The 2011 Player’s Choice Winners

Well, it wasn’t without a few road-bumps in our voting process (which we’re 100% sure did not cost anyone to lose their vote), but the weeklong Player’s Choice Awards voting is over and the winners are all but officially announced.  Heck you can see how the results came out in the official feature still, if you’d like.  But in the process of ceremony, let’s go ahead and give the winners their due, shall we?

BEST HYBRID MMO – LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

This category is a new one for us, in that we’re trying to give a special spot for those games that don’t quite fit the term MMORPG, but certainly fit the scope of our coverage and into the genre of “MMO”. We asked you to chime in on this topic, and your answer was a resounding “LOL!” Not to be confused with the oft-overused acronym for laughing out loud, it’s League of Legends that overwhelmingly took home gold in this instance.  With more than 40% of the vote, we think the year of League of Legends was definitely 2011.

RISING STAR AWARD – THE SECRET WORLD

This category is reserved for the games that seem to be somewhat under the radar… sleeper-hits if you will.  We asked you lot to pick the game you think will catch people off-guard in 2012, the one that gained the most steam in 2011, and your answer was none other than Funcom’s The Secret World.  No other game came close enough to even be considered.  The question remains: will TSW’s star shine brightly in 2012? We’ll know in a few months.

MOST INNOVATIVE – RIFT

2011 may be looked upon as a year with little innovation, but it comes in small steps, not giant leaps and bounds.  DCUO had its combat. Glitch had its… well, everything.  WoW added things like the Raid Finder. SWTOR brought in the most compelling story to hit the MMO scene.  But you all voted, and decided that Rift’s many unique features to an otherwise traditional fantasy setting earned it the right to be 2011’s Most Innovative game.  On the back end, its server architecture is ushering in a new era of game stability and dynamic events, while on the front end its class system, chronicles, rift invasions, and so forth showed us that Trion means business when it comes to making their game the best it can be.

MOST ANTICIPATED – GUILD WARS 2

This was a close one.  While SWTOR came out at the end of 2011, it still was one of the year’s most hotly anticipated titles (MMO or otherwise).  But with its 8.7 hype meter ranking, Guild Wars 2 once again proved that there’s no other title our readers want to play more than ArenaNet’s sequel.  Here’s the next question: which game of the Most Anticipated nominees will we see in the GOTY category next year?  Which games will have earned your vote for Most Anticipated?

GAME OF THE YEAR – EVE ONLINE

It’s been and up and down year for the winner of our Player’s Choice Game of the Year award: but 2011 ended on some seriously stellar notes as EVE Online and CCP renewed their commitment to their pioneering and incredibly revered space simulation.  This year may have had its share of heartache for the game, but when the fans were called on to vote for their game of the year, they certainly answered.  With a stellar year-ending expansion under its belt and a 2012 that promises to be filled with upgrades to the game’s core systems, one wonders if any game will ever unseat EVE in the eyes of its fans.  Well done, CCP, this one’s for you.