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You're missing out if you haven't played these games!

*Ranked by supposed max player count or copies sold.

So it's just the most popular games, not even the "best."

  1. Minecraft (LOL)
  2. Grand Theft Auto V (Double LOL)
  3. World of Warcraft (Triple LOL)
  4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Quadruple LOL)
  5. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  6. The Witcher 3
  7. Dark Souls Remastered
  8. Half-Life 2
  9. Portal
  10. Doom
  11. Counter-Strike
  12. Starcraft
  13. Mass Effect Legendary Edition
 
Asked chatgpt to the same question. So yea looks like a minimal effort video to get clicks.

what are the top 10 pc games you are missing out on if you never played them

You want the “if you die having never touched these, you’ve committed a cultural crime” list. Dramatic? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.
No live-service fluff. No flavor-of-the-month nonsense. These are the PC experiences that actually matter.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt​

2. Half-Life 2​

3. Portal 2

4. Elden Ring​

5. Red Dead Redemption 2​

6. Disco Elysium​

7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim​

8. Minecraft​

9. Mass Effect 2​

10. Baldur's Gate 3​

 
It's just a list based on sales. He even says this in the video, and has the sales numbers shown....
It's a pretty objectively based video. He does honorable mentions at the end where he gets subjective and lists Counter-Strike, StarCraft, and Mass Effect.
He's a pretty mainstream youtuber so this is the sort of content you should expect. It's a better list than a lot of them I've seen.

To make it more objective he could have only included PC sales numbers, not console + PC sales. Also just going by sales it excludes free to play games. A better metric would be number of people that played. There are free to play games that would top the list like Fortnite, Roblox, and League of Legends.
Another objective metric you could use is total playtime. For example 1 person playing Skyrim for 100 hours is the same as 10 people plaing Half-Life for 10 hours.
Or maybe you go by money made, there are a lot of metrics you could use. Just choosing the metrics is a bit subjective.


If I was doing a list it would be way more subjective based on what I think is significant and what i like.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you by definition missing out on all the games you don't play?

It is by conscious choice that I avoided the games I haven't already played from this list.

There are also two giant problems with ranking games based on sales then calling it "the best games"
  1. Quality does not scale linearly with popularity, that would make Avatar the best movie of all time.
  2. The number of gamers has gone up significantly over the years, so units sold in 1995 is not comparable to units sold in 2015, or in 2020 during the lockdown boom in the popularity of gaming.
 
He's a content creator. Sometimes even talented folks have to crank out stuff that isn't up to snuff. It's how we ended up with the Godfather 3 and Pinkerton.
 
Armenius said:
*Ranked by supposed max player count or copies sold.

So it's just the most popular games, not even the "best."

  1. Minecraft (LOL)
  2. Grand Theft Auto V (Double LOL)
  3. World of Warcraft (Triple LOL)
  4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Quadruple LOL)
  5. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  6. The Witcher 3
  7. Dark Souls Remastered
  8. Half-Life 2
  9. Portal
  10. Doom
  11. Counter-Strike
  12. Starcraft
  13. Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Click to expand...
Another great JayZNoSense video :p No idea how this dude ever got popular.
 
mullet said:
LOL @ no UT or Q3
Click to expand...
I love me some UT but even I will admit these were popular for a small subset of people in PC gaming infancy. It was popular because its all we had (along with Tribes and CS). If UT would release today it would killed for being repetitive and simple. It would turn into the mess that Apex Legends has become.

As with any best list, its needs a focus. Selling, graphical, immersion, player count, etc.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
I love me some UT but even I will admit these were popular for a small subset of people in PC gaming infancy. It was popular because its all we had (along with Tribes and CS). If UT would release today it would killed for being repetitive and simple. It would turn into the mess that Apex Legends has become.
Click to expand...
I disagree, UT was fun exactly because it was simple and fast paced. You could jump in at a moment's notice didn't have to learn complicated strategies or memorize the layout of huge maps, or spend minutes before even encountering another player.

And with the attention span of the tiktok generation I think it would work just as well if not better. I mean has anyone even tried making a simple deathmatch or team deathmatch game in the past 10 years?
tinijacks said:
Well, I can agree with ChatGPT on these. I've played everything except Half-Life 2 and Disco Elysium. The rest of the games I liked a lot, but I know people who didn't like some of them.
And I think they for sure not feeling like missing out
Click to expand...
At least it didn't regurgitate the most predictable games. Like Zelda or GTA. Although disco elysium is quite predictable considering the political bias of chatgpt. I haven't played it either but based on what I heard about it.

