Results[]
Friday, April 17, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 6 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 88 |
| Match Date | Friday, April 17, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 57.31% 49 for - 6 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 69.82% |
| User Votes |
Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 3943 Red Dead Redemption 2 - 5238 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 3237 Red Dead Redemption 2 - 4638 |
Given Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out mid-contest and the specter of casualbait titles getting anti-voted to death always exists, there was a little bit of fear that Red Dead Redemption 2 could lose this match. Red Dead Redemption 2's day would come, but it would not happen here.
This isn't to say RDR2 had a good match by any stretch, but it didn't have a bad one either. It did about what was expected given the circumstances of New Leaf getting boosted by New Horizons selling 238 billion copies in ten minutes after it launched. Unfortunately, "about what was expected" was not going to get it done long term in a division with Persona 5 and Portal 2 looking like kings. The two Red Dead Redemption games aren't at the level of Grand Theft Auto when it comes to anti-votes or anything, but I feel like they're both stained just enough by the casualbait stench that they have a ceiling around these parts.
As a total semi-unrelated side note since we're on the subject of Westerns, Django Unchained was added to Netflix recently and I rewatched it a couple nights ago. It's shocking to me that so many people are pro-censorship these days, because censorship kills artistic creativity. That movie would never get made today in 2020. I don't think white people should be going around using racist language or anything, but on the subject of artwork we're in a really bad time; sterility is anathema to good art. Django Unchained would be laughably unwatchable censored, and the villains would be completely toothless. But the uncensored version of that movie? Good hell, I've never wanted villains dead and good guys to win so much in my life. That movie was horrifying, as well as very historically accurate. The entire purpose of knowing our history is to learn from our mistakes so they've never repeated, not to sterilize everything and pretend it doesn't exist. People used to know this, and I don't know what happened in the past five years or so to turn everyone into a bunch of jellyfish.
Remember when a streamer got banned for punching a feminist NPC in Red Dead 2, and then Youtube had to reinstate the account after the entire internet revolted? It's the Streisand Effect. This happened in 2017 and the guy was accused of being a Nazi and such, complete with all the usual garbage outlets talking about it, even though the streamer in question had a bunch of videos from the game with him killing a bunch of NPCs in the KKK and so forth. His play style was him literally attacking every NPC in the entire game.
Quick to react pro-censorship folks should be very, very careful what they wish for. Censored cultures are generally not good. Obviously there should be a proper amount of decorum and good taste, but what's going on now is absurd. And yes I got sidetracked to Django Unchained and censorship when talking about Red Dead Redemption 2, because this contest had a large number of bad matches and blowouts and I need other stuff to talk about. Hey, at least the censorship bit was kind of related. Welcome to Ulti's Post-Contest Analysis! Sidetracks optional.
Ctes's Analysis[]
This match would probably not have been a doubt half a year before. Red Dead Redemption is not as fantastic here as other places, but it’s still pretty good, it just doesn’t get any praise because its results are disappointing and not surprising to the common eye. The second one had a huge release. The FAQs for Rockstar games are pretty frequented here too and they remain on top of the charts for a long time. Even on GameFAQs, this match should not be in much doubt.
However, when Animal Crossing: New Horizons just had one of the biggest launches of all time leading right up to the contest, suddenly New Leaf doing the impossible seemed like a possibility. Last contest was also one of our most Nintendo dominant contest to date with everything that appeared in Smash looking at least decent. Ironically, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of two games ever with a launch better than or as good as New Horizons. They’re tough to compare because Nintendo released numbers for the first eleven days while RDR2 got numbers for the first two days. New Horizons certainly wins if you do a console split, then it probably also beats the #1, Grand Theft Auto V. This obviously doesn’t matter much. New Horizons was the hottest game in the world during this contest, likely fueled by the lockdown, but also fueled by the game being a perfect game to play during lockdown.
The match wasn’t really close though. The opening minutes were fun, because while Red Dead Redemption 2 clearly had the early bracket votes (and I’m calling it bracket votes since there’s no way board 8 favors a Rockstar game over Animal Crossing), New Leaf actually closed the gap for some minutes before RDR2 went ahead again. The first updates post the freeze weren’t big, but when a Rockstar game is leading at that point it’s very likely to win the match, and so it did, extending its percentage throughout the day.
The main reason that New Horizons hype wasn’t enough to pull the upset is without much doubt simply that it wasn’t New Horizons competing. It probably helped New Leaf a bit, but the gap was way too big. Remember how awful New Leaf looked in the previous contest? Yes, it was SFF’d, but it also got Undertale rally spillover boosted. It was clearly a bottom game of the contest. It had a huge gap to close. It would be fun to see New Horizons in a contest right now. It’ll probably be alright whenever we get a games contest again. I’m not doubting it makes the field if it’s eligible, but I think the craze will be over by then. It will be remembered as a great game, but it’s during lockdown it had a chance to pull something like this off and likely be super easy to rally for.
Safer777's Analysis[]
Even though there was some fear that ACNL might win since the new AC game came out recently and it seems that it did extremely well and it is still talked about and make the AC franchise even bigger and has sold like a massive amount of copies, RDR2 did as expected and it won. I mean sure we do love some AC here but well against RDR 2? Eh not so much. Probably. However I do believe that if the new AC game was here it might have won. As for RDR 2 well it has managed to ship like 30.000.000 units and the game is out for like 1.5 years only so yeah. Kind of a big deal. Also pretty sure it is the best Western game ever made.
So for the match. Well RDR 2 did as expected. I don't know if RDR franchise is strong since RDR1 barely lost from Persona 4 which we all thought P4 would win easily or their opponents are weak or something but still nice to see games like RDR 2 doing so good. It is one of these games that trully deservers the GOTD title. But of course it will not win. Eh.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
So, uh...Animal Crossing is legit, huh?
This was a kind of underwhelming performance by what I presume, based on the prediction percentages for the first two rounds, is the casuals' favorite in Round 3. I mean, maybe it isn't, since the trio of New Leaf, Street Fighter V, and Dying Light really shouldn't have been able to stop it, while Portal 2 had to deal with Tomb Raider in round 1 and Kingdom Hearts III in Round 2. But we're dealing with almost 70% vs. barely over 50%. Unless Portal 2's R3 prediction percentage is over 75% of its R2 prediction percentage, one would have to figure that RDR2 would have the plurality even if Portal 2/Tomb Raider/KH3/Disco Elysium has the overall majority over RDR2/ACNL/SFV/DL.
I'll admit, I screwed this one up in Oracle but not in Guru. I had RDR2 > SFV in Guru, but I was impressed enough by New Leaf's win over SFV that I backed it in Oracle. Apparently SFV is just that bad. See, I told you that always picking against Capcom was a good idea!