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Results[]

Round FourPoll8031
Thursday, May 7, 2020

Ulti's Analysis[]

Poll 8031
Division Division 5
Match # 117
Match Date Thursday, May 07, 2020
Oracle
Expectations
The Witcher 3 - 58.18%
53 for - 0 against
GameFAQs
Prediction
The Witcher 3 - 51.77%
User
Votes
The Witcher 3 - 5956
God of War - 3194
Anonymous
Votes
The Witcher 3 - 5256
God of War - 3075

After a small blip for one update against Super Mario Galaxy 2, Witcher 3 went back to its roots in this contest, namely beating up Western games so badly that people were calling for SFF as the reason for all these beatings. God of War's job was just making it up to this match; our boy Kratos was never going to win it, and that's okay. He finally made it into the fourth round.

It's hard to argue against SFF as the reason Witcher 3 kept going berserk against other Western games, but the concept of "Western SFF" is pretty much brand new as of this contest so it's hard for a lot of people to believe. I get not buying it, but by this point of the contest people had seen Witcher 3 in action thrice and it was still overshooting its oracle consensus. This time, it was a 6% overshot. In round one it was an 8% overshot, in round two it was 9%, and here it was 6%. The only round where it didn't wildly (ha) overperform was against a big name Nintendo game. If that isn't proof that Witcher 3 is a Clint Eastwood esque king of the west, I don't know what is.

Oh and spoilers, this would make four times in a row Witcher 3 was better-looking than Skyrim. How does that one saying go after three, anyway? One's an accident, two is a problem, three is a trend, four is.... what? Has that saying ever even gotten to four?

Ctes's Analysis[]

We didn’t really need any more evidence at this point that The Witcher 3 was going to reach the finals without breaking a sweat, but here we are. Witcher 3 made a complete joke of God of War today, it looked like it didn’t belong here at all. Picking God of War in this match looked like a somewhat reasonable upset before the contest if you used previous polls a bit much, but Witcher 3 did its best to make you looks ridiculously stupid for picking that.

God of War looks too bad today though. Unless you were ready to accept the upper half of the division being ridiculously good or the lower half being ridiculously bad, something was off today. I was among the first to believe some kind of SFF here, similar to what happened to Mass Effect 3 and maybe even Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. God of War is a Playstation 4 exclusive, that is the console Witcher 3 is biggest on. Maybe it’s bigger on PC now, but that shouldn’t matter on GameFAQs. They also have similar demographics. Then thrown against each other with “Game of the Decade” written above them and forced voting and Witcher 3 will overperform. It doesn’t have too be all that much to make everything seem a lot more reasonable. God of War looked pretty good so far.

I tried to explain this several times in the stats topic, but what everyone got from it was “Western SFF”. Let’s be real, that’s not what was suggested, but that’s what caught on. I mean, I’m sure someone suggested it, but I was quoted saying the idea of Western SFF sounded stupid. Eventually this term caught on, it was short and sweet, but let’s just make it clear how misleading that is. I’m absolutely not saying Witcher 3 could SFF whatever games come outside of Japan and I’m not sure anyone initially was, but it was eventually spread that I’m sure we’ve made people believe that by now. It doesn’t even make much sense because Witcher 3 is from Poland, that is, closer to Japan that to California where Santa Monica is based. That’s the developers of God of War in case you don’t know. I get it’s a short a sweet term, but could we not name things misleading names just because of that.

Regardless of that, SFF happened here, but people definitely overshot it. I think God of War was adjusted a bit too high in the x-stats. God of War has been overrated the whole contest because of that one poll against Super Smash Bros. Ultimate where it got more than 55%. People were ready to accept lots of weird things before not taking that poll at face value. Smash Bros isn’t trying to make new exciting formats, it’s trying to perfect what it is and show love and exposure to all kinds of things. It’s an easy game to overperform against in a poll that says “Game of the Year” or “Game of the Decade” for that matter. We’re far from the days where Smash Bros games are dominating such things.

