Minecraft is better than any game/series ever?

[Void(null)]

I don't need skill to enjoy an RPG.

At one time... you did. Those were good days filled with some great games. Now we have Dragon Age 2, a game with no challenge that everyone can "enjoy" so isn't that so much better than Temple of Elemental Evil or Arcanum of Steamworks Magicka Obscura.

Brb... I just threw up a little in my mouth.

 

[DaJoW]

The vote is for developer, not game. Man-for-man Mojang may be one of the better developers out there, due to Minecraft being (to many people) a very good game and they have a staff of 8, most of who were hired after Minecraft became famous. Voting Mojang over Nintendo could be rationalized as stating that Nintendo is no more than 553 times better than Mojang (or Bioware 100 times better), hence Mojang is better on a per-employee basis. If you go back to the original creation of the game, you get even higher numbers. There's also the simple fact that most people have played no more than one of Mojangs game, and it seems the vast majority liked it. Hence Mojang has only released games you like, while other developers may have done stuff to piss you off.

Or if you want to go game v. game, people could be voting for the game they'd had the most fun with for every dollar spent.

What I'm trying to say is: There are no set rules for how to vote in MM, and until there is, people may not always vote the way you want them to. I voted for Valve and Bioware, but I'm not upset over the results. Surprised, but not upset.

 

[Caligulust]

I think a lot of people, especially the most vocal ones, aren't realising that most people are putting their votes almost entirely on what happened in gaming this year. The people who are voting primarily according to what's happened in gaming in the past are finding that they're not in the majority. They use false assumptions (like comparing Half Life and Minecraft, two games released in very separate eras in gaming) and conclude that everyone else is wrong.

Human nature kicks in, and a lot of them start complaining about it.

If you are complaining, take this advice; Try to be more open-minded, and consider the logic of other people that differs from your own.

What has Valve done this past year? Not much. What has Nintendo done this past year? Pokemon Black/White, but not to such a big acclaim as Minecraft. What has Namco Bandai done? Not much. What has Mojang done? Minecraft, a game that's reached new heights for an indie game and widely acclaimed as one of the freshest gaming experience for years. All starting off from one guy. It's defined this year in gaming.

That's why I voted Mojang AB.

Good question, let's review Valve's work this year.

Spoiler: Valve TF2 Updates:

Australian Christmas
Scream Fortress Update (10/27/10)
The Mann-Conomy Update (09/30/10)
The Engineer Update (07/08/10)
The Mac Update (06/10/10)
119th Update (04/29/10)

For Left 4 Dead 2 they did weekly mutations following the release of The Passing. They also Released the Sacrifice DLC.
They released 28 Steam Client updates, and brought Steam to the Mac. Which they also made all of their titles compatible with. On top of this, they have released regular source engine updates for their games. They have also maintained work on Portal 2, due out this month.
Please don't say they haven't done much. I've been waiting six months for lanterns in Minecraft. At least they gave out a difficulty selection and environment generation this year, I guess.

 

[Daveman]

I said this before and I'll say it again. Mojang should never have got past the first round. Yes it has a large following but it just doesn't even compare to other games. Frankly I do not see the appeal. I just finished the campaign of Crysis 2 today and fuck that game certainly had issues but my god was it more entertaining than fucking around in Minecraft.

tbh this wouldn't bug me so much except that Zynga got so much hate last year when they nearly won even though they've released more than just one shitty Beta and their following is much larger. Typical elitist yet moronic gamers. I guess at least this brings more people to the site which is good for ad revenue which means we can get more Doomsday Arcades produced...

 

[Tdc2182]

It's just a creative idea.

It looses points in almost every other category because it has no story/objective/moral/yadayada.

Its just doing stuff.

 

[Pyrokinesis]

It really feels more like a popularity contest as appose to any merits being takin in to the voting. You can tell minecraft being pure and simple has made no enemies and will easily win. Not making mojang better just less people he has pissed off than bioware has. Hence the number of dragon age 2 haters who are voting mojang simply because they didnt like dragon age 2.

 

[Small Waves]

I'm still surprised that some random indie developer that created one low-budget, successful title is superior in comparison to the company that brought us Half-Life, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Steam.

For the last time.

Game distribution =/= game development.

Just because Valve brought us Steam does not make them a good video game developer. It is a distribution service, not a product, not a video game. This is a competition for developers, not distributors.

Valve developed Steam and made it available on Mac operating systems, which I find worth more applause than any single video game released in the past 10 years. It shows that they are thinking forward, willing to expand their client and the products that can only be obtained from there, even if the profits aren't as massive as the number of people who use Windows. They didn't have to, but they were bro enough to.

The last Half-Life game to be released was Episode 2 in 2007. It's three and a half years old, left abandoned by a company that clearly didn't listen to the fans frothing at the mouth for the next step in Freeman's saga. Does that make them a good developer? Not in my eyes; it makes them terrible developers for not listening to their fans.

Sorry, but you are NOT Gabe's boss, and neither are the rest of the millions of other fans of Half Life. If he so wishes to pursue other creative interests and projects, that's his decision, not yours. It's better to wait for them to make it when they're good and ready rather than to make a half-assed followup.

