"They probably didn't think our website had enough cred to slap our name on the box, although they were still using our endorsement to justify this edition." "My guess is that PR didn't realize how much of a joke people thought we were for choosing the game," he said. The Game of the Year Edition did end up on retail shelves, though, but GameCritics was not credited on the packaging. That's the last Gallaway recalls talking to anyone from Dead Island. "We were happy to oblige and we had talked about doing a contest, giving away a bunch of copies, and all that sort of stuff." "We were the only website on earth that gave it top honors from what I understand," said Gallaway. Shortly thereafter, Dead Island's PR team got a hold of GameCritics and said they wanted to work together to promote a Game of the Year Edition repackage. "I think that eventually we were proved correct because it had an incredibly successful run with fans despite the trouncing reviewers gave it," he said. Gallaway said that the site got a lot of heat for the pick, but that he still stands by the choice.
We played a more finished version later on and we really loved it. "The game was troubled by releasing too early before it was ready for prime time," the site's EIC Brad Gallaway told Engadget in an email, "and it left a lot of reviewers with a very bad taste in their mouths, (which) was understandable. When Dead Island was released in 2011 after a hefty delay, one of the only outlets that gave it any attention was GameCritics. It's hard to take the concept of a Game of the Year Edition seriously when mediocre titles like Operation Flashpoint and AFL Live get these editions in years where there are far better games on the market, like Grand Theft Auto III and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, respectively. These products may indeed have received an official Game of the Year award from organizations like AIAS, but they just as likely may have been named such by a random website or journalist. That's what publishers want you to think of when you're buying a repackaged Game of the Year Edition, of course. It's like an Oscar or Emmy, only for video games.
The AIAS Game of the Year award is like a seal of approval or badge of quality, says Scavio. "To be even more specific, it could be due to impressive storytelling, technological innovation that really impacts the future of game design or even immersive world building that awes our membership," she said. "The award honors the single title that captured the hearts and minds of the global game community and distinguished it as the best of the best," AIAS president Meggan Scavio told Engadget in an email. The AIAS award isn't the one you'll see on a Game of the Year Edition, though. And countless gaming outlets name their own "Games of the Year," further confusing things.Įven more confoundingly, The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) hands out its own award to a title, regardless of platform, that best entertains users. Some titles even get new content to entice customers into buying an older game.īut what, exactly, does it mean to be a Game of the Year? And according to who exactly? Is there a regulating body that protects consumers from games that were not, in fact, that good? You might think of the "Game of the Year" term as an implication of quality, right? It turns out that - like most marketing - it's largely meaningless.
Every year, game publishers put out Game of the Year editions, typically chock full of all the downloadable content that's come out since the initial release along with new packaging to proclaim its "of the year" status.