Over the past couple of days, I've rolled out some of the findings from the data fiddling I've been doing with the International Game Developers Association's Game Developers Choice Awards nominations from 2007. Wednesday I gave a general overview. Yesterday I showed off which countries were most alike when it came to preferences for Visual Arts. Today, I'm getting more in depth with the category Best Game.
Once again, the affiliation network diagram (created using Pajek) shows that there's a hefty cluster of countries who think that the same games were the best in 2006. As a reminder, the five games which were nominated by the most countries for this year's GDCA awards were:
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (10 countries) Gears of War (7 countries) Company of Heroes (6 countries) Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (8 countries) Guitar Hero 2 (4 countries)
You can imagine that these are the games that link most of the countries. But some of the countries didn't vote for any of them. Three countries voted in complete isolation: Russia (the greatest number of votes rolled in for Magic Ball 3), Israel (their top two were The Exchange Student and Ankh) and Sweden (most of their voters preferred Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops).
Some of the countries are linked by several games, and there may be conceptual trends which can be drawn when these are listed. So here goes.
Canada and the USA The US voted for the most games in this category, and Canada voted for the third most, but they shared 9 between them: Company of Heroes Dead Rising Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Gears of War Guitar Hero 2 Half Life 2: Episode 1 Okami Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Wii Sports
The UK and the USA The UK was the second-most voting country in this category. We shared eight games with the USA: Company of Heroes Gears of War Guitar Hero 2 Half Life 2: Episode 1 Shadow of the Colossus Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Viva Piñata Wii Sports
Not so different, really from the US-Canada collection, although the US and the UK were the only two countries to vote for Shadow of the Colossus and Viva Piñata.
Canada and the UK So we know we're similar to the US, but what about our connections with the other US gaming ally? Well, the nominations between the UK and Canada were the third-most similar (which isn't so surprising when you look at the lists above): Company of Heroes Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Gears of War Guitar Hero 2 Half Life 2: Episode 1 Rainbow Six: Vegas Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Wii Sports
But, Canada and the UK were the only countries who votes for Rainbow Six. The US, the UK and Canada were the only countries who voted for Wii Sports.
So those were the top three. But there's another metric which can point to similarities - the proportion of games a country voted for that were shared by another.
Germany and the USA The Germans only voted for four games, and the US liked three of 'em (60%): Company of Heroes Dreamfall: The Longest Journey Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Only the US and Germany voted for Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.
Germany and France The European neighbours shared a liking for one another's games; 100% of the French voters voted like the Germans. But then again, they were popular games, and these two countries also shared these games with Canada, the UK and the USA: Company of Heroes Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Switzerland and the USA The Swiss only voted for two games, but both of them were also voted for by the USA: New Super Mario Bros. DS Rayman Raving Rabbids
No one else voted for these two.
Japan and the USA 50% of Japan's votes were also voted for by the USA: Dead Rising Loco Roco Okami Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Thoughts? Theories? Insights?
Related Links: Power Point presentation of these findings How similar are we? Who's Like Who: Visual Arts
