It's now officially Bioware versus Mojang in the final fight.

My money's on Bioware. Being a multiplatform developer is often a significant advantage in March Mayhem; granted the Escapist has a very large PC gaming community but Bioware is very popular on the PC so even if they split the PC vote with Mojang if they get most of the PS and XBox community behind them they'll win hands down.

Bioware is also a very popular dev on the Escapist. As I've said before I think they would have won last year if Valve wasn't benefiting from the anti-Zynga surge. This isn't to say that Valve isn't well liked as well, but I do think that Bioware has the edge.

It also looks like Bioware simply has the votes. They won against Blizzard with 24,036 votes while Mojang beat Valve with only 16,661. I really like Mojang and I may even vote for them in the finals (I'm undecided) but I think they'll have an uphill battle if they want to win here.

How did Mojang get to the finals?

I expected ValvE or something, I don't look at the March Mayhem so meh.

Mojang vs Bioware Finale?

Where has the world gone to? :laugh:

Farmvile

I don't believe Valve ever advertised this, at least they never did on Steam. Mojang did promote it, in fact that Valve was winning this round before Mojang put it in the Minecraft FB feed and Notch mentioned it on his twitter.

Developers are allowed (and I'd say encouraged, it is partially a membership drive) to mention March Mayhem so there's nothing inappropriate about Mojang's behavior, but it was one-sided this round. Valve promoted MM last year when they went up against Zynga, it's possible they specifically didn't mention it this year because they saw no reason to trounce Mojang - Valve is a big proponent of independent dev studios.

The missing "l" is a nice touch there.

No, that makes a bit more sense because I would have guessed ValvE to have more fans.

Oh well.

EDIT: I know, that's what it is... Vile.

I don't see anything wrong with a membership drive. I do think they've let it get a bit out of hand although this year isn't nearly as bad as last year was. I also think the Escapist would be better off doing something that involves it's videos since that's their strong suit - I have to imagine that most of the people that register to vote for their favorite studio don't stick around. Even a video that goes up at the beginning of each round to discuss what happened last time and people's predictions of the upcoming round would help tie things together.

Mojang easily. Mass effect was poorly written, and is a shallow rpg gameplay wise. DA2 managed to ruin DA lore and make it a button masher.
While I found MC incredibaly boring and overrated thats fine, if MC wins awards thats fine, but BW wins [censored] like "RPG of the year" for a shallow husk of an rpg, what if other devs copy that, no I wont support one of the things killing rpgs.

I was refering to Farmville, not Majong with that post.

What did you think about the KOTOR series?

I havent played it, besides Obsidian made 2, so you cant really say series.

And again, I dont judge devs on post work, only what they do now, otherwise I would still like LH for fable tlc.

God this is so hard... so very hard. I think I'll go Mojang though. Bioware derped on the Arrival DLC and Dragon Age 2, but otherwise have been doing fine until now. So no vote from me this year, maybe if they smarten up.

Edit
I think the only "weak" game Valve has made is Left 4 Dead, but then again that's like saying a nuclear missile is weak compared to an asteroid. The main problem is their hat fetish and the fact that they haven't done anything... in awhile... really. The last game they made was way back in 2009 L4D2, then they released Alien Swarm for free, which is good but it was still just a free game not a big name. They might be able to take it for next year with people fondly (hopefully) remembering Portal 2 and DOTA2. Though I hate DOTA style games... so *hiss* like a cat ect.

Well I dont really care for the second game, but the first one I think you should check out. And I will say that Bioware is slipping a little bit as of late, but based on their works with KOTOR they have the ability to make a great game in the future.

I dont think you should judge a company based on their latests release. For example, Square Enix has produced a fluctuation of fan accepted work. I didn't care for FFXIV, but I have liked a lot of their other games. I have also disliked some. But I am not going to say they are a bad company because i didn't like the game they just produced.

Since the EA buyout, they have no chance of making a good game again. The KOTOR MMO will be the biggest money grab consoles will ever see IMO.

Well, sadly you do have a point there :/

They're great games, but only one was made by BioWare and the third is still in development as an MMO. The thing about BioWare is their stories have become too shallow, lacking the ability to draw you in and actually give you a reason why you're fighting. KOTOR gives you a reason by illustrating the Sith's ruthlessness on Taris. Mass Effect 2 didn't really do that. Dragon Age didn't really do that. Dev that was awesome ten years ago =/= awesome dev now.

And besides, didn't Drew Karpyshyn leave BioWare? He was the writer for KOTOR 1 and Mass Effect.

No Biware was just stupid and canged writers, hes now working on te star wars game, while walters got Mass effect :/
It makes sense, ME1 was dark, ME2 was lighter despite trying to be dark.

I know one dev quit after ME1 toug, not usre of his role.

You do have a convincing case. Now that I think about it, every game BioWare has made after KOTOR have only been disappointing to me.

And no, according to his http://drewkarpyshyn.com/c/?page_id=17 he still works for BioWare.

Yup, one of the worst mistakes that devs make when it comes to the story of a game is not showing you what's at stake. That's something that KOTOR did so well by letting you explore this massive city filled with civilians, then obliterating them in an instant. But by not giving you the emotional connections, the deaths of main characters don't effect you as they should.

KOTOR MMO for consoles?

I'm almost positive that it's a PC exclusive. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So Mojang beat Valve?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTRxXvQY0s&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Well if it's Mojang vs BioWare, I'd pick Mojang, never really played any of BioWares games, except, ME2, which was meh.

Looks like the company with only one beta game under its belt is going to win against every actual legit company. People are ridiculous, their favorite company will make one bad game and people will just write them off. Yeah, minecraft is fun for like the first 5 days, but it gets repetitive fast. The minecraft hype reminds me of when WoW first came out every teenager wouldn't quit talking about it. Bioware has made many amazing games over the past decade even if they have slacked in the past year or so, even then the games have been enjoyable to say the least. Whatever... yes I am mad. Screw Notch and screw these so called gamers.

Hipsters... Hipsters everywhere.

Many people look at the developer's recent history, not their entire catalog. This keeps older or larger companies from having a substantial edge over newer or smaller ones and it reflects that this is an annual contest. Reading through the thread on the Escapist there are a number of people voting for Mojang who have thoroughly enjoyed Bioware's games but haven't been impressed with their more recent fare.

Many others do take entire catalogs in to consideration, or expand their consideration of developers to include work they've down beyond game developement. Everyone brings their own criteria.


That makes more sense, I thought vile was a strong word for describing a membership drive

Well I've been proven wrong, Mojang won with a substantial lead.

I'm still surprised that this match received so many fewer votes than some of the earlier ones. I'm sure there are some people who don't like either company and purposefully abstained but I have a tough time believing this accounts for 10k+ people, maybe many of the Blizzard and Valve fans left after their favored developer was knocked out.