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The new IGN Readers Choice list of the Top 100 games of all time just pegged Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory at #18. That puts it one ahead of Super Mario 64 (suck it down plumber-boy), and one behind GTA: San Andreas – which in my honest opinion should be a lot higher than 17th.

They did the same poll a couple years ago, and SC:CT ranked at number 3… but clearly we were benefitting from the bias of having shipped the game only a couple months before.

Hopefully we can hover around the same place for the next couple years and hold our ground until the next time they do the same poll. But probably the game will slip rather quickly down the list if we don’t work to retain the audience for games like this. The real SC fans out there who I hear from tend to be on the very top edge of the 18-34 demographic, and I think a fair number of them drift away from games as the pressures of work and parenthood chip away at their gaming time. It’s possible that a couple million guys like me will have given up on games by the time the next poll comes around, and they’ll have been replaced a a few million more who were too young to have played SC:CT in the first place.

Prediction – if SC:CT is not in the Top 50 in two years it’s a strong indicator that we’re hemorrhaging 35+ males, and the current 18-34m targetted market has hit its limit. I spoke recently on my thoughts about how to deal with that problem.