Pokemon be ready yet? I've got to doubt that. I could almost see a Switch Sports for holidays '18 as a more likely eventuality.

EA will have to reverse: VGChartz is today estimating Switch Fifa sales at a third of a million, which is peanuts (3%) of the total sales, but it was a bad port and it's too much money to leave on the table with the install base likely to double this year, so we'll get all their sports franchises now.

As for shooters ... Overwatch would be nice and I could see Fortnite coming this year. Whether we see a Call of Duty, Battlefield or Battlefront is very questionable but I think that someone is going to try to break that market this year.

I've owned the Switch since launch and I still haven't really gone to town on accessories. I bought a pro controller but I don't really use it because I like the divided joycons as my main controller when running off the TV and don't really use tabletop mode when not using a TV. Also, because I don't use tabletop mode the nice heavy aluminum stand I bought has been virtually unused as well.

I got a simple unbranded case that did the job very well but I upgraded it and donated it to my nephew along with the Switch we bought him for the Christmas. The replacement case was one that I ordered on Kickstarter: the Skull & Co. Gripcase. This is a protective case that makes the Switch more comfortable that comes with a large travel case to accomodate its larger form profile. I think it's very good and when my wife, another Switch owner, saw it she immediately wanted one herself.

Other than that, nothing really. An external power bank (of course) and a 128GB memory card (if that even counts). I'd like to get a decent travel dock but I'm waiting for someone to really nail the design on that.

Abby sure seemed to champion a lot of games on the GOTY deliberations that were on the losing side of the flow of the argument. I think that’s why 'Abby was right' becomes a popular sentiment right now.

There are several mentions of JRPGs, but that's a genre where I always think I like them and only get that itch scratched effectively once every few years. So it's not that thought for a while that I didn't like JRPGs but when I played Bravely Default it was the first time I had really engaged with that set of mechanics for a long, long time.

@wrighteous86: That's what I figured, but I've got a feeling that Sarkeesian herself would always have a comment for the publication deadline because, whatever else you think of her, she's very deft at this stuff.

In the first place, that letter is genuinely sinister; that isn't someone blowing off steam in between Destiny sessions ... it's a deeply troubled individual.

Secondly, I wish people would stop threatening Sarkeesian because it completely plays into her hands and validates her entire argument. I mean: is anyone really surprised that on a day when Brianna Wu was getting the early press coverage, Sarkeesian manages to get the spotlight back by nightfall?

Thirdly, the BBC is reporting that "neither [IGN nor Giant Bomb] was able to comment when asked for a response". Seriously guys, that was lead-footed: you have nothing to hide and you made it look like you did. You could have pointed to Patrick's consistent work on this issue and said "we really don't know why Brianna mentioned us ... we're one of the few media outlets that's been taking this seriously."

@elixirbronze: I think that calling them 'persuasive' is euphemistic at best. I've got no objection to DotA 2's being in the top ten, but the defence of it was horribly aggressive. The people who 'get their way' are the ones who are the most surly about their choices.

What this numerical collation of the polls does show is that the political side of it didn't really make much difference. Listening to the deliberations is fun but it's a bit like watching the sausages get made.

Yes, this is right, I'm afraid. I don't know how obvious it is in the room, but it's painfully obvious on the recording. Maybe he just thinks that once the list is published, 95% of people won't care how they got there, but: if you listen with any attention at all you see where the room really was.

I found the GOTY discussions to be rather frustrating because there was no genuine consensus there: it felt very much like people were just keen to get their pet games "the nod" of being in the top ten.

Really the two games that stood out as essential features of the top ten were The Last Of Us and Bioshock Infinite. Neither Zelda nor GTA V nor Mario (unfairly excluded from the final ten to pave the way for Rogue Legacy) really had the importance to contend for the Game of the Year title, and the rest of the titles that made the top fifteen or so will look in the future more like hipster daydreams than they do now, (which is really saying something).

2013 was a terrible gaming year on the basis of what I personally played. I sketched out a top nine earlier today and, of those, three were games from previous years and one (Bravely Default) was a demo! If you rearranged my choices to include only genuine 2013 releases you'd get: 1) Bioshock Infinite, 2) Brothers, 3) Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, 4) Ni No Kuni, 5) GTA V. Of those I'd say that only Bioshock Infinite and Ni No Kuni were real GOTY contenders, and the extent that No No Kuni had been completely missed by too many Bomcbast staffers came out during the "best new character" discussions.

One of the problems for me with Giant Bomb's list is that there's too much stuff there that plays only to journalists. Two or three hours of gameplay that you can base an article on may play well to people who are facing deadlines and want to get on with their lives, but most gamers want to assess the year in terms of hundred-hour-stealing monsters. When the Giant Bomb staff in general can't summon up the enthusiasm to play through really substantial games such as Ni No Kuni or Fire Emblem: Awakenings it's hardly surprising that you end up with the lowest common denominators being games they could power through in a single sitting. Even then, too many people seemed to be waving through games that they either hadn't played or, worse, actually disliked.

No, I never force myself to finish a game. Quite the opposite: I can think of JRPGs that I really enjoyed and I just stopped playing them close to the climax because I didn't want to 'end' the experience.