We can’t help it that we’re so popular
I’ve spent four years writing for Destructoid, so you’d think I’d have figured this shit out by now. I haven’t. It’s in our best interest for every article to do a lot of traffic, but I rarely know when that’s going to happen. It’s a lot of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
That’s why I look forward to this particular post every year. It’s a final tally of what stuck. Sure, we know what performed well throughout the year, but this is when we put it in a list, compare raw numbers, and say “Oh yeah, people really like Pokemon.”
(I also look forward to this post because it’s the only time I make good on my resolution to use more Mean Girls headers.)
So take a gander at what, statistically-speaking, the most people already took ganders at this year. Click on some links if you want. Read that shit. The rich get richer.
Because it seems prudent, we’ve separated the reviews into a category they can call their own. It’s probably for the best. A lot of our reviews do a whole lot of traffic and co-mingling them with everything else would just muck up the joint. And, as a bonus, there’s some other stuff we liked (but not all the stuff we liked).
Without further ado, I present to you The Teenage Guide to Popularity:
Ten most popular posts
10. You can now view Destiny‘s Calcified Fragment list by character
About fucking time.
9. You can request new PokeStops and Gyms for Pokemon Go
Remember that stretch of summer where everyone was crashing their car and finding dead bodies because of Pokemon Go? Simpler times, really.
8. Two Overwatch pros quit in shame as Korean teen proves she’s the realness
Low-key: This is one of my favorite articles of the year. Watch this young Korean woman wreck so hard with Zarya that two pros have to stop being pros. It’s like if the And 1 Mixtape Tour had a rule that every ankle-shattering crossover meant the victim had to quit playing basketball forever and go become janitors. Buncha jamokes.
7. Nintendo drops the hammer on Pokemon Uranium
Nintendo don’t want none unless you got intellectual property rights, hun.
6. From the makers of Rapelay comes the ultimate VR porn game: Honey Select
Goddamnit, Niero.
5. The top 33 indie games to look for in 2016
Thirty-three seems like a bad number for a list. It’s 23 removed from a manageable Top 10 and it’s 7 away from a round 40. It’s unwieldy and awkward. It’s jarring.
Patrick knows something I don’t know because a lot of you clicked for 33. We should’ve put that shit in a slideshow, eh? (I kid. Sort of.)
4. Fans petition Nintendo to get Danny DeVito to voice Detective Pikachu
Danny DeVito has been acting for upward of 50 years. Yet, I really only associate him with Frank from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Danny DeVito isn’t The Penguin or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s twin to me. He’s this.
That’s why I propose a slight twist to this petition. Danny DeVito shouldn’t just be the voice of Detective Pikachu. Instead, Detective Pikachu should only speak in quotes from Frank. That’d be a better show if the yellow mouse said “I’ve got my Magnum condoms, I got my wad of hundreds. I’m ready to plow.”
3. NSFW: Watch Dogs 2 features fully uncensored penises and vaginas, hurray equality?
Sex sells. (Except in the case of Watch Dogs 2, the place where the sexy sex parts are, which seems like it didn’t sell all that well.)
2. amiibo as butt plugs, ranked
Ah, that post. The post that might follow me through my entire career in video games. On multiple occasions this year, I’d introduce myself at some convention-adjacent function and the other person would say “Oh, the amiibo butt plug guy!”
The day this list was published was the day Dtoid killed games journalism. That’s what some overly-serious concerned parties spouted off at the time. If that’s true, if something as irreverent and silly as this was the coup de grâce, then it was a fucking mercy killing.
1. Here’s the 2016 Pokemon distribution event schedule
Now I buy the narrative that 2016 truly was the worst year because this vanilla-ass article beat the quality journalism that landed in the two-spot. Whatever. I already told you that I don’t pretend to understand this.
Five most popular reviews
5. Mighty No. 9
Mighty No. 9 is one of those games that everyone wanted to read about because they didn’t actually want to play it. That’s unfortunate because at the beginning, everyone absolutely wanted to play it. What a wasted opportunity.
4. Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Fortune
This is the first time in the three years I’ve done this roundup that Chris didn’t sweep all five review spots. Anyway, Jed didn’t like the booby volleyball girls and people got very upset.
Two games that were in development for 10 years both released in late 2016. Shockingly, neither of them were a hot mess. As far as our metrics go, more folks were interested in reading about Final Fantasy XV than The Last Guardian, though.
2. Overwatch
The game that we gave our Overall Game of the Year award to was an immensely popular one. A lot of people loved Overwatch and they wanted to know why we also loved Overwatch. The perfect 10 score probably helped, but something tells me it would’ve done a ton of traffic regardless.
1. No Man’s Sky
It makes perfect sense that No Man’s Sky landed as our most-viewed review this year. It had a weird dynamic where: People were confused as to what it was, people were fascinated by its mysteries, and people hated it. That seems like a trifecta for getting dem clicks.
Staff picks for five enjoyable posts (in no particular order)
5. BEGIN TRANSMISSION: Pro or anti-dick flap?
Those of you who have dicks: Do you pull it out of that flap when you go piss? That was the subject of a Slack conversation that Steven took public. (Full disclosure: I am extremely pro-flap.)
4. If you have to cannibalize someone, where do you start?
Another work chat brought straight to your eyeballs — this time about straight-up eatin’ dudes. How do you do it? The consensus seems to be to go for the butt.
We really should focus more on work.
3. Is this a lyric from ZZ Top’s ‘Burger Man,’ or something said on an E3 stage?
This entire quiz would’ve been rendered moot if Peter Moore had just gotten up and sang “Burger Man” at EA’s presser.
2. A desperate plea to Telltale: Please make a game out of R. Kelly’s ‘Trapped in the Closet’
I really don’t know how this hasn’t happened yet. We’ve got Minecraft and Guardians of the Galaxy, but not R. Kelly’s magnum opus? I keep telling myself that it’s just a matter of time.
1. Darren thought he had one skill, so we all had to prove him wrong
An innocuous cereal supremacy conversation morphed into Darren proudly boasting that he could perform a not-particularly noteworthy feat. So we all performed the same not-particularly noteworthy feat so that Darren would understand that he’s not special. This was my favorite day of the year.
—
We wrote a lot of good stuff in 2016. Five particularly weird ones got listed here, but there was far more that we were proud of. If you’d like, check out the Destructoid Originals tag to rediscover some of it. For us, we’re steering this robot full-steam ahead into 2017.
