Kotaku reports:

http://kotaku.com/undertale-is-tearing-gamefaqs-apart-1747991599

Me personally? It's not *my* Best Game of All Time... but it *is* my GOTY. And this has been a year where Bloodborne and Metal Gear Solid 5 came out. It's really damn good.

Also, the article points out that the game may be getting support from SJW, furries, and other uh, non-conventional people due to some of the themes and relationships in the game. i think that's doing the game a disservice. It's good because it's honest, clever, and has themes that most people can relate to--incidental to same-sex relationships or what not.

Undertale is great, and has a very avid fanbase. That fanbase is very effectively mobilizing against the community on Gamefaqs, and it's hilarious and awesome.

I like the post from GameFaqs saying it's an "objectively mediocre" game and then rants about "True gamers"

Can you sum up what the story is here? Why is it tearing Gamfaqs apart?

I'm still working my way through Undertale (I think I'm almost done?) but from what I can tell it's pretty great so far. I doubt it will be my favorite ever once I'm done but that doesn't take anything away from it. It's pretty hilarious seeing people getting heated over this poll though. The internet never ceases to entertain.

Pretty obvious troll effort to get the game voted best of all time in an unscientific poll. Another day in Internetland.

Always great when a rabid fanbase starts going all militant on the Internet. Never has this kind of behavior been detrimental to both sides.

I voted for Undertale just to keep the NaCl flowing. People who get upset about this stuff need to reevaluate their life choices.

The people who get mad about games like Undertale or Gone Home are the same people who harp about how they play video games for fun. I'm super serious about fun. Fun is important business that needs edification. Sorry for straw-manning.

@paulmako:

So, in order to keep the hits coming, GameFAQs regularly has "Best Game of.." type polls on the front page. Normally, it's stuff like "Game of the Year" or "Best Fighting Game" or even dumber things like "Who wins in a fight". It's always the same format: just pick one of two games and the loser is out, single-elimination style.

Well, this time they polled "Best Game of All Time." and every time Undertale shows up in the matchup, it wins. Against everything. Like, even Super Mario Bros. 3.

This is causing forum posts by dissenters, salty heartless people you know like Jeff Gerstman, to come out in force to trash-talk Undertale and then accuse foul play. It's getting so bad that even Reddit sub threads are locking topics about this issue.

Seeing these Undertale fans come out with such strong support for this game... it fills me with determination.

What's the point of this thread

Undertale's appeal and humor, while quirky and seemingly-specific, is actually very broad and works on multiple levels, which is why it's become as popular as it has. Since it touches on themes a lot of games don't, it also happens to have support from niche groups.

Those groups aren't big enough to make this game as popular as it is. It's the broad appeal that it's pushed it there. Obnoxious fans are easy to point at if you want to bring a game down, but it's a disingenuous way to go.

I say this despite feeling fairly "eh" about it personally.

Any game that can destroy GameFAQs is alright in my book.

If it was just a fun poll the results probably would have been interesting, but instead its just a battleground of warring fanbases.

I don't know shit about the Gamefaqs community or Undertale and it's community, but I guess I could maybe see why people could be frustrated with a game that only just came out with a pretty big zeitgeist around it winning all the polls.

Then again this is all dumb and who cares?

About time something tears Gamefaqs apart

Also doesn't this always happen on these gamefaqs polls? Didn't the Tetris L-block get named the greatest video game character of all-time?

@internetdotcom: I'd hope the straight piece would win in that scenario

My fave gamefaqs polls are overhyped classic vs overhyped though genuinely great and kinda original indie nobody will talk about in a year.

None of these polls firmly establish TIE Fighter as the best game of all time, so they're clearly wrong and should be ignored.

Am I the only one who didn't find Undertale mind-blowing? It was entertaining, but I could probably find fifteen more games from 2015 that I enjoyed more...

@jaypb08: It isn't that good of a game. Not a bad game by any means, but not that good. Some people really enjoyed the humor, though, and that goes a long way. I didn't really care for it, but I can see why people do. UnderTale is yet another alright game with a rabid fanbase. There are a lot of those.

Imagine leading the sort of life where a Gamefaqs poll is important to you.

@jaypb08:"Am I the only one" answer is always no. I like Undertale a lot, especially because I enjoyed watching its many attempts to almost break and use GameMaker Studio in ways I didn't think possible. It's in my top ten for the year, but not top 5 (I thought it might make it, but the more I thought on it, the more I bumped it down a few spots).

At the same time, I think it's super cool if Undertale is someone's GotY as mine this year is also a non-Witcher 3/Fallout 4/Bloodborne/MGS V option. Gamefaqs polls are just cheap and easy clickbait content, and this controversy only adds to the site's traffic. Final Fantasy 7 isn't even the best Final Fantasy game, Orcarina of Time isn't even the best Zelda game, Mario 64 isn't even a top 3 Mario game, and I still can't vote for TIE Fighter so it's all wrong anyway (all of these are my opinions of course :) ).

I played it for three hours or so. Had some funny moments, but it wasn't enough for me to keep playing

It's really funny when people take those GameFAQs polls as anything other than silly popularity contests where (inevitably) Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII wins everything. That always struck me as weird, since I'm pretty sure the average GameFAQs user wasn't born when either of those came out, so having Undertale (which is currently beating Ocarina of Time) have a chance of winning the entire thing is sort of hilarious.

