* BrokenBase:
** Draven from ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' beating Link in the 2013 Character Battle was either a breath of fresh air or (supposedly) unfair rigging that prevented Link from rightfully holding the position. The suspicious site outage midway through the poll didn't help matters.
** ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' beating many popular games including ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' in the 2015 Best. Game. Ever. contest thanks to Platform/{{Tumblr}} and Website/{{Reddit}} rallies. It was either a breath of fresh air or unfair rigging via rallies.
* ItsPopularNowItSucks:
** ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' is infamous for being the most popular game series on the site by a huge margin. Needless to say, this annoys those who are sick of Link winning every character popularity tournament, a ''Zelda'' game winning "Best Game of X" tournaments, etc., making such contests/tourneys extremely predictable. This reached its peak when ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' won a "Best Game of the Decade" award; while ''Majora's Mask'' is considered a very good game, its reviews don't quite hold up to many other games released during the '00s despite common fan opinions of its rivaling ''Ocarina of Time'' as the best game in the series.
** Creator/SquareEnix and ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' in particular earn this reputation. It helps that [=RPGs=] are a GuideDangIt genre per design, and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' provides both a TropeCodifier [[http://wikifaqs.net/index.php?title=Kao_Megura guide]] and most of the other contest winners (Cloud in one, Sephiroth in a villains contest, ''[=FF7=]'' itself in the first iteration of "Best. Game. Ever."). Square's ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' suffers from this to a lesser extent; while it's a relatively more obscure game and falls short of ''Zelda'' and ''Final Fantasy'' in contests, it still performs extraordinarily well and is treated as a SacredCow on the site, with Crono often running neck-and-neck with '''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]''' in the Character Battles.
** {{Bishonen}} characters suffer from this to an extent. ''Zelda''[='s=] protagonist Link and ''[=FF7=]''[='s=] hero and villain Cloud and Sephiroth, collectively known as "Clinkeroth", are all bishonen characters lambasted for being the three best-performing characters in the site's character battles. However, while ''Zelda'' generally performs marginally better than ''Final Fantasy'' in contests, its antagonist Ganondorf, who is a manly and [[{{Hunk}} rugged]] [[SilverFox older man]], doesn't achieve the same level of success; he lost to Sephiroth in the aforementioned villains contest, and doesn't even crack the Top 10 in most cases.
** Ever since ''Undertale'' began winning brackets in the 2015 "Best. Game. Ever." contest, it brought complete ire to many, as it beat ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' and several other games that are considered {{Sacred Cow}}s. It got to the point where it was [[http://kotaku.com/undertale-is-tearing-gamefaqs-apart-1747991599 mentioned by Kotaku]]. One of the [[http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6182-did-the-best-game-ever-contest-convince-you-to-try-undertale follow-up polls]] had [=GameFAQs=] ask users if they were planning to buy ''Undertale'' since it won. The "No, and I refuse to ever buy it purely out of spite" choice came in second place with 24.71%.
** Polls in general, contest-related and otherwise, are mocked by some users for having results that skew ''very'' heavily towards favoring [[NostalgiaFilter games that were released in]] TheNineties or the TurnOfTheMillennium, not counting joke votes and rallies.
** Due to BrokenBase and FandomRivalry, certain characters are despised on the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' boards once they are added to the roster. Some examples includes Princess Daisy from the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series and Lucina from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''.
* MemeticMutation:
** Saxon = Joke Account is probably the longest running. It started out on the Pro Wrestling: WWE board, where Saxon posted often-ridiculous predictions about upcoming events while claiming to be a WWE insider.[[note]]A popular rumor was that the account actually belonged to Wrestling/StevieRichards.[[/note]] These predictions almost invariably being wrong led to every post getting multiple "Saxon = Joke Account" replies. And the meme exploded when a "Saxon = Joke Account" sign was held up by a fan at Wrestling/SurvivorSeries 2003 and was seen on camera multiple times. When Saxon shifted from Pro Wrestling to Politics as his primary board, his posting style pretty much remained the same and thanks to several people being regulars on both of those boards, the meme came to Politics with him. And resulted in trolls in general coming to be known as joke accounts.
** HotSkittyOnWailordAction originated here.
** The character battles are a big reason for [[VideoGame/{{Tetris}} the L block's]] popularity.
** "X needs an ice cream monster" has become a bit of a catchphrase on the 3DS and Wii U boards, due to a rather infamous anti-Nintendo poster known for, among other things, his blind, seething hatred of [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Vanillish]].
** "Tails are beautiful" due to a strange gimmick poster on the ''Super Smash Bros.'' boards.
** [This post was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator] has become a common joke to put at the end of a post that ends abruptly (normally one that complains about the moderation or claims the poster is secretly evil/a troll/banned/etc.).
** "Close your account" is a common response to {{Troll}} topics.
** "Alvin is a mistake".[[labelnote:Explanation]]This originated from a series on the ''Smash Bros.'' boards where a poster created his own dream roster, which including many of his original characters, the first being Alvin.[[/labelnote]]
** "[[Creator/MasahiroSakurai Sakurai]] puts a gun to your head" [[labelnote:Explanation]]On the ''Smash Bros.'' boards, this has become a common format for "pick a fighter" threads, likely to decrease the number of responses saying "neither." Parodies of the format have also become very common.[[/labelnote]]
* OnceOriginalNowCommon: Back when the site came around in 1995, it was among the most revolutionary things to happen to gaming ''period''. Prior to this site, you either needed to purchase a guide, consult an 800 number, have a subscription to a magazine, or know someone who studied the living heck out of a game if you wanted any kind of information. Similarly, prior to Reddit and social media like Tumblr, it was also one of the few ways you could connect with any fans or other players of a game outside of official or fan forums. Some of these walkthroughs were even ''better'' than most official guides, which had a tendency to be poorly constructed and/or based off of betas. These days, however, it is easier to look up a specific part on Platform/YouTube, a Reddit, or even a wiki - not to mention UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} offering access to community written guides ''directly connected to the game itself''. The guides on those other, newer websites can also embed images and videos to better explain what to do, whereas [=GameFAQs=] remains text-only. As a result, the actual FAQ section of [=GameFAQs=] seems rather barren for more recent titles, with fewer people finding it worth the time to write a guide.
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