HaRRicH posted...
1) If your 2006-example's referring to Sora's success, I'd bet on KH2 playing a much larger boost. If not, I'm unsure what you mean.
2) Games aren't rivalries, but neither are characters. All we really have on them is that Gordon beats Phoenix/Miles one-on-one, HL2 trounces any of their games, and Gordon/Breen did okay as a rivalry in the vote-in. It's not enough info to fairly gauge, but it's the info we have.
The HL/Portal-connection wasn't meant to be a big point, hence the parentheses. This is still probably the biggest presence Valve/Steam ever had here though. Portal 2 leading GotY and Steam's growing popularity (including reaching Mac-systems this year) support that. It probably doesn't mean much for HL2 -- much less for Gordon/Breen -- but it can't hurt considering how many Valve-fans support basically their entire catalog.
1) Now it is I who is unsure what *you* mean! I'm lost!
2) Characters are parts of rivalries, though I will agree to an extent. There's more to rivalries than just the characters involved, but the characters involved are still important. And franky the rivalry aspect undeniably favours Phoenix/Edgeworth. And of course, you forget the other Half-Life character we've seen in a contest, Alyx Vance. Edgeworth may be weak, but Alyx is weak. I think a lot of the people saying Breen may come close to Edgeworth are forgetting how much she sucked. Seriously, Edgeworth did better on Big Boss than she did against Lara Croft. That is not good. Now, you're probably wondering what Alyx has to do with anything. Well, ask yourself. Is there any reason Breen would do better than a character who's in all the marketing, had just had a game release to back her up, and is more readily visible to the casual player? No? That's right. Seriously, if Breen ever got in on his own he may be one of the weakest characters ever. Like, Sandal or Tanner bad. I got a bit off track there, but it's basically Gordon vs. Phoenix, except the ball's in Phoenix's court. Phoenix has an iconic rival who may be weak but screams "RIVAL" just to look at him. Gordon has an old man who's certainly even weaker. Phoenix has a top division placement and a nice 1, Gordon has a slightly embarassing 8. Phoenix has a time advantage. And of course, Phoenix has one of the more beloved rivalries out there. What I'm saying is that there are so many variables that could go in Phoenix's favour. There are many conditions under which Phoenix could win, but only one condition under which Gordon can win, and that's that none of that matters and we really get Phoenix vs. Gordon 2. And even then, it'd be close.
And then, if smart voterFAQs ckicks in and they vote based on rivalries alone... Phoenix/Edgeworth still wins.
Those reasons are why I feel Phoenix/Edgeworth is more likely despite admitting Gordon/Breen is still possible: too many things that could go wrong for Gordon/Breen and right for Phoenix/Edgeworth.
Also, you overestimate these so-called "Valve fans". You do realise that there are many people who love Portal, but just don't care about the rest of Valve's catalogue, right? Especially now that Portal is mostly seen outside the Orange Box (and free) and Portal 2 is entirely its own phenomenon. I just don't think Valve really helps Half-Life by people buying completely different games.
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^Poorly disguised anti-caps sig