Players like to debate best year in gaming history. Some point to 1997, which saw the release of iconic titles like Final Fantasy 7 and GoldenEye 007. Others suggest the year 2007, when the seventh generation of consoles reached its peak with blockbuster exclusives and some of the most acclaimed games. by critics of all time.
Others say that best year in video game history It’s 2011, when Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Mojang released the hit Minecraft. An argument can be made for many years of gaming history, but a new study is trying to clear this up.
A recent study by Spades Challenge has used user rating data from the top 2,000 video games on the Metacritic website to determine the best years in gaming history. According to the study, 2003 was the most popular year for gaming, with 199 of the top user-rated games released that year.
Some of the biggest games of 2003 are The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In terms of user ratings, the highest rated titles were games like Fire Emblem, Gothic 2, the aforementioned KOTOR, and Day of Defeat.
The second-best year in gaming history, according to the study, was 2004, although some may be surprised that it didn’t rank number one when you consider all the big games that were released that year, like Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Paper Mario, among others. The year 2004 had 168 top-rated games, while 2005 came in third with 158 releases, including Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening, Resident Evil 4, and Shadow of the Colossus.
All of the biggest years in gaming history, based on the methods of this study, were the stretch from 2000 to 2010. However, there are a few things to keep in mind before taking this information as gospel. For one thing, using Metacritic user rating data may not really be the best way to determine the best years in gaming history, because Metacritic user ratings are often manipulated like the review blitz. Alternatively, inflate a game’s score.
Metacritic also doesn’t have much data on pre-2000 game review scores, which makes sense because the site was founded in 2001. Game reviews in general became more common in the 2000s, so that also influences the data.
So while the data presented is interesting, fans should heed these caveats.
The best years in the video game industry:
- 2003 – 199 games
- 2004 – 168 games
- 2005 – 158 games
- 2002 – 141 games
- 2006 – 129 games
- 2007 – 98 games
- 2010 – 96 games
- 2001 – 95 games
- 2008 – 89 games
- 2009 – 80 games