Best ever Steam games

[Brian Boru]

In the Best ever video games thread, which summarizes game journalists' views:

How about a list compiled by a broad range of actual gamers?

I guess Steam comes closest to that, so here are a couple of analyses of their games:

Steam250 looks like a nice resource. They're open source, explain their algo, and present a lot of data sets. Their current Top-10 are:
1. Portal 2
2. Terraria
3. The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt
4. Stardew Valley
5. Hades
6. Factorio
7. Euro Truck Simulator 2
8. Left 4 Dead 2
9. People Playground
10. RimWorld

SteamDB also looks good. Their current Top-10 are:
1. Portal 2
2. Hades
3. Factorio
4. People Playground
5. Terraria
6. The Witcher 3
7. Stardew Valley
8. Portal
9. RimWorld
10. Half-Life: Alyx

 

[Colif]

You know, if I didn't know any better I could swear the games we get told are the greatest ever on all our polls, just have lots of spam generated about them but not many actual players... but surely I am wrong.

Compares poll results... I don't see the games on there... sure makes you wonder

oh its steam games. Guess you can't rip off player base there. I see, explains the absences

 

[Pifanjr]

I think @Zloth 's post is relevant here too:

Honestly, the whole concept starts falling apart when you think about it. For instance, say that 90% of the people that played game A liked it. On the other hand, only 50% of the people that played game B liked it. So B is not as good as A? Nope - you can't say that, mostly because you're only asking the people that played the game. Maybe game B is really one of the greatest turn based games ever made, but the marketing for it was misleading and tricked people into believing it's really an action game so the score is actually just reflecting the percentage of action gamers that also like turn based games. Meanwhile, game A isn't sold on the open market but is only given to people who pass a battery of tests to establish their psychological profile.

If you don't limit to just people that want to play the game, though, niche games haven't got a chance. The whole point of a niche game is to appeal to uncommon tastes, so even a perfect one isn't going to be fun for most gamers.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a good example of a "perfect" niche game in this list.

 

[ZedClampet]

dddddd

In the Best ever video games thread, which summarizes game journalists' views:

Steam250

9. People Playground


SteamDB

4. People Playground

Never even heard of that one. That's definitely a game for a younger demographic than I'm in. Ha, ha, stick guy gets destroyed...no

 

[mainer]

Ya' know, I've never seen or read a top 10 or top 100 best video game ever list that I agreed with. Just because a game has X-number of concurrent players at any given time, doesn't automatically make it great. Number of units (games) sold doesn't make it great. It's all subjective in my opinion.

I'm not disparaging any of those games on the "Best Ever" lists, but how do we actually define that "Best Ever" designation?

I love reading the PCG end of the year "Best Games of (insert date)", or the "Top 100 Games of All Time" articles, and while I often disagree with the choices, it's always interesting to see what others consider to be "Best Ever or Best of".

@Brian Boru - Sorry, I kind of veered off topic a bit.

 

[Brian Boru]

how do we actually define that "Best Ever" designation?

For Steam250 it's explained here, starting with paragraph 3. Short extracts:
"scanning each game's Steam store page"
"For each game, the algorithm takes two inputs: the number of votes and the approval rating"

SteamDB's is explained here—in short:

• Games with more reviews should have an adjusted rating that is closer to their real rating, because the more reviews we have, the more certain we are that the score they give us is correct.
• All ratings should be biased towards the average rating — 50%.

The Best Ever from Wiki is explained here, at the very top—in short:
"multiple reputable video game journalists or magazines have considered to be among the best of all time"

 

[Zloth]

Number of units (games) sold doesn't make it great.

It does to the people selling the game!

 

[Pifanjr]

Never even heard of that one. That's definitely a game for a younger demographic than I'm in. Ha, ha, stick guy gets destroyed...no

I've never heard of it either. I assumed it's one of those games made popular by some YouTube celebrity and it seems I'm right judging by a video I found starring this game that has 10 million views.

 

[Lunox485]

Euro truck simulator 2 is the most fun relaxing game in my opinion, enjoying the toll road night atmosphere is very cool

 

[keert99]

why euro truck simulator is good

 

[Ryzengang]

why euro truck simulator is good

Truly one of the deep philosophical questions we've all pondered at some point, really.