On top of that, do we ever learn not to take regular polls to face value? It’s like we only learned not to take 10-way regular polls at face value. Regular polls are a fine indicator of contest strength, but you should be ready to discard them as soon as a contest match points against it. Does anyone remember Final Fantasy VI vs. Final Fantasy VII? That match happened in a regular poll and in a contest match not too long from each other. Neither result was close, but the winner was different. Why was it that didn’t reach us to always take regular polls with a grain of salt?

It’s a shame God of War had to go out in such a humiliating way, but something had to draw Witcher 3 here I suppose. God of War is totally worthy of a top 16 finish, however. It’s a fantastic game which did not only bring life back into the franchise of one of Sony’s biggest mascots but is also the best game in that franchise and I am so darn prepared for more if it comes.

Safer777's Analysis[]

So this match was strange. Obviously we all had Witcher 3 winning here. The Crew got around 57 on average too. And if you see, it reached almost 65. And no rally here. Damn! Nobody expected this high. So what exactly happened here? I will tell you.

So for the match. The thing that MAYBE happened was SFF. Or Same Fanbase Factor as the old people like the regulars call it. What exactly is that? It is when games/characters from the same series or similar series fight each other. For example Mario and Link. They are both really strong. But when they face each other Link always trashes Mario badly. Why? Because if you like Nintendo you like both of these characters BUT you will like Link more so more chances to vote for him. Same with series. FF 7 and FF 6 are both realy good games and beloved. But when they face each other FF 7 always dominates. Why? Because if you like the FF series you will like FF 7 mostly above the rest so more chances to vote for it. Now you may say, but Safer W3 and GOW aren't the same series and don't have the same characters! True that. BUT they are similar in a sense that they are both western open world games with similar structure. So if you like western open world games you are likely to like W3 more, so more chances to vote for it. So that is what happened. I guess. Hey I am not saying that I know everything! Also amazing victory for W3 no matter the reason too.

Still I am not sure. I mean everyone would pick GOW to beat SMG 2 for sure. So yeah MAYBE the reason is SFF. I know that I said in my previous analysis that I don't believe in it but now I am not so sure. Whatever the reason Witcher 3 won easily and is damn strong. Man this game. Play both of these games if you haven't!

Tsunami's Analysis[]

Well this was a fairly predictable blowout. Over 50% of all brackets had The Witcher 3 here, with Gurus in particular calling it at nearly an 80% clip and almost two thirds of the Gurus that missed it having instead picked The Witcher 3's opponent from the previous round.

...Correction. Predictable result, yes; predictable blowout, maybe not so much. There's no exact data on the Second Chance brackets, which were something vaguely resembling the Oracle except you could only pick whole percentages and there was no option to pick a winner with 50% (which meant that a truly perfect score was impossible because such a pick would've been required to get the maximum 50 points from Xenoblade-P4G), but looking at the Oracle...Witcher 3 was the unanimous choice to win, but 51 out of 53 Gurus went under on the percentage, 44 of them by at least 5% and all of them by enough that the two that went over had the top two predictions. I guess it just seemed obvious to me because I was the highest pick and thusly the second-place finisher in that match. All in all, the Oracle Consensus was 6.30% lower than Witcher 3's actual score. Wait, hold on...

Match #33 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt vs Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Consensus: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 76.65%
Result: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 84.07%

Match #81 - Mass Effect 3 vs The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Consensus: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 69.09%
Result: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 78.40%

Match #105 - Super Mario Galaxy 2 vs The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Consensus: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 61.29%
Result: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 60.60%

...Okay, so there was at least one match where Witcher 3 was fairly close to expectation, actually coming up a tad short. Ironically, it's the one where there were the most people picking it to lose outright. But that's still the third time in four rounds where The Witcher 3 vastly outperformed expectations. At this point, it was more or less taken for granted that the Guru Contest would be decided by Dark Souls vs. Skyrim; Witcher 3 making it to the finals and losing was more or less set in stone.

