Feature: Who is the most miserable reviewer on VideoGamer and other interesting stats

“Wouldn’t it be good if I worked out some stats for our reviews,” I thought to myself, more or less thinking I could generate numbers that proved beyond doubt that Burns is a miserable git. So, using my A grade GCSE in Statistics and an extensive knowledge of Google Sheet formulas I set out on my biggest adventure since my last one (and the one before). Strap yourself in for some of the most exciting numbers you’ll process in 2015.

This first lot of data is based on every review published on VideoGamer in 2015, be it a full release, remaster, remake, DLC or anything else I’ve forgotten. In terms of who reviewed what, there’s nothing too surprising here. I reviewed the most titles, followed by Burns, then Brett, Miller and Jim. We also had two rogue agents in the form of Oscar (intern) and Ian (freelance), who handled one review each.

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Now the big one. Having crunched all the data it became clear that Miller was far and away the most generous critic (or the one of us who reviewed the most good games) – that’s what giving out two 10s in a year will do to the stats! The big man really does love a bit of Batman, so much so that even a disappointing entry in his beloved Zelda franchise couldn’t knock his average below a staggeringly powerful 8.5.

But, and it pains me to say this, I (lover of video games and allround good guy) came out as the most miserly, averaging a review score of just over 7/10. Burns (a man who’d rather give a Game of the Year award to his dog than an actual video game) and Brett (a man who almost cried when he saw the trailer for Star Wars Battlefront) sat on 7.2 and 7.3 respectively, and Jim, with only three reviews also ended up with 7.3.

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That might not be the whole picture, though. Looking at the scores we each dished out, Burns gave fewer 8s and 9s than I did, while I seem to have reviewed more bad games. I awarded 13 games a 6 or less, whereas Burns only handed out four 6s and three 5s. In my book, and that’s the only one that counts as I’m writing this, that is pretty solid evidence that Burns is indeed, as suspected, the most miserable git at VG.

It’s also worth looking at Brett’s numbers. The former VG man threw scores out seemingly at random in an attempt to fill as many of the boxes as possible. We probably should have told him that he wasn’t playing Bingo.

Tom’s lowest score: 4
Devil’s Third

Burns’ lowest score: 5
Uncanny Valley
Toren
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Brett’s lowest score: 3
Ironfall Invasion

Miller’s lowest score: 7
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition

Jim’s lowest score: 7
Pillars of Eternity
Mad Max

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Now we move on to which publishers came out on top in 2015. There are a few notes here: A) I’ve discounted all remasters that were essentially HD versions of the old games. To be included they had to add significant new content (such as Tearaway Unfolded on PS4) or be actual remakes (like Gears of War on Xbox One). That excludes games like Rare Replay and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. It’s not a slight on the work done on those collections, but they’re not really 2015 games; B) no DLC is included; C) episodic games have had their scores for each entry averaged and counted as a single release.

To be in the running a publisher, with the restrictions above applied, had to have a minimum of two games reviewed by us. Because we’re a small team, some publishers missed out because we didn’t review enough of their games. Sorry. I may have also completely screwed up the numbers on my big spreadsheet. Some of the formulas I used were really complicated, so give me a break, yeah!? (or as Alice would say, Step off!)

In the end it was an incredibly close fight, with Sony just edging out Microsoft to be the most decorated publisher of 2015 on VideoGamer.com. And it really was marginal. Had I not bothered to review the frankly ‘meh’ Screamride on Xbox One, Microsoft would have averaged an 8.8 and taken the crown. But that’s the harsh reality of professional video game criticism. It’s dog eat dog eat moneyhat.

Note: I forgot to include Nintendo in this publisher list. I could claim it was a hilarious statement on Nintendo’s place in the industry, but I just forgot to put them in my list. I’ve now added them. As you can see, we didn’t love their games this year as much as normal, mainly because of Devil’s Third and my less than positive review of Yoshi’s Woolly World.

Reviews are important, but Twitter is where the big boys play these days. With that in mind, I’ve included the team’s most popular gaming related (at least loosely) tweets, in order, below. It’s worth pointing out that these numbers don’t reflect the quality of the tweets.

Most Liked Tweet

Dave (@VG_Dave): Likes: 1230 (he got lucky with this one)

Simon (@Simonmiller316): Likes: 367

Burns (@thesteveburnio): Likes: 201 (I didn’t want to include this, but he does mention a gaming outlet, so it counts)

Brett (@invertebrett): Likes: 117

Me (@VGTomO): Likes: 74

James (@VGJames): Likes: 54

Most Retweeted Tweet

Dave (@VG_Dave): Retweets: 1129 (the AC Syndicate tweet outperformed this, but this one is better)

Simon (@simonmiller316): Retweets: 293

Burns (@thesteveburnio): Retweets: 105

James (@VGJames): Retweets: 55

Me (@VGTomO): Retweets: 18

Brett (@invertebrett): Retweets: 16

So there you have it. Everything you ever wanted to know about Team VideoGamer but were too dumb to work out yourself. Have a good Christmas and make sure you follow @VGTomO. Bye.

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