The only game from the list I'm on board with is Mass Effect 2. That's on my top5 of all times, but the rest fall into 3 categories:
  1. Good games, but not sure if i'd consider them top 10 material: HL2, Portal2, BG3, Skyrim
  2. Tried them but couldn't really get into them: Witcher3, RDR2
  3. Never would touch with a 20 foot burning stick: Elden ring, Disco elysium, Minecraft
 
M76 said:
I disagree, UT was fun exactly because it was simple and fast paced. You could jump in at a moment's notice didn't have to learn complicated strategies or memorize the layout of huge maps, or spend minutes before even encountering another player.

And with the attention span of the tiktok generation I think it would work just as well if not better. I mean has anyone even tried making a simple deathmatch or team deathmatch game in the past 10 years?
Click to expand...
Well you're dead wrong.

They made a new UT. It was in pre-alpha and barely got any attention so they cancelled it. Some people are keeping it alive and you can still play it, but there is barely any interest. https://www.ut4ever.org
The most budget spent on a new arena shooter was Quake Champions which failed hard. There are dozens of classic arena shooter indy games released every year and no one plays them. The higher budget the game the more money they lose.

The classic arena shooter genre peaked 20 years ago. Nobody wants to play new classic style deathmatch games anymore. If they want to play deathmatcch they just play the old games.
 
Special.K said:
I'm only one person with an opinion, but I was bored after 30 mins of it.
Click to expand...
I get that. I enjoyed it though, but it's slow paced for sure. I think it entirely depends on how you like the sardonic humour, particularly waking up after a massive binge session permanently not remembering your own name, and your first mission is to find your missing shoe. I foudn the protagnostic quite relatable! :ROFLMAO:

IMHO it deserves to be on the list purely because it's just so unique. And this always makes me laugh: Wompty-Dompty Dom Centre
 
Everyone has their own top 10 list. I can see why people argue these lists but seems rather pointless.

I think BG3 just makes my top 10 though, probably 10th.

I tried RDR and Witcher, didn't make it far.

Disco Elysium was really out there. Tried that one too for a while, it was too esoteric for me. Storyline was so weird and I couldn't grok the worldbuilding they were doing.

For me, Civilization counts in my top 10 as a franchise, but even then people will dispute if 3, 4 or 5 were the best of those.
 
sharknice said:
The classic arena shooter genre peaked 20 years ago. Nobody wants to play new classic style deathmatch games anymore. If they want to play deathmatcch they just play the old games.
Click to expand...

Isn't Marvel Rivals a modern arena shooter? Overwatch?
 
sharknice said:
The classic arena shooter genre peaked 20 years ago. Nobody wants to play new classic style deathmatch games anymore. If they want to play deathmatcch they just play the old games.
Click to expand...
And yet a large number of single player FPS games released in the past decade have been an arena shooter in some form or another, largely thanks to the success of DOOM 2016.
 
sharknice said:
Well you're dead wrong.
Click to expand...
Well, technically you are. I looked into it, UT4 was released in 2014, so not in the last 10 years and it was a "crowdsourced" game whatever that means. It had no marketing or any significant budget. I personally wasn't even aware it existed. So no wonder it barely got any attention.
 
M76 said:
Well, technically you are. I looked into it, UT4 was released in 2014, so not in the last 10 years and it was a "crowdsourced" game whatever that means. It had no marketing or any significant budget. I personally wasn't even aware it existed. So no wonder it barely got any attention.
Click to expand...
Its because of the UT history. UT99 was obviously the best. UT2K3 came out and it got absolutely ripped by core players for being cartoony and generally broken for what combat was expected. Onslaught especially. Thus UT2K4 was born with many improvements that came from the community. IIRC it was supposed to be a content patch but greed took over and they made it a new game purchase. UT2K4 was the new boss and then came UT3. UT3 was so terrible that the community gave up on Unreal/Epic. The crowdsource of UT4 was a last gasp of diehard players to bring back the series. It made it 4-5 alpha cycles and Epic delisted it. UT4 had promise as I played a few rounds with it but the damage of 2K3 and 3 was done.

UT couldnt compete with COD MW2 of 2009 and whatever BF series was out then. The release of PUBG and its battle royale mode in ~2017 killed it off for good. Apex (born from the epic game Titanfall 2), Overwatch and now Arc Raiders took over.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
Its because of the UT history. UT99 was obviously the best. UT2K3 came out and it got absolutely ripped by core players for being cartoony and generally broken for what combat was expected. Onslaught especially. Thus UT2K4 was born with many improvements that came from the community. IIRC it was supposed to be a content patch but greed took over and they made it a new game purchase. UT2K4 was the new boss and then came UT3. UT3 was so terrible that the community gave up on Unreal/Epic. The crowdsource of UT4 was a last gasp of diehard players to bring back the series. It made it 4-5 alpha cycles and Epic delisted it. UT4 had promise as I played a few rounds with it but the damage of 2K3 and 3 was done.

