The Top 100 Amiga Games of all Time

[harrison]

I'm pleased to announce the launch of the survey:

The Top 100 Amiga Games of All Time!

Our goal is to get as many Amiga fan to take part as we can, so we can create the definitive Top 100 list of Amiga games of all time.

You will be asked during the survey to select your personal Top 10 Amiga games from a list of over 300 games. Each person's Top 10 will then be combined to decide the final Top 100 games list, which will be published once the survey is concluded.

Due to the total number of games released for the Amiga over the years, we decided it would not be possible to include them all. Instead, using a selection process, we picked the most popular and best games released for the Amiga to offer a choice of 300 games for you to pick from. We hope all of your favourites are included, and apologise if we have missed any out.

Please visit http://top100amigagames.classicemu.com to take part.

Notes

You have to register to take part in this survey, and will be emailed a unique access url to take part once you have. Your registration details will not be used for anything other than this survey, as the registration is only to ensure that each person taking part only submits their game choices once.

On the second page of the survey we are asking additional information about each person taking the survey, but you do not have to complete these questions if you do not wish to. However these questions will help us build a better picture of the Amiga fans still supporting this great system today.

[harrison]

I'm sorry, but I'm certainly not going to create yet another account for a *poll*. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one thinking this way.

It isn't an account.   The registration process is to ensure that each person only submits into the survey once to make it fair for everyone and to try and give a truer reflection of voting.

All the survey's registration process does is assign a unique "ID" to your registered details, and emails you a direct link containing your unique ID, to take part in the survey.  

Regarding games missed from the survey.   As we said, we know many people would be disappointed with a favourite game being missed from the list.   We will be running updates to this survey yearly and will open it up to nominations across all Amiga communities for the next one, so you can all nominate games for inclusion in next year's voting.  Hopefully that will please you all.

Also we have another survey planned once this one is concluded, which will be to find out what your favourite games are by genre.   Selecting 5 games per genre in the survey.   Hopefully that will please those of you who didn't find your favourites in this initial survey.

Any suggestions for future surveys or how we can improve them next time please, so that we can create better surveys for you as we continue.

Already this survey is proving popular, with over 160 completed submissions and over 290 people registering to take part.

[harrison]

We performed a closed noimation selection process for the final games list.    Obviously different people have very different favourite games, and some peoples favourites were not within the games nominated for inclusion by our selection group.

For the next survey we will be opening up the initial selection process to everyone, so you can all nominate games for inclusion.  Hopefully this will make everyone happier.

[harrison]

@Jon Hare.   Thank you for your words.   You summed it up perfectly.  Although there are actual over 300 games in the selection list.

And as I said previously, we will be running the survey yearly from now on, and will be allowing nominations from the whole Amiga community for games to be added to next years edition.

This survey is our first attempt, so we can only learn and improve on it by everyone posting positive feedback, with ideas on how it can be improved in the future.

Also remember.  Just because you personally have a favourite game doesn't mean it would end up in the Top 100, even if it were in the final list.   Currently we have had over 300 people submitting voting to the survey, and even the game currently in 100th position needed the equivalent of 4 1st place votes to reach that position.

[harrison]

Thank you to everyone how has taken part in the survey so far.   We have had a great response with over 400 submissions so far and a total of over 600 people registering to take part.

We will be keeping the survey running for a little longer and will bring it to a close in March.

And thank you all for your feedback.   This is the first survey we have run and I understand the frustrations for those of you who did not find your personal favourites in the selection of games we provided, but we did have to reduce the huge number of games released over the years for the Amiga down to a manageable size for the final survey.

We will take this feedback on board for the next survey we are designing.  Sadly we cannot add additional games to the current survey or offer the ability to add more via blank fields.   This would be unfair for the many who had already submitted their votes into the survey.  However, when we run the survey again next year we will give you all the opportunity to nominate additional games for inclusion.

[harrison]

Voting for the Top 100 will be closing next Monday 8th March, so if you haven't got your votes in yet please be quick.

Thank you to everyone who has so far taken part and voted for their favourite games.   We have now had over 500 votes submitted, so the final results will be constructed from the votes of a lot of Amiga fans.

We will also be sending a reminder email this week to everyone who has registered to take part, but has not yet completed their voting and submitted their entry, to give them a final chance to submit their votes.

If possible we hope to have the results compiled and ready to be released towards the end of next week.

[harrison]

Over analysis of the introductory text I wrote by some margin.

Just because a specific game is viewed as the best game they have personally played, this only reflects that person's personal view.   This might not be the same view as anyone else.  

If someone thinks a game is one of the best on the Amiga, surely it would also be one of their favourites?

[harrison]

...defensible if it defined video game as raw recreation only, instead of art or interactive digital art.

I would completely agree with that statement.   You have summed up pretty much every Top 100 ever conducted among gamers with this.

The argument about video games being art is a long running and continuing one, without any real conclusions drawn by the art bodies or supposed experts in the field so far.   As a graphics designer I agree with you that a game can be interactive digital art, just as a film can be motion art.  But many others will argue against this.

However, I'm of the view that graphics do not make a game, in the same way that visual post production effects do not make a film, or a book cover a true representation of its content.   Narrative content, a good captivating or intelligent story, brilliant gameplay..   These are the things that form a good game regardless of the graphical style or age of their design.   People still play the original Space Invaders or even Pong and enjoy it just as much as a current Wii game that uses the same mechanics of gameplay, but these old games graphics are some of the most primitive you will find.   It proves that a good game, a favourite of gamers, just has to contain good gameplay, a control system that works, and something that sparks the player's imagination and they can relate to in order to deliver an enjoyable and fun experience whilst playing.   Exactly as a film or book should entertain and captivate you.

The artistic merits of a game, and the actual game itself are 2 very different things.   I think the argument of games as art is a fascinating one, and as a huge fan of the demo scene, computer art is definitely very much real, but this is going slightly off on a tangent that is not quite directly related to this survey or the reason for people voting.   The survey is definitely about the games people place in their top 10 of their favourites because they enjoy playing them, not because they enjoy watching them.  Maybe games as art is a discussion for another time and place, or even another survey.

With any survey of this kind it is impossible to please everyone completely who takes part.   As I said before, that just is not possible.  But with constructive feedback we can improve our future surveys to hopefully address any shortfalls of this first one.

We ran this survey in the way we have, and so we have to see it to the conclusion and publish the results.   Most people will be happy with the final Top 100 voted for, and we will be giving everyone the opportunity next year to vote again.