Announcing The Escapist Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2013 Bracket

[Greg Tito]

Announcing The Escapist Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2013 Bracket

Vote in head-to-head matchups with The Escapist community to pick your Reader's Choice for best game of 2013.

The discussion comes up every year among us gamer folks - what is the best game of the year? We throw out words and phrases like "replayability", "wow-factor" and "just plain fun", as well as pull out all the stops in displaying our console fanboyism or PC elitism. In addition to arguing about which game deserves the mantle of the 2013 Game of the Year on the forums, this year The Escapist will let you vote for your favorite games in head-to-head competition in our Reader's Choice Game of the Year Bracket. Starting on November 27th, you can even fill out your own personal bracket, guessing which games you think will make to the last round. If you accurately predict what the community picks, we'll give you a year of The Escapist Publisher's Club.

We've picked the 15 games you guys have been talking about the most and put them on the bracket. And because we figured there was going to be a game you guys absolutely wanted to vote for but that we didn't anticipate, the last spot is being voted on by the members of the Publisher's Club right now. So that's it, 16 of the best games of the year will go head-to-head in four rounds of competition. The first round will begin voting on December 4th, and each week you'll get a chance to vote for more games before you whittle the competition down to just two games on Christmas Day. The winner will be announced on January 1st, 2014.

For those of you unfamiliar with bracket tournaments, game titles will be matched up against one another for one week of voting. Feel free to use your social pull on Twitter or Facebook to get votes for your favorite game to make sure it advances to the next round. Whichever game gets the most votes from the community will be declared the winner of that round, and then will be matched up against the winner of another head to head matchup.

With 16 games, there will only be four rounds before The Escapist Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2013 will be declared. Voting will close at 11:59pm each Tuesday, and a new round of voting will begin the following Wednesday. Here's a handy schedule of when the The Escapist Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2013 voting will occur:

November 27th - Start filling out your bracket
December 3rd - 11:59 pm - Deadline to submit your bracket for Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2013
December 4th - Voting begins for the first round begins with 8 matchups
December 10th - 11:59 pm - Voting ends for the first round
December 11th - The 8 winners announced. Voting begins for the next 4 matchups
December 17th - 11:59 pm - Voting ends for the second round
December 18th - The 4 winners announced. Voting begins for the next 2 matchups
December 24th - 11:59 pm - Voting ends for the third round
December 25th - The 2 winners announced. Voting begins for the final matchup
December 31st - 11:59 pm - Voting ends for the final matchup
January 1st - The Escapist Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2013 announced!

Want to know what the 16 games you'll be able to vote on? We'll announce them next week when the last slot is decided and you get to start filling out your bracket. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't start discussing your picks in the comment thread below, or on Facebook.

Get your pitchforks ready! The Escapist 2013 Reader's Choice Game of the Year will be in the hands of the mob, and it is up to you to incite it. Stay tuned for more information coming next week.






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[Compatriot Block]

Game of the year is obviously going to be different for each person you ask. I remember Zynga and that meltdown, and even though I don't agree with the people who voted for them I can still respect the fact that I don't get to dictate other people's choices.

I'm expecting a whole lot of clonked bonkers from forum regulars who don't agree with the biggest fan-base.

 

[Barbas]

It's going to be depressing if someone who has been on the site for years ends up getting banned over this.

 

[Compatriot Block]

It's going to be depressing if someone who has been on the site for years ends up getting banned over this.

If? This is a matter of when, I think.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Meh. This year has been kinda a dud for AAAs for me. And since the actually interesting indie games never win GOTY it'll probably be another poll where I vote for the thing I hate the least.

 

[Andy Shandy]

We've picked the 15 games you guys have been talking about the most and put them on the bracket.

So does that mean that Mass Effect 3 is in with a shout? =P

Anyway, I'm interested in seeing what gets picked, both as the Community Choice. Personally, I'd like to see the likes of Remember Me, Rayman Legends and The Wonderful 101 get a shout, but none of them (particularly Remember Me) has much of a chance, I think.

The winner overall, if you're letting people outside the forum vote as well will obviously be GTA V. Might be a bit more intriguing if it only was The Escapist community.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

I'll vote for Banjo Kazooie.

That just came out a few months ago, right?

 

[Xan Krieger]

Disregard this post, had so much on my mind I phrased something really poorly.

OT: GTA V wins according to my estimates based on the records it set.

 

[tippy2k2]

Not much of a community choice when they're not letting the whole community vote on it. They really should call it the Publisher's Club choice.

Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?

The only thing the PubClub gets to vote on is what game ends up in the 16th spot. The other 15 games were chosen by the staff and the actual Game of the Year award gets voted on by everyone.

OT: Go "Last of Us"! I shall vote for you with no regrets at all.

 

[Brian Tams]

Its like March Madness in December.

There will be much blood spilled over this *grabs popcorn*

...WHAT?

 

[RJ 17]

I'm expecting a whole lot of clonked bonkers from forum regulars who don't agree with the biggest fan-base.

Remember how much fun it was last year when Mass Effect 3 won? It resurrected all of the hate for that game for another month! Good times, good times...

My prediction for the final round: GTA V vs Bioshock Infinite, assuming they don't meet up earlier in the tournament.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Not much of a community choice when they're not letting the whole community vote on it. They really should call it the Publisher's Club choice.

Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?

The only thing the PubClub gets to vote on is what game ends up in the 16th spot. The other 15 games were chosen by the staff and the actual Game of the Year award gets voted on by everyone.

OT: Go "Last of Us"! I shall vote for you with no regrets at all.

That's what I meant, just phrased it like an idiot because I have so much on my mind. My bad, let me go back and edit it.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

Out of all the games I played, I'm going to go with Guacamelee!, cause it's probably the most I enjoyed out of a game this year that also had the least problems, and because I feel like it's going to get lost in the shuffle.

 

[gigastar]

Hopefully there wont be a redecorating of the main pages and no mention of this outside of the Escapist, then this will all go down like a well-oiled bowel movement.

If not... then its time to bug out for a month then return to start putting out fires in Janurary.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

My prediction for the final round: GTA V vs Bioshock Infinite, assuming they don't meet up earlier in the tournament.

...Actually, I suggest lining up the brackets according to company size and ownership - Like how the NCAA has North, South, East, and West, these brackets are AAA, Exclusive, Indie, and Wild (or insert better name here).

 

[RedDeadFred]

Hmm, out of all of the games I've played this year, I would have to vote Far Cry 3 (shut up, I know it came out last year but I didn't get it until quite recently and it's fucking amazing). Since I won't be allowed to vote that, I'll probably go with Bioshock Infinite or Saints Row IV. GTAV will probably win but I found it rather disappointing. If TLOU had been released before the Zombie craze, I probably would have voted for it, but I'm really just tired of that genre and the game just didn't feel that amazing to me.

 

[Goliath100]

Might be a bit more intriguing if it only was The Escapist community.

Yeah, it would be more interesting. Mostly because everyone is split on AAA, but all are willing to give shout outs to indie titles. I mean, I'm gonna mention Gone Home despite that I think it is inferior to Papers Please or The Stanley Parable. But I'll be careful to not mention the most overrated game ever in both commercial and reviewer (the critics didn't like it that much) success.