Rock Paper Shotgun is closing out its annual end-of-year coverage with a familiar tradition: the “Selection Box,” a personal add-on to the site’s broader Game of the Year-style conversations. This time, it’s led by Julian, who frames the feature as a lighthearted response to RPS’s Advent Calendar voting—because not everyone on the team played (or loved) the same things.

In the original post, Julian jokes about the frustrations of editorial group picks, especially after stepping into a leadership role. His tongue-in-cheek complaint is that nobody else seems to have sunk the time into the kind of niche, offbeat titles he championed throughout the year—specifically calling out Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainoids as the sort of game he wishes had gotten more attention internally.

### A Personal Counterpick to GOTY Consensus
That’s the core idea behind the Selection Box: it’s not meant to replace RPS’s main lists, but to complement them with a more individual, editorial voice. Where a staff vote can flatten out extreme opinions into consensus, a personal roundup gives writers space to spotlight left-field favorites, overlooked releases, or simply the games that landed at the right moment.

Julian positions his Selection Box as a way to “put things right” after the communal vote didn’t align with his tastes. It’s a comedic premise, but also a reminder of how subjective yearly awards can be—especially on PC, where smaller releases, odd experiments, and under-the-radar gems often compete for attention against bigger, more widely played launches.

### Why This Matters
For readers, features like this are often more useful than a single definitive ranking. A personal list can surface games that might not crack a staff-wide top 10, but could still be perfect for players who share the writer’s preferences. In an era of algorithm-driven recommendations and endless storefront churn, editorial curation—especially when it’s unapologetically specific—remains one of the best ways to discover something you’d otherwise miss.

Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-rps-selection-box-julians-bonus-games-of-the-year |