@paulmako: People like a thing I don't.

The SJWs must be behind it.

I think Undertale is a bad game but I love it when rabid fans and rabid anti-fans fight because it's all so pointless.

I, for one, feel for these poor souls. They'll have to suffer Ocarina/Mario/FF7 not being furiously masturbated over with the same intensity for half a second. Put yourselves in their shoes for a moment: After a hard day's ranting and namecalling over various perceived slights, plus already being rankled because mom forgot to buy pizza rolls and Pocky for like the billionth time ugh, you decide to unwind by ranting and namecalling on GameFAQs. Surely some SJW is out there liking the wrong game, and only you can put them in their place.

Wha- what's this!? The latest GameFAQ poll is finished... and it's not a picture of Cloud Strife on the front page? UNDERTALE!? That game that isn't one of the three pre-approved poll winners?

You scream for a solid minute into your pillow, then work up the most vicious and acerbic insult you can imagine, swiftly composing a forum post with fire in your eyes and hatred in your soul:

"u stopid sjws undrtell is lam"

@shagge: I really like this. This is my mind right now.

Exactly what OP said in the conclusion: the game's good because it's hilarious and clever and as Austin would put it: "does stuff only a video game can do". Maybe there are those sections of people vying for it (and good for them because those non-traditional themes are also part of what I love about Undertale) but I'll be damned if I think that Undertale NEEDS any one group's support to be good.

Video games, man.

Petty as it might be, I couldn't have cared less about the GameFAQ polls until people started getting upset over Undertale winning. Like, I'm seeing screenshots from the forums where users sound physically hurt that FFVII or Super Mario 64 is not going to win, defeated by the hands of "SJW hipster trash with bad graphics". Maybe if the game wins, some of them will reach the salty singularity, collapsing upon themselves, only to be reborn, freed from the shackles of caring too damn much about what video games people like.

@456nto: You're totally correct. I am indeed neither ranting nor namecalling. I called nobody a name, and I did not rant.

Not, uhh, not really sure why you pointed that out, but okay.

Okay, just to make sure I have this straight:

A bunch of people are being assholes by acting like assholes at other people who are being assholes with a past history of acting like assholes.

For what it's worth, I thought it was pretty funny when the L-block from Tetris won best character.

Reminds me of this bloodbath from a few years ago.

I forgot Gamefaqs even existed. Google gets me handier Youtube results when I'm stuck these days.

I don't care about what wins their poll. Of course the Undertale community would go ballistic, though. Nothing could top the L-block trolling that one year.

Voting for a game you like in a popularity contest is being an "asshole" now? I'm guessing no fun and only solemn reverence for old Nintendo games is the true way to approach the GameFAQs poll, right? :P

Sure, there was some dickish motives, but it was the forum users that brought the fun poking and antagonising upon themselves. This wouldn't have blown up had a vocal crowd not flipped all the way out.

@j_unit2008: Well, good news. The best stuff is the stuff at the end. The game isn't actually over until you see a big white "THE END", though. So keep your wits about you.

1. People are losing their collective shit over video games.

2. Because Kotaku said so.

Undertale is by no means the best game ever (though it might have been my GOTY, in a year where I played maybe four games), but I still voted for it. The whole thing is dumb, funny, and will ultimately be forgotten in a week like the L-Block. I'm okay with potentially soiling the integrity of the sacrosanct GameFaqs poll if it means Undertale gets to appreciate a bit more spotlight.

And to the folks who are saying "Both sides are being assholes". Lighten uuuuup. One side is making angry forum posts, the other is clicking on a vote button. Nobody is doxxing or threatening each other, and no one is being militant.

Now, in the spirit of this dumb thing being a fun dumb thing, I'm going to post my favorite thing to come out of this time. Not posting the image itself because I think it might qualify as a Genocide run spoiler.

http://40.media.tumblr.com/e2ceb56c5f9f5d11ef4213cb848b5f99/tumblr_nzccc6pKj51uhov31o1_1280.png

Every time there's a big poll like this on gamefaqs, whether best game or their character battles, the site tears itself apart a bit more and continues to fade into irrelevance. Nothing new here, it's been going on for years.

I still find Gamefaqs to be a decent reference for guides for certain games, but holy hell the boards are a flaming cesspool.

I'm pretty light on the whole subject, even if I am name calling. I will say though, how we are discussing the subject in this thread, that's having dumb fun. The posts on GameFAQS regarding this poll, that definitely has not all stopped at just dumb fun.

Who cares?
All these internet polls have completely lost meaning almost, since a dedicated enough group can fix them to get any result.

A gamefaqs vote has no real impact on anything regarding to the greatest game ever.

I don't understand how or why anyone is taking this seriously or how it's worth reporting on.

Do none of these people remember L-block?

L-block for life.

@mordukai: I feel like that could be a response to many many questions asked in the future. Do you mind if I steal it to use in future responses, in addition to changing the word "Kotaku" as appropriate for the situation?

But no, seriously. This is all there is too it.

Though I would love to know the statistics for age when it comes to Gamefaq and kotaku readership vs, say Giant bomb?

Is this about ethics in internet video game polls?

I really don't like it when fans of a game ruin it for everyone else. That said, I do really like Undertale.