Another Greatest

Scott Hardie | April 14, 2014
Please join me in congratulating 2014's inductee to the goo game's Hall of Fame: Joanna Woods! For years Joanna has been one of the game's top players, and it's a pleasure to acknowledge that formally.

This announcement was supposed to happen last month, but I was pretty busy with a few things, so thanks for your patience everybody, especially Joanna who didn't even know that she was waiting for this.

I can't help but notice that the Hall of Fame has developed a consistent male-male-female gender pattern over the years: Matthew-Aaron-Denise, Dave-Mike-Lori, Steve-Russ-Amy, Steve-Justin-Joanna. This is a strange but total coincidence. Nearly every year, there's only one eligible candidate anyway, according to my private prerequisites for entry (which have never changed), On the rare occasions when multiple players have been eligible and I've been forced to pick one, which never fails to pain me, gender has been the last thing on my mind in making a selection.

I've been tempted to eliminate the Hall of Fame page for a while, because it seems to create as many hurt feelings for those who feel passed over as it does good feelings for those inducted, and of course I don't want to make anybody feel bad over a silly game. Even talking about the selection process can get touchy: Discussing the supposed "controversy" around Steve Dunn's well-deserved admission was controversial, and struck a nerve. But for the time being, the page is not going anywhere. There are several more players out there who I would like to see inducted someday, and besides, it really does feel good to say nice things about people who have spent years putting a lot of work into playing this game well, which is the whole point. The best thing that I can do is to keep selecting inductees responsibly and fairly. Joanna deserves this year's honor, and I'm very glad to see her get it.

Samir Mehta | April 15, 2014
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Erik Bates | April 15, 2014
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Joanna Woods | April 17, 2014
Thank you!!