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50 Years of Gaming Joy
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UK's Golden Joystick Awards are celebrating 50 years of gaming (not awards) with an international poll for the "Ultimate Game of All Time" and "Best Gaming Hardware of All Time".

Voting is now open on the GamesRadar website, and will close 10 AM on November 13 AEDT (11 PM GMT on November 12).

It's not a free for all though. They assembled a panel to shortlist the top 20 games over a 50 year period and across all platforms.

Restricted to that shortlist, which they said was difficult to compile, many gamers might struggle to find games which they've actually played.

Anyone old enough - and that's not everyone - might have played those "classic" games on their list because there wasn't much choice back then.

But in recent decades there's been sufficient choice that one can afford to be selective and only play titles which suit one's own wonderful tastes. And possibly only a single platform.

At the other end of the scale, their inclusion of the simple but fun and cheaply priced multi-platform Minecraft might eclipse all others in public voting.

It currently holds first position for number of copies sold - 238 million - and even after nearly a decade on the market, annual revenue continues to rise.

Also contenders, Grand Theft Auto V follows it with 155 million, then Tetris with 100 million.

In a "fair" race GTA V might win despite having sold far fewer copies.

Probably many Minecrafters don't really think of themselves as gamers and wouldn't be aware of the awards. GTA V is a proper gamer's game.

With a strong online presence, however, the Minecraft PR machine is probably adeptly publicising the awards and encouraging players to vote. Which we don't think is unfair.

We're not betting on this one but we think you can guess which way we would.

The winners will be announced online on November 23, but they didn't specify timezone or time, so it could be the 24th here downunder.

[ Main Image: 50th Golden Joysticks Award. Credit: Golden Joystick. ]

References

Curry, David (June 3, 2021). Minecraft Revenue and Usage Statistics (2021). Business of Apps.

GamesRadar (November 8, 2021). Golden Joystick Awards 2021: Vote right here!

Wikipedia. List of best-selling video games. (viewed November 9, 2021)