Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Bonus Match |
|---|---|
| Match # | 64 (Extra) |
| Match Date | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 50.99% 32 for - 11 against |
Sweet, a 1v1 bonus match between the two "winners"! Bacon had balls like grapefruits to give us this poll, because he knew full well going in that a bonus match between FF7 and Ocarina of Time would ruin all of his faulty logic about why we were stuck with a 4way contest. Something about more exciting matches, higher vote totals, higher site traffic and more opportunity for ad revenue?
Yeah, BS. This bonus match, a 1v1, outscored the tournament final by over 10,000 votes. From a pure site hits standpoint, the choice is obvious. And even if you take the route of people thinking this match was the actual final, this further proves the point of 1v1s being better. Casual voters considered this a match that mattered, and it far outscored any 4-way match from the main bracket. The fact is, 1v1s will always be better than gimmicky 4-way formats, and this match proved people will come out in equal or greater amounts for a true 1v1 bracket. Bacon just hasn't given 1v1s a legit chance, and of course he can hide behind the site traffic excuse when we haven't seen a true 1v1 contest in three years. Duh Bacon, of course site traffic goes up over a three year period. It's common sense. However it required huge nuts to give us this bonus poll, so major kudos to him for it. Now this just needs to be translated into 1v1 contests for the future, since the results speak for themselves.
As for the actual match, Ocarina replicated its performance from the final. Final Fantasy 7 was never in the poll, and that was that. Ocarina defeated FF7 twice, fairly and in two different high-scoring formats, to become out undisputed new #1 game. No excuse can be made for FF7's loss other than Ocarina just being better. Ocarina has always been a guaranteed top 2 on this site, but until 2009 it had never won. It had always been dominant, but no tournament wins. Now it has one. And just in case you're one of the few who thinks 4-ways are more exciting because of raw vote margin and prediction percentage numbers, use some common sense. Of course prediction percentages and vote margins are cut in half when two more entrants are in a poll. Durrrrrrrrrr. It means nothing about which format is better, plus Ocarina finally getting a contest win is exciting regardless of the final margin.
With the 2009 PCA now over, time for the traditional contest ranking! 2009 games is arguably the best possible contest we could have had given the format and generations, and was our fourth best contest overall.
Summer 2002 Contest (Characters)
Spring 2004 Contest (Games)
Summer 2003 Contest (Characters)
Spring 2009 Contest (Games)
Summer 2005 Contest (Characters)
Spring 2006 Contest (Series)
Summer 2007 Contest (4-Way Characters)
Summer 2006 Contest (Female/Male Character Split)
Summer 2008 Contest (4-Way Characters)
Summer 2004 Contest (Characters)
Spring 2005 Contest (Villains)
See you all next year, where we hopefully get a 1v1 games contest!
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
Let's talk about The Rematch of the Century Except Not Really! Ocarina took down FF7 with a little over 52% of the vote directly in their 4way match. Now normally I would say that as a result FF7 has no chance to reverse the decision, because LttP probably hands over 86% of its votes to OoT (because given the similar... well, everything across the series, if you love one Zelda it seems extremely likely that you'd support another one) whereas FFX probably gives FF7 only 78% of its votes or thereabouts (there's a more clear distinction between different games in the FF series and the fanbase is more fractured as a result- I could easily imagine 10% of FFX fans HATING 7 for one reason or another). When you combine that with the fact that LttP surpassed X's vote total last match, things look mighty grim for 7. In fact I would even go as far as to say that Ocarina would have an excellent shot at reversing its 54% loss to back in '04 by throwing that same number back in FF7's face here in 2009. HOWEVER, this match doesn't place in a vacuum- here in the real world there are certain intangibles that need to be taken into account, and two of those figure to work in FF's favor.
1. "The Revenge Vote". This factor has been highly overrated in the past, but even so, I could see something along these lines working against Zelda in this matchup. In the same way voters were upset with Zelda/FF dominance and backed L-Block and Snake the past two years, I could see people wanting to take Zelda back down a peg after it won so easily, and backing FF7 would certainly be the way to do it. Plus, doesn't it just make sense for some undecided voters to side with 7 in the hopes of keeping the result interesting, given how easily OoT took the poll yesterday?
2. "Nintendo fans are sometimes... kind of dumb." Back in 2004 we had that very strange day where only people logged into their message board accounts were having their votes counted in the Pokemon vs Xenogears poll. Xeno was winning the match handily, but we figured G/S/C would do much better after those results were wiped and the match got a fresh start the following day- surely the unregistered "casual kiddies" would be way more likely to back Pokemon, right? Instead Xeno just won by EVEN MORE than the day before- to explain it we assumed that casual unregistered Nintendo fans just weren't voting as often on the second day, assuming their vote had already been counted.
Then in 2006, Samus was eliminated in Day One of the Battle Royale. Yet in Day Two, Mario's vote percentage inexplicably went DOWN, despite the assumption that he had the most to gain from former Samus voters. Again, it appeared that Nintendo backers were confused by what they thought was a match they'd already cast their vote for and didn't look any closer. (This was somewhat backed up by overall votals plunging that day- they recovered in later days once everyone realized what was going on.)
In other words, it seems possible that some of Zelda's support will evaporate here out of pure confusion. I don't know if I'd necessarily BET on that happening, but it seems a real enough possibly that, combined with point 1, I'm going to lower my prediction to
- Ocarina of Time with 53.11%
Boy, sure feels good writing out a prediction in the classic old 1v1 format. Here's hoping I get to do that 63 more times in the next 5-6 months!
Next Day Review[]
Huzzah for OoT!
External Links[]
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