“This Game Wins The Title: TWRM GOTY 2018!”

Since January 1st, 2019, we’ve been writing about our favorite picks for 2018’s Game of the Year, but now it’s time to let the curtain fall. Thank you to everyone who participated. We received 267 total votes!

Here are the final results:

Congratulations, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate!

Looks like the multi-franchise fighter has come in first. It’s been a hard fought battle and it nearly went to sudden death, but Smash K.O.’d the other contestants at 999%, taking home not just the title of most ambitious crossover in entertainment but also the title of TWRM GOTY 2018! A very tired Sakurai will be accepting the golden red mage award.

Congratulations also to the Valiant Vision Mage for the winning nomination!

A MASSIVE thank you goes out to the writers who made this collab so fun and brought a genuine competitive spirit to the game while respecting the opinions of others:

The Ink-Stained Mage, The Bizzaro Mage, The Middle-aged Horror Mage, The Mail Order Ninja Mage, The Blood-Stained Metal Mage, The Blue Moon Mage, The Iron Mage, The ABXY Mage, The Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage, The Final Fourteenth Mage, The Valiant Vision Mage, The Moronic Cheese Mage, and The Purple Prose Mage (not The Rage Mage).

And thank you once again to all the readers and gamers and fans who showed up to cast their vote, too. Thank you for making this collab a success and for having fun with it! Some of the Twitter threads today were hilarious!

Ultimately, I hope that this can be simply about celebrating games. I know that no matter which game won, some folks might have been upset (if anything, I should be the one that’s upset: my nominee came in last place), but I encourage you to empathize with the opinions of others, enjoy the many civil debates about which and what games do this or that better, have fun and make jokes, but realize that people play different games for different reasons.

And, too, this golden red mage award is pretty meaningless, about as meaningless as any other award. All it says is that people like games, and liking games is something we can all share in. No, of course this won’t be your Game of the Year, because this was all about community, however the final result turned out. Let’s continue to celebrate games!

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.