UT couldnt compete with COD MW2 of 2009 and whatever BF series was out then. The release of PUBG and its battle royale mode in ~2017 killed it off for good. Apex (born from the epic game Titanfall 2), Overwatch and now Arc Raiders took over.
Click to expand...

UT2k4 was always planned, that's why they named them "Unreal Tournament 2003" and "Unreal Tournament 2004". It was supposed to be like sports games where they released a new one every year and you paid full price for it. But they included the entirety of UT2k3 inside UT2k4 and if you already bought UT2003 you got a $10 rebate.

Onslaught and vehicles weren't even in UT2003. Those were introduced in UT2004 and it was always planned that way.
I made mods and maps for UT2k3 and UT2k4. The only vehicles in UT2k3 were prototypes hidden in the editor. People made mods where you could use them though.


UT2004 was the last time an arena shooter was the most popular game. The UT2004 demo was the most downloaded game on the internet at the time, by far. That was the peak of arena fps popularity. It was downhill after that.


By the time UT3 came out in 2007 people moved on to Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, and a bunch of other non-arena FPS games. Even a lot of the people still playing UT2004 were actually playing mods that were not arena FPS games.
People didn't consider UT3 bad. It got good reviews and actually sold well. It was just dwarfed by Call of Duty 4 and all the other FPS genres.

There were countless other arena FPS games released between 2004 and now, and none of them have done well at all. People just aren't into those types of games anymore.

UT4 which was just going to be called "Unreal Tournament" was going to be completely free, not free to play and be supported by community development and have a store where people could essentially sell mods, or give them away for free. It barely got any attention though. Most of the people playing it were just using it to play classic UT99 instagib CTF that was ported over to the new UT. At the same time the new UT was being developed Quake Champions was failing hard, and no other arena FPS games had done well. It wasn't worthy of losing money over and the community didn't pick up the slack so they eventually just cancelled it.

Saying a game would do well if it just had better marketing is just cope for something you like not being popular. I would love for classic arena FPS to be king again but they never will be.
 
sharknice said:
UT2k4 was always planned, that's why they named them "Unreal Tournament 2003" and "Unreal Tournament 2004". It was supposed to be like sports games where they released a new one every year and you paid full price for it. But they included the entirety of UT2k3 inside UT2k4 and if you already bought UT2003 you got a $10 rebate.

Onslaught and vehicles weren't even in UT2003. Those were introduced in UT2004 and it was always planned that way.
I made mods and maps for UT2k3 and UT2k4. The only vehicles in UT2k3 were prototypes hidden in the editor. People made mods where you could use them though.


UT2004 was the last time an arena shooter was the most popular game. The UT2004 demo was the most downloaded game on the internet at the time, by far. That was the peak of arena fps popularity. It was downhill after that.


By the time UT3 came out in 2007 people moved on to Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, and a bunch of other non-arena FPS games. Even a lot of the people still playing UT2004 were actually playing mods that were not arena FPS games.
People didn't consider UT3 bad. It got good reviews and actually sold well. It was just dwarfed by Call of Duty 4 and all the other FPS genres.

There were countless other arena FPS games released between 2004 and now, and none of them have done well at all. People just aren't into those types of games anymore.

UT4 which was just going to be called "Unreal Tournament" was going to be completely free, not free to play and be supported by community development and have a store where people could essentially sell mods, or give them away for free. It barely got any attention though. Most of the people playing it were just using it to play classic UT99 instagib CTF that was ported over to the new UT. At the same time the new UT was being developed Quake Champions was failing hard, and no other arena FPS games had done well. It wasn't worthy of losing money over and the community didn't pick up the slack so they eventually just cancelled it.

Saying a game would do well if it just had better marketing is just cope for something you like not being popular. I would love for classic arena FPS to be king again but they never will be.
Click to expand...
I'd be curious if you can find documentation on the UT2004 was planned as that certainly wasnt the case back in 2002/3. Once UT2K3 was realized to be a failure, they knew a revamp was in order. My CTF IG team that went to some compeitions along with others from that time in the TDM space were asked to explain why we went back to UT99 for competition play. UT2004 was definitely more of a panic get the crowd back and fix than planned IMO. If the yearly thing was real for an eventual UT2005, why did they release the ECE and bonus packs? No mention of it either in the fan archives. - https://unrealarchive.org/wikis/the-liandri-archives/Unreal_Tournament_2004.html

You are correct on Onslaught, my bad. I was thinking invasion.

