For one, we already have a fantastic new polling system on the new version of the forum, so we have a lot of flexibility for how we handle user voting.
One option I was thinking off would be to have a system where we start by pitting the games in the same series against each other, then the games in the same franchise/IP, and then the winners of those against each other. This would see, for example, all the Mario Karts against each other. The winner would then be in a poll against the winners of the other Mario series. The best Mario game to emerge from this gauntlet would face off against games that emerged from similar layered polls. This would produce some skewed results, but each poll would be pretty fun and interesting.
A second option I was thinking about is the equivalent of an exhaustive ballot, where a game requires a majority of votes to advance. If there's no majority in the poll, the lowest-performing games are removed and everyone votes again. This one would make the event take longer since each pool would require multiple rounds of voting.
Please feel free to post your own ideas for formats and structures for the 2018 contest, including the voting itself, and also the nomination process!
