Update: Results
Thanks everyone who took part! There were 30 participants for a total of 300 votes across 156 total voted games.

This has been a big help in deciding how I'll run these going forward. For one thing I'm turning the results into a top 10 instead of top 20 like Letterboxd, since our reach isn't nearly as big, so there's a lot of tie breakers in the top 20.

I also went back on my "counting whatever game is voted for" here, sorry. For the purpose of this showdown Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were counted as the same votes, so I added them together specifically because if I didn't do that we'd need a tie-breaker round for 10th place. In the future there's going to be some quality control in this kind of stuff anyway - nothing crazy, but I'll open a discord thread for people to ask questions, talk about others votes (never arguing, just saying something like "I think you made a mistake" etc).

See you guys for the next one!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you've ever seen a Letterboxd Showdown, it's pretty much that.
If you haven't seen a Letterboxd showdown, essentially the idea if that you are given a theme/prompt and you choose your 10 favourite games from that theme/prompt. The results are tallied, and in the end a top 20 list is created. Nice and simple!

Since this is the debut of these showdowns, I figure why not go with debut games in their series/franchise. Just pick your 10 favourite games that are the first in their given series or franchise.

General Rules/Tips:
-Write your list in the comments. You can include up to 10 games in your list. If you add more than 10, anything after 10 will be ignored. You can add less than 10 if you want, and all will be counted.

-When games share titles, try to be as clear as possible with the game you're voting for. In this showdown specifically it might not be a huge deal, but for future sake if you say something like "Resident Evil" I will take whichever result comes up first in the list, regardless of if you meant the 1996 original or the 2002 remake.

-The order of your list doesn't matter. Every vote is just worth 1 point (and you can't vote for the same game more than once, if you do it'll only count once).

-Do not argue in the comments with anyone else's choices and whether or not they fit the criteria. Not only would this make the comments messier for me to read when counting results, but this is all just for fun and I don't care if you consider "Mario Bros" or "Super Mario Bros" to be the series debut game. Even with answers that are obviously wrong, I will count them because, again this might not be too much of a problem in this one, but I'm not fact checking if every game voted for fits a criteria so it's easier to just accept everything than spend my time sorting the right from the wrong. As long as most people play normally a few troll answers won't affect the results.

Showdown specific rules:
-A series/franchise in this case generally means at least 2 games, so no voting for games that are the only one in their series. Like I said, I'll end up counting them anyway just because it's a headache to check every answer viability, but as a guideline I'd prefer people follow this. Unreleased, but confirmed, sequels will allow that first game be eligible.

-There is no criteria for what exactly is meant by best/favourite debut game. Best relative to the rest of the series, best at setting the standards for the series, best just if played as a standalone game etc. You can pick and choose which standards to use to decide your votes.

I don't have a set schedule for these. I do plan to at least close the voting in 2 weeks, then the tallying will vary depending on how well I've been keeping up, and how many people are voting (plus of course how much free time I have in 2 weeks).

Note: If you want to change any of your answers please don't delete your original comment. I will be marking down results as I go through, so if you delete a comment to make changes it might mess up the game count. Just leave your original comment and say in your new comment "replace X for Y"