Everything else we agree, UT after 2006 had an old tunnel vision formula while others had much bigger pictures. Medal of Honor, COD and Battlefield 1/2 in that era really shifted gamers attentions.
 
sharknice said:
Saying a game would do well if it just had better marketing is just cope for something you like not being popular.
Click to expand...
How do you know people definitely wouldn't be interested in something that hasn't been tried in over 10 years?
Yeah marketing matters, if people don't know of a game it doesn't matter if they'd like it if they tried it.
sharknice said:
I would love for classic arena FPS to be king again but they never will be.
Click to expand...
Nobody said anything about being king. It doesn't have to beat minecraft in popularity to turn a profit.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
I'd be curious if you can find documentation on the UT2004 was planned as that certainly wasnt the case back in 2002/3. Once UT2K3 was realized to be a failure, they knew a revamp was in order. My CTF IG team that went to some compeitions along with others from that time in the TDM space were asked to explain why we went back to UT99 for competition play. UT2004 was definitely more of a panic get the crowd back and fix than planned IMO. If the yearly thing was real for an eventual UT2005, why did they release the ECE and bonus packs? No mention of it either in the fan archives. - https://unrealarchive.org/wikis/the-liandri-archives/Unreal_Tournament_2004.html

You are correct on Onslaught, my bad. I was thinking invasion.

Everything else we agree, UT after 2006 had an old tunnel vision formula while others had much bigger pictures. Medal of Honor, COD and Battlefield 1/2 in that era really shifted gamers attentions.
Click to expand...

I can't find any articles on it. What I remember is when they announced Unreal Tournament 2 would be called Unreal Tournament 2003 people speculated there would be yearly releases like all the sports games. Why else would they specifically put 2003 in the name? I know some people assumed there would be a UT2005 too. I remember a lot of debate over if yearly releases were a good or a bad thing. Call of Duty actually did start doing yearly releases around that time, and still do.
 
sharknice said:
I can't find any articles on it. What I remember is when they announced Unreal Tournament 2 would be called Unreal Tournament 2003 people speculated there would be yearly releases like all the sports games. Why else would they specifically put 2003 in the name? I know some people assumed there would be a UT2005 too. I remember a lot of debate over if yearly releases were a good or a bad thing. Call of Duty actually did start doing yearly releases around that time, and still do.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, something I didn't know. What I do know though, I miss those days.
 
That list is terrible.

Like, seriously, any list that doesn't include Myst is objectively wrong.
 
sharknice said:
UT2k4 was always planned, that's why they named them "Unreal Tournament 2003" and "Unreal Tournament 2004". It was supposed to be like sports games where they released a new one every year and you paid full price for it. But they included the entirety of UT2k3 inside UT2k4 and if you already bought UT2003 you got a $10 rebate.

Onslaught and vehicles weren't even in UT2003. Those were introduced in UT2004 and it was always planned that way.
I made mods and maps for UT2k3 and UT2k4. The only vehicles in UT2k3 were prototypes hidden in the editor. People made mods where you could use them though.


UT2004 was the last time an arena shooter was the most popular game. The UT2004 demo was the most downloaded game on the internet at the time, by far. That was the peak of arena fps popularity. It was downhill after that.


By the time UT3 came out in 2007 people moved on to Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, and a bunch of other non-arena FPS games. Even a lot of the people still playing UT2004 were actually playing mods that were not arena FPS games.
People didn't consider UT3 bad. It got good reviews and actually sold well. It was just dwarfed by Call of Duty 4 and all the other FPS genres.

There were countless other arena FPS games released between 2004 and now, and none of them have done well at all. People just aren't into those types of games anymore.

UT4 which was just going to be called "Unreal Tournament" was going to be completely free, not free to play and be supported by community development and have a store where people could essentially sell mods, or give them away for free. It barely got any attention though. Most of the people playing it were just using it to play classic UT99 instagib CTF that was ported over to the new UT. At the same time the new UT was being developed Quake Champions was failing hard, and no other arena FPS games had done well. It wasn't worthy of losing money over and the community didn't pick up the slack so they eventually just cancelled it.

