Happy 1 Year Anniversary!
Can you believe we’ve been complaining about games for an entire year? That’s right, the Game Complaint Department broke ground on July 19th, 2017 with a review of Fallout. Since then, we’ve published 54 articles, most of which were reviews, and a lot of them have been about the Army Men series. Before we start looking ahead to another year of complaints, let’s take a look at some statistics from the last one:
THE NUMBERS
This article makes the 55th post on the Complaint Department. That amounts to a little over one post a week across the year. That’s not bad for a single writer with a day job, right? 47 of those were reviews, so let’s break down the numbers:
- Highest rated games: 9/10 – Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Lowest rated games: 2/10 – Ghostbusters (NES), Superman (N64), Army Men: World War: Land Air Sea, Army Men: Soldiers of Misfortune (Console), and Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 (PS2)
That may sound like we live up to our name as the Game Complaint Department, but our reviews actually trend positively:
- 13 Negative Reviews (4/10 and below)
- 13 Neutral Reviews (5/10)
- 21 Positive Reviews (6/10 and above)
Which makes sense. I write about the games I’m playing at the time, and while I don’t shy away from bad games, I’m more likely to play something I enjoy. So I’m sure you’re asking yourself, how many Army Men games did I actually review. The answer is:
How many more do I have to go before I’ve reviewed every unique title in the series? Haha! Shut up! As an aside, the best-reviewed one so far is Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes (Dreamcast) with 7/10. Seriously, it’s pretty good!
Moving away from reviews, let’s look at viewership:
- Most viewed article: Read-Only Memories: Animal Crossing
- Second most viewed article: Review – The Elder Scrolls: Arena
- Article that I think was pretty cool and deserved more views: Review – Army Men: Sarge’s War
How’s the readership in general? Without giving out numbers, it’s pretty weak. I appreciate each and every one of you that takes the time to peruse my thoughts, but I wish more people had taste as discerning as yours. Maybe one day there will be more people as cool as you.
COMPLAINING INTO THE FUTURE
So what does the future hold? Right now, it’ll probably be more of the same. I’ve got some more Army Men reviews in the pipe. I’d like to move towards writing more reviews for recent releases, though a lack of funds can be an issue. I’ve been writing Community Blogs for Destructoid, and will likely transfer some of those articles over here for you fine folks. So there’s plenty more complaining coming your way.
On the other hand, the Game Complaint Department isn’t a paying gig, so I’ve been shopping my wordsmithing around in hopes of landing something that puts bread in my basket. No bites yet, but if that comes to pass, posts here may become scarcer. But then, hey, maybe you’d like to pick up the slack!
Do you like complaining about video games and know how to put a sentence together? Why don’t you craft something for the Game Complaint Department? Like I said, it’s not a paying gig, but maybe with your skillz on board, we can one day pay the billz. If you’re interested, drop us a line on our contact page. Maybe on next year’s recap we’ll be talking about how great you and your articles are.
Regardless of whoever you are or whyever you’re here; thanks for reading. Hopefully you’ll stick around for another year. Here’s to you, to the Complaint Department’s first year, and to the year ahead of us! Every year past that can get bent.
Zoey Handley
Zoey made up for her mundane childhood by playing video games. Now she won't shut up about them. Her eclectic tastes have led them across a vast assortment of consoles and both the best and worst games they have to offer. A lover of discovery, she can often be found scouring through retro and indie games. She currently works as a Staff Writer at Destructoid.
