December 2001: The Top 10 Games of 2001

GameFAQs keeps extensive server logs detailing every single web hit the site has received since October of 1998. In other words, it's possible to tell exactly how many times a given page is hit over the course of a day, week, month, or year. In fact, that's where the daily Top 50 Games list comes from, as well as the Top 10 list on the home page. Each game with one or more FAQs or Codes has its own "FAQ/Code" page, and it is these pages that are added up to represent the top games on the site.

So, when you tally up all of the hits over the course of the entire year of 2001, what were the most popular games of the year? And could you guess them?

Yes, this has become a regular year-end contest. Nobody's managed to pick the Top 10 perfectly yet, so let's see if someone can pull it off this year.

Remember, the contest isn't to pick the most popular games that came out this year, nor to choose your 10 favorite games, but to select the 10 FAQ/Code pages that received the most hits throughout the entire year of 2001.

Out of 5,228 entries, this year's winners are:
- First Place: Dale Hancock (21)
- Second Place: Levi VanTine (25)
- Third Place: Mike Ferguson (26)
- Fourth Place: Dallas Scott (27, missed tiebreaker by 22,634)
- Fifth Place: Christopher Contreras (27)
- Random winners: Ramy Shehab, Stephen Chang, Jaime Rondon, Danny Downs, Glenn Vongsaisuwan

The tie-breaker answer (How many hits did the Final Fantasy IX page get in 2001?) was 1,666,176. An honorable mention (but no prize) goes to Dan Vo for coming closest this year, off by 8,298 hits. Of course, if you'll check last year's results, you may see a pattern forming here... Here's the winning entry, for the curious: