The GameOgre 2013 Awards have just finished and I am proud to announce the winners! See below for the categories and the games that have captured the imaginations of ogres everywhere through the 2013 year and anticipated beyond.

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Neverwinter has been voted Best Free MMORPG for 2013

Coming in by the name of the game Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic Studios lead the MMORPG market with their 2013 release of Neverwinter, a game that brings players back to the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms setting. Read up about it from a GameOgre first impression.

Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft tied the Best Pay/Buy-to-Play MMORPG for 2013

In a world where pay-to-play is dominated by a juggernaut such as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft only NCSoft’s Guild Wars 2 stands a chance of rising up the MMORPG charts. WoW has been the pure yard-stick for all MMORPGs since it launched in 2004 and nothing has actually managed to measure up. Even Guild Wars 2 falls short of WoW’s glory, but it has managed to hold its own with an innovative system and a buy-to-play model. Take a look at a first impressions review of Guild Wars 2.

Call of Duty: Ghosts has been voted Best Online Shooter of 2013

The Call of Duty franchise has been keeping the online shooter market alive for many years now and with each new development a stampede of gamers rushes out to throw lots of money at Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and many other developers as well as Activision as publisher. As shooters go, Call of Duty is one of those generation-defining games that has a massive fan following.

Ogre Wars has been voted Best Browser Game of 2013

As browser-games go, Ogre Wars is one of those cult-classics that the ogre community just cannot get away from. It’s not uncommon for discussions to break out about who raided whom and who has been bolstering their defenses in this turn-based-strategy. Look into this featured game and play with everyone today.

League of Legends has been voted Best MOBA of 2013

When it comes to the massive online battle arena (MOBA) market there is no name that comes to mind faster than League of Legends so it’s no surprise that this topped off the Best MOBA of 2013. In short, this product of Riot Games has become the definitive gaming exemplar for the modern day MOBA and is unlikely to be unseated. LoL has become such a powerful conduit for this type of gaming that it’s even spawned its own esports venue.

Diablo 3 has been voted Best Free Online RPG of 2013

Blizzard’s Diablo 3 comes at an odd time in the lifecycle of the Diablo franchise but it’s another milemarker for the online RPG industry. In fact the Diablo linage has become so prevalent in gaming community parlance that any game that sports an isometric view, click-to-move, paper doll RPG, and scads of monsters gets quickly chalked up as a Diablo-clone. So when Diablo 3 hit the shelves, it was sure to take the prize for 2013. Take a look at a first impressions review of Diablo 3 to understand the expanse of the tradition it comes from.

Candy Crush Saga has been voted Best Social Game of 2013 & Best Mobile Game of 2013

In an unexpected turn, Candy Crush Saga has managed to win two awards and both of them fitting its extreme popularity: the game landed both Best Social Game of 2013 and Best Mobile Game of 2013. Candy Crush is best known as a puzzle-game first deployed for the likes of Facebook users but also adapted for mobile—since puzzle-based games do extremely well on mobile. It’s a casual puzzle game that makes a theme of eating and partaking of candy—and this perhaps have made it the sweet tooth of gamers everywhere.

Titanfall and EverQuest Next tied Most Anticipated Game of 2014

The year 2014 has a plethora of games sidling up for release but looking for a most-anticipated might be a little bit like pulling teeth—this is probably why the Most Anticipated Game of 2014 has tied between Titanfall and EverQuest Next. Expected to crash to earth in March, Titanfall is a dynamic take on the online shooter that gives players the ability to be a jump-jet rocking pilot-soldier or take control of a Titan—a big stompy robot with a lot of firepower and juice. EverQuest Next is set to upset the MMORPG market with an amazing world, action-based gameplay, and a reboot of the whole EverQuest genre—it’s not even known if it will appear in 2014, but the hype is unstoppable.

Grand Theft Auto V and Battlefield 4 tied Best Console Game for 2013

Unable to topple Call of Duty for Best Online Shooter didn’t stop Battlefield 4 from claiming a title within Best Console Game but it will have to share it with Grand Theft Auto V. Consoles sit in a special place in the gaming industry, somewhere between PCs and mobile gaming—but consoles still make up a giant sector for games to release to and shooters earn a strong accolade on them. Coming to us from Electronic Arts, BF4 is a homage to another long lineage of online shooters that has been a generation-defining moment. Grand Theft Auto V also continues a genre-defining franchise that has catapulted RockStar Games and Take-Two Interactive into the gaming titans they are today featuring guns, cars, and various types of gangsters and mobsters—GTA has come a long way from its odd 2D ancestor and become yet-another-cultural landmark.

Minecraft has been voted Best Indie Game of 2013

Winning the final, and brightest, award of the year—Minecraft won by a landslide (blockslide?) over every other indie game even recently released. As a game, Minecraft has defined its own genre that is different from virtually anything that game before it. A sandbox with a “game” in it, Minecraft allows players to define gaming itself by giving them the tools to adventure or build their own world. In short, since it’s release in 2011, Mojang has only seen this game grow from what seemed to be a niche game into a stellar cultural phenomenon enjoyed by families and friends worldwide.

Best Free MMORPG of the Year for 2013 goes to… Guild Wars 2!

At the end of every year MMORPGs are lined up to compete against one another for the coveted title of winner of the MMORPG Showdown. This showdown was won handily by Guild Wars 2. As an MMORPG, GW2 has shown that innovation and style can outclass and change anything even the staid genre of MMORPGs.

Online Game of the Year for 2013 goes to… Minecraft!

When it comes to multiplayer and online play nothing says social like a sandbox game where you and your friends can get together and build castles (or dig so deep into the earth that you fall out of the world.) As a result, the prize for this year’s Online Game of the Year for 2013 goes to Minecraft. This is a game that has fundamentally changed how people think about gaming, from having less-than-stellar graphics, a blocky-yet-complex sandbox style, and a million possibilities. As already stated, Minecraft is a game changer for the gaming industry.

16 COMMENTS

  1. No surprises at all amongst the winners. All of them are great games, and I look forward to see what kind of games will participate in the next year

    Thedarkboy did not rate this post.
  2. I like the pick of games, nicely done I like this one the most Call of Duty Ghosts, becouse they’ve finally realized that they can’t realese new CoD’s each month. Anyways nice picks. 🙂

    ivekvv256 did not rate this post.
  3. Yes, I agree with you, but I didn’t see that League of Legends is best MOBA. I like seeing that… I’m sad though that World of Tanks didn’t get on that list. :/

    ivekvv256 did not rate this post.
  4. I was not here in 2013 … nice to see what happens in the past.
    Little bit surprised that Minecraft was the best online game in the year 2013.
    Best browser game … ogre wars. Thumbs up 😀

    arZ did not rate this post.

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