External Links[]

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Game of the Decade 2 Matches

Round One
LoZ:BotW > Outer Worlds
Halo:Reach > Life is Strange
FFXV > Edith Finch
HK > Berseria
MH:W > BD:FF
Sekiro > Ni no Kuni
Bastion > TWD
DQXI > Trails SC
ME2 > RE7
Fallout 4 > VVVVVV
Borderlands 2 > Bloodstained
Horizon > Fortnite
RE2 > Danganronpa 2
DOOM > INSIDE
FE:A > DE:HR
Bloodborne > CoD:BO
SSBU > Tekken 7
LoZ:LBW > Bayonetta
Spider-Man > Dead Space 2
Minecraft > Dota 2
Octopath > Undertale
SK > Dragon's Dogma
DMC5 > DKC:TF
SMO > MK11
GTAV > Baba Is You
Cuphead > XCOM 2
P4G > FTL
RDR > Ghost Trick
Xenoblade > Splatoon 2
Overwatch > Death Stranding
Ori > DA:I
FE:TH > South Park

Witcher 3 > AC:O
ME3 > Starcraft II
Stardew > Destiny
SMG2 > Obra Dinn
New Vegas > Stanley Parable
Dark Souls III > Dishonored
Nioh > Isaac: Rebirth
God of War > Talos
Persona 5 > Heavy Rain
ACIV > Civilization V
Sonic Mania > Ys VIII
SMB > Slay the Spire
Portal 2 > Tomb Raider
KHIII > Disco Elysium
New Leaf > SFV
RDR2 > Dying Light
Dark Souls > Hotline
Rocket League > DBFZ
Yakuza 0 > The Witness
MGSV > Dead Cells
Arkham City > Xenoblade 2
BioShock Infinite > Terraria
Diablo III > VLR
TLoU > CKII
Skyrim > Subnautica
Journey > F/GO
FFXIV > NecroDancer
MK8 > Uncharted 4
Pokémon HGSS > NITW
Rayman Legends > Celeste
Divinity: OSII > Hearthstone
NieR:A > Bayonetta 2

Round Two
LoZ:BotW > Halo:Reach
FFXV > HK
MH:W > Sekiro
DQXI > Bastion
Mass Effect 2 > Fallout 4
Horizon > Borderlands 2
RE2 > DOOM
Bloodborne > FE:A
SSBU > LoZ:LBW
Spider-Man > Minecraft
SK > Octopath
SMO > DMC5
GTAV > Cuphead
P4G > RDR
Xenoblade > Overwatch
FE:TH > Ori
Witcher 3 > Mass Effect 3
SMG2 > Stardew
New Vegas > Dark Souls III
God of War > Nioh
Persona 5 > ACIV
Sonic Mania > SMB
Portal 2 > KHIII
RDR2 > New Leaf
Dark Souls > Rocket League
MGSV > Yakuza 0
Arkham City > BioShock Infinite
TLoU > Diablo III
Skyrim > Journey
MK8 > FFXIV
Pokémon HGSS > Rayman Legends
NieR:A > Divinity:OSII

R3 and following
LoZ:BotW > FFXV
DQXI > MH:W
Mass Effect 2 > Horizon
RE2 > Bloodborne
SSBU > Spider-Man
SMO > SK
P4G > GTAV
Xenoblade > FE:TH
Witcher 3 > SMG2
God of War > New Vegas
Persona 5 > Sonic Mania
Portal 2 > RDR2
Dark Souls > MGSV
TLoU > Arkham City
Skyrim > MK8
Pokémon HGSS > NieR:A
LoZ:BotW > DQXI
Mass Effect 2 > RE2
SSBU > SMO
Xenoblade > P4G
Witcher 3 > God of War
Persona 5 > Portal 2
Dark Souls > TLoU
Skyrim > Pokémon HGSS
LoZ:BotW > ME2
SSBU > Xenoblade
Witcher 3 > Persona 5
Skyrim > Dark Souls
LoZ:BotW > SSBU
Witcher 3 > Skyrim
LoZ:BotW > Witcher 3
LoZ:BotW > LoZ:MM (Bonus)

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