Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Measuring the best years for gaming in a different way

 So, I kinda went somewhat off of vibes and feels with the previous one. I did consider what releases came out every year. But this time around I want to count up the games and weigh them in terms of how much I liked them and played them. And THEN I'll quantitatively measure. Games I really liked, or are iconic, or i played a lot, are 2 points, one that was okay but i liked it is 1 point, and in rare cases I'll give 0 points to a game if I either didnt play it that much or if I didn't like it or think it was actually notable (relevant especially with some of the newer years where i wrote some games down just because they were so forgettable but i couldnt think of anything else from that year anyway). Without further ado, let's get to it.

1991- 6 (keep in mind theres 2 different sonic games on 2 different platforms with the same names)

1992- 8

1993- 14

1994- 12

1995- 6

1996- 9

1997- 12

1998- 11

1999- 13

2000- 10

2001- 12

2002- 7

2003- 8

2004- 13

2005- 15

2006- 13

2007- 20

2008- 12

2009- 11

2010- 21

2011- 19

2012- 18

2013- 13

2014- 12

2015- 11

2016- 14

2017- 11

2018- 9

2019- 18

2020- 5

2021- 9

2022- 3

2023- 4

So, with this, we do see some differences from my initial analysis, but also a lot of similarities.

The best year for gaming was....*drumroll*, 2010.

The worst was 2022 (although it might be rehabilitated over time as I buy more games from that era on sale). 

All in all, the new tier list for me:

S tier- 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2019

A tier- 1993, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2013, 2016

B tier- 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2017

C tier- 1992, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2018, 2021

D tier- 1992, 1995, 2020, 2022, 2023

That seems fairer, it even takes a more bell curve approach. 

A few interesting stats to draw from this:

Gen 7 (aka, 360/PS3/Wii era) is the best era for gaming.

The current generation (Gen 9, aka PS5/XBSX) era is the worst. 

The 90s were better than I remember.

The early 2000s were kinda meh but the later 2000s were amazing. 

The early 2010s peaked, and then things declined from there.

2019 was a really good year for gaming. It was truly "the last good year" for me.

2016 was overrated. It had a lot of multiplayer heavy titles but in terms of a sheer number of games I liked playing, it wasn't as amazing as I remember. 

Maybe I need to switch to rehabilitate newer years. Nintendo is still putting out bangers, I just opted not to buy one this time around. Not enough games to justify it, too high of a price.

That's the problem with everything it seems. Or at least part of it. Maybe newer years will be rehabilitated as games get cheaper. But yeah for me there just isn't a ton to play in this new console generation. 2021 was the one decent year so far that had some really quality bangers and other than that....meh.

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