Topic: Fantasy Critic - NWR Community League

[Order.RSS]

Welcome to the NWR Community Fantasy Critic League!

What is Fantasy Critic?
If you're familiar with Fantasy Football, this is very similar. But whereas in Fantasy Football you play as a general manager trying to draft players for your football team, in Fantasy Critic you play as a games publisher trying to release the best games. Fantasy Critic is free to join, and is Patreon-funded.

How does it work?
You are given a fictional budget of $100 to fill 10 slots in your Publisher roster. With this budget you can bid on not-yet released video games throughout the year. If you place the highest bid on a game, it gets added to your roster. Once a game releases (in the real world), and it gets reviews aggregated on OpenCritic, the Fantasy Critic website will assign points to that game.

Scoring system explained:
Games with an average OpenCritic rating of 70+ will get you points. Games scoring a 90+ are worth double points. However, games with OpenCritic averages under 70 incur minus points. Thus, your goal should be to try and guess which upcoming games will get good reviews, and try to add those to your roster.
There are also 2 mandatory Counter-Picks. These work against other players: if the Counter-Picked game scores below 70 average, you'll receive the points difference!

How do I join?
Just say so! I will send you a DM with a link. You will need to make an account on the Fantasy Critic site, which requires an e-mail address. The site supports 2FA-security. Once accepted into the League you will be asked to make up a Publisher name for the year, feel free to be creative, but keep it PG.

Tips for beginners:

• Don't spend your entire budget on a single game.
• Have a look at which games will release in 2025 to decide which games you want to draft.
• If another player has drafted a game you think will review poorly, Counter-Pick it!
• The League processes actions once a week, on Saturday.
• When picking a game from a series, it may be helpful to look at reviews of previous instalments.
• Try to guess what games critics will respond well to, not just your own tastes, as their reviews contribute to the review average.
• Niche titles are higher in both risk and reward: an import RPG may score well with select outlets, but if not enough websites publish reviews to calculate an average, it won't give you any points.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
This Fantasy Critic League is run by and for the NWR community. It is explicitly not organized by NWR itself. Please keep in mind that NWR publishes reviews itself, some of which may be aggregated by OpenCritic. Do not contact NWR staff about review scores in any way, even in jest. If this League reflects badly on NWR's good reputation as a video games media outlet, I will shut it down immediately.

Staff are welcome to join, but if you are an active reviewer I would strongly consider either not taking part, or not interacting in any way with games you are covering.

[Khushrenada]

Ok. I guess I'll do it. Since no one seems to want to host another Safe Words game to see if I could go three in a row there......

[Order.RSS]

Nice! We're at 9 players already. I think 10 to 12 is probably the max. We'll probably start on Monday, so if anyone else wishes to join, please let us know over the weekend.

Current players:
Order.RSS
Senerio
RABicle
Regmcfly
Plufim
MarsMage
TopHatAnt123
Josh
Khushrenada
M.K. Ultra

[M.K.Ultra]

I would like to join if you can still take another player!

[Order.RSS]

I would like to join if you can still take another player!

Sent you a PM with the invite!

[Order.RSS]

Ok, sign-ups are closed, the player order has been randomly shuffled, and we're off to the races! These first few days are usually the busiest since players get to draft back to back. However, given the holiday season I think it'll take a few days for everyone to draft their picks.

Current player to pick is Josh!

[M.K.Ultra]

What happens if the game that is drafted does not end up releasing in 2025?

[Order.RSS]

What happens if the game that is drafted does not end up releasing in 2025?

I can think of 3 possible scenarios:

• You keep the game on your roster, but it doesn't release. This means you will receive 0 points for that game.
• You anticipate the game will not release, and decide to drop it from your roster before the year is over. You are free to bid on a new game in its place, which has a better chance of yielding points.
• Another player may counterpick the game, betting it will not release. This blocks you from dropping the game, forcing you to receive 0 points. The counterpicking player will also receive 0 points, since there is no average review score to work with.