The People’s Choice Awards were held this last week on Wednesday, January 6, at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Typically the Awards show focuses on recognizing movies, television, music, and celebrities, although in recent years they have included two categories for video games. Candy Crush Saga won the award for “Favorite Mobile Game” and Super Smash Bros. 4 for Wii U/3DS took home the award for “Favorite Video Game.”
The other video games nominated for “Favorite Video Game” included Batman: Arkham Knight, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Grand Theft Auto V, and Minecraft. The fact that Super Smash Bros. won is quite impressive compared to all of the games nominated. Taking a look at sales alone, the likes of Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Minecraft have all vastly outsold SSB4. However, its win can likely be attributed to the series’ long-running success over the past 15 years. Each of the Super Smash Bros. games has been widely loved by fans everywhere but was previously limited to console play. SSB4 took that to the next step by releasing both on the Wii U and 3DS and combined sales have reached an impressive 11 million in October 2015.
Another contributing factor to SSB4’s win is most likely due to the series of downloadable content that has come out over the last year. With an additional 7 characters, 5 stages, and multiple costumes, Nintendo has been giving fans a reason to keep coming back for more. Sakurai, director of Super Smash Bros., was constantly engaged in providing what the fans of the series wanted, even to the point of having fans vote in a poll for which character they wanted included as DLC. Given the amount of time and effort that has gone into developing the game, Super Smash Bros. 4 is more than deserving of the People’s Choice Award as it has continued to deliver what the fans want.