Saying a game would do well if it just had better marketing is just cope for something you like not being popular. I would love for classic arena FPS to be king again but they never will be.
Click to expand...
Back then, playing the game was its own reward. Nowadays people need, and expect, character progress and unlocks, and we've become so used to it that going back and playing any old game with no progress feels like time badly spent.

It's difficult to have any progress in arena shooters where the genre demands the game is fundamentally fair across the board, no pay to win, not even unlock shit to win. So all you can really have is cosmetic upgrades, which isn't really compelling in an FPS when you don't see yourself during a match. I think CoD did it best with gun bling alongside a final kill death cam at the end of the round to show it off. :cool:
 
spine said:
Back then, playing the game was its own reward. Nowadays people need, and expect, character progress and unlocks, and we've become so used to it that going back and playing any old game with no progress feels like time badly spent.

It's difficult to have any progress in arena shooters where the genre demands the game is fundamentally fair across the board, no pay to win, not even unlock shit to win. So all you can really have is cosmetic upgrades, which isn't really compelling in an FPS when you don't see yourself during a match. I think CoD did it best with gun bling alongside a final kill death cam at the end of the round to show it off. :cool:
Click to expand...

Totally agree with that. I think the the massive skill gap amplifies it more than the other fps genres.
 
Armenius said:
*Ranked by supposed max player count or copies sold.

So it's just the most popular games, not even the "best."

  1. Minecraft (LOL)
  2. Grand Theft Auto V (Double LOL)
  3. World of Warcraft (Triple LOL)
  4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Quadruple LOL)
  5. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  6. The Witcher 3
  7. Dark Souls Remastered
  8. Half-Life 2
  9. Portal
  10. Doom
  11. Counter-Strike
  12. Starcraft
  13. Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Click to expand...
Hey man, Minecraft was way more engaging and thought-provoking than Deus Ex.
 
Portal is the best game of all time.

Always nice to see when people manage to include it on their top 10 lists.
 
Absalom said:
You're comparing that kiddie fluff to my favorite game of all time? Get out of here!
Click to expand...
wooosh-dumb.gif
 
spine said:
I get that. I enjoyed it though, but it's slow paced for sure. I think it entirely depends on how you like the sardonic humour, particularly waking up after a massive binge session permanently not remembering your own name, and your first mission is to find your missing shoe. I foudn the protagnostic quite relatable! :ROFLMAO:

IMHO it deserves to be on the list purely because it's just so unique. And this always makes me laugh: Wompty-Dompty Dom Centre
Click to expand...


Honestly I think it was the long winded dialogue that turned me off. Seemed like every choice I made I had to read a novel, and or listen to the slow narrator read it all. At least that's what I remember. It's been a while since I've tried it.

I'm not a good reader and get bored easy lol
 
sharknice said:
It's just a list based on sales. He even says this in the video, and has the sales numbers shown....
It's a pretty objectively based video. He does honorable mentions at the end where he gets subjective and lists Counter-Strike, StarCraft, and Mass Effect.
He's a pretty mainstream youtuber so this is the sort of content you should expect. It's a better list than a lot of them I've seen.

To make it more objective he could have only included PC sales numbers, not console + PC sales. Also just going by sales it excludes free to play games. A better metric would be number of people that played. There are free to play games that would top the list like Fortnite, Roblox, and League of Legends.
Another objective metric you could use is total playtime. For example 1 person playing Skyrim for 100 hours is the same as 10 people plaing Half-Life for 10 hours.
Or maybe you go by money made, there are a lot of metrics you could use. Just choosing the metrics is a bit subjective.


If I was doing a list it would be way more subjective based on what I think is significant and what i like.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think that's the key distinction here: the list itself isn't objective, the metric is.

If the guy explicitly says he's ranking by sales and actually shows the numbers, then it's pretty hard to complain that the list isn't measuring something else. You can certainly argue that sales aren't the best way to define the "greatest" or "most important" PC games, but that's a different criticism.

I actually like the idea of using several metrics and seeing how radically the list changes:

sales = commercial success
unique players = reach
total playtime = engagement
revenue = financial impact
active playerbase = longevity
influence on the industry = historical significance
And then you could have a separate subjective ranking for things like quality, innovation and personal impact.

The free-to-play issue is a pretty big one, though. If we're talking about games that actually shaped PC gaming, leaving out things like LoL or Fortnite simply because they don't fit a sales-based list creates a pretty obvious blind spot.

Personally, I'd rather see a video that clearly says "Here are the best-selling games" than one that pretends to have calculated the objectively greatest games in history. Once you start deciding that Counter-Strike is more significant than Skyrim because of its competitive influence, you're inevitably making a value judgment.
 
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