 

[Levethian]

Reminds me of when John Sergeant was constantly voted through 'Strictly Come Dancing' in the UK.
It feels like an 'awww, they're indie' gesture.

Minecraft is little more a game than Google Sketchup. Instead of creeps, Sketchup has bugsplat CTD's.

 

[gigastrike]

That's fine. Then this year Mojang didn't release jack shit. All they've done is given people a paid beta. Not to mention, it's a beta that came out in 2009.

It's not about the best developer this year. It's about who has the biggest following this year.

The beta came out at the end of 2010.

People care way too much about innovation. Not that there's anything wrong with innovation, but a game isn't great just because it did something differently (even though Minecraft is essentially a couple other games with no effort put into making rules or structure (I like Minecraft)).

 

[Eri]

Better than Mario,Dragon Age and Poke'mon? You done crossed the line now,lady. Mind telling me HOW it's better before the flamers show up?

I didn't say it was better, I said it's not better.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

fanboys will be fanboys.
from what I've seen, half of the Mojang voters voted for Mojang because:
A. they've never played a Valve game
or
B. they want the underdog to win
bull. shit.

learn from this independent devs of the world, you can release a half finished beta and STILL be praised by an army of fanboys* who hold you in higher reguard than the people who made fucking PORTAL. bravo Escapist, for imparting this wonderful lesson on the games industry. if your company is small, quality does not matter, you are better than EVERYTHING.

*read: idiots

 

[Nieroshai]

The way I look at it, Minecraft is the best Indie game I've played the past five years. I have played better mainstream games, but for some reason indie games get a few extra points from people for just being indie.

 

[Gralian]

I'm still surprised that some random indie developer that created one low-budget, successful title is superior in comparison to the company that brought us Half-Life, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Steam.

For the last time.

Game distribution =/= game development.

Just because Valve brought us Steam does not make them a good video game developer. It is a distribution service, not a product, not a video game. This is a competition for developers, not distributors.

Valve developed Steam and made it available on Mac operating systems, which I find worth more applause than any single video game released in the past 10 years. It shows that they are thinking forward, willing to expand their client and the products that can only be obtained from there, even if the profits aren't as massive as the number of people who use Windows. They didn't have to, but they were bro enough to.

Steam is still a distribution service and not a video game or consumer product. Whether it was created, developed or whichever way you want to word it is not the point. Yes, those are great achievements, but it's not what march mayhem is about. It's video game development, nor distribution software and overall contribution to the industry development.

The last Half-Life game to be released was Episode 2 in 2007. It's three and a half years old, left abandoned by a company that clearly didn't listen
to the fans frothing at the mouth for the next step in Freeman's saga. Does that make them a good developer? Not in my eyes; it makes them terrible developers for not listening to their fans.

Sorry, but you are NOT Gabe's boss, and neither are the rest of the millions of other fans of Half Life. If he so wishes to pursue other creative interests
and projects, that's his decision, not yours. It's better to wait for them to make it when they're good and ready rather than to make a half-assed followup.

I see, and is it unrealistic to expect episodic content to be released with any slight degree of frequency? They never said "we dropped the episodes in favour of a full blown sequel in the next five years". We are still waiting on episode 3 here, not half life 3. Episodic content should not take this long.

I would have thought it was important to actually listen to fans in order to give them what they want, especially if they are in the millions. I thought that was considered good business management. Ignoring them and following your own designs seems a little egotistical and questionable in my humble opinion.

 

[Kurokami]

Apparently that's what most people here seem to think if the voting is any indication.

Minecraft is better than Mario, Pokemon, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Half Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3/NV, Resident Evil, Team Fortress, Elder Scrolls, Borderlands, The witcher, and oh god I could just go on and on.

Sure you could almost apply this to any dev that's winning or won March Mayhem, but the point here is that they had games. Not some game that is in beta and not even officially released. At least in the end Zynga didn't win last time, here though, it looks like Mojang going to. Can anyone really sit here and tell me it deserves to win more than ANY other developer?

It's only better in the same sense that a one guy, with an arm and a foot behind his back, fighting 20 others, getting his ass kicked yet still managing to get a few nice hits in there is better.

My point being, Minecraft is a game that wasn't backed up by all that much. Maybe it doesn't really stand in rank with other games but it certainly left an impressive enough mark for people to think it worthy of best-game (or w/e we're discussing here).

All in all, voting is stupid, don't take it to heart.

 

[Xman490]

As an aside, Minecraft beating Nintendo I'm well on board with. When was the last time Nintendo did something which wasn't derivative crap? Wii and DS I guess, but in terms of game development I haven't seen them as top tier for a long time, everyone else moved on and they didn't.

By all means, Nintendo's first-party games are indeed derivative, but not crap. When the main Nintendo staff sets something up, it's like a new branch on a tree; sure it has a nice flower or a bird's nest, but it still has the old wood and leaves.

I'd say Minecraft is considered top-notch (lol notch) mainly because it ISN'T derivative (unless you consider Infiniminer), nor is it crap.

 

[Archangel768]

I was gonna vote for Bioware because their games are fairly decent but, then, I remembered their comments on JRPG's and thought to myself "screen them"