Voting for a game you didn't play is just stupid. And totally different from voting for the fastest car since there is objective data on that, duh.
Never implied that, stupidity never had any rules in any aspect of life anyway. Happens everywhere every time
Reading this is a bit disappointing. I really thought those who voted were players rather than anything else. Actual players would be nice in order to get a genuine opinion. First hand playing experience is all that really counts in formulating a solid opinion of gameplay.
Not to change the topic completely, but to the users who care, my friend here gave me a laptop after hearing of my predicament of having my last laptop stolen at a party, and not being able to save ipad game saves, and not being really able to use itunes to download music and stuff. It is a huge laptop though, a 17 inch sony vaio! Wowzers! I kinda envisioned a world of ipad for everything including console setups, but unfortunately game saves and itunes music exchanging just can not be done without a laptop. So it was more the principle for me not to buy a laptop. But I am glad I had a friend who was willing to help me out, and I am thankful for his friendship. Thanks! Anyway, coolness.
I read the GOTW thread each week, to see if I missed any good releases. I don't take the voting too seriously, but would probably be more likely to check out a game that received more votes. It's preferable for people to only vote for games they've actually played. We can't police this - and don't want to - but votes for a game you haven't played are pretty pointless. It would be better to express your general thoughts or preferences in the thread discussion, but only actually vote for games you've experienced first hand.
I know EchoSeven usually weeds out votes entered under if there is suspicious of shill/developer intervention; I agree people shouldn't vote for a game they haven't even played and, like Red1, I don't understand the motivation. However, I suspect blind votes are the minority.
Well, this odd debate is taking another turn to shill accounts and pro developer intervention. On this topic, I definitely agree that there should be no shill accounts made by any user, or developer to cast votes for a game under no conditions. Nor should any developer or advocate tweet or facebook encouraging users to create accounts to vote.
To put an end to this, since there are no specific rules everyone is free to make up their own mind on the moral rules around nominations and votes. It's been interesting to read people's opinions on the topic, but by now we've circled back around and no new points have been raised.
I would like to say that Echoseven has done a good job maintaining the GOTW thread and votegates, and I appreciate the help this thread has on making purchases on releases. And a final congrats to Fangz, and thanks for the interesting discussion all.
Hehe, well, as I said earlier, this probably may happen once or twice a year, so at that time, we shall meet again.