AGS Awards 2013! - Wieners (and winners)

Started by , Tue 31/12/2013 22:58:06

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Radiant

Quote from: bicilotti on Sat 04/01/2014 01:03:43
edit: after a brief chat on IRC, I am questioning whether a community vote is the appropriate way of settling this (or any other matter, for what it is worth); of the online communities I am member of, the most thriving ones operate mostly by do-ocracy and consensus.
That's a good point. Well, we're not voting to "ratify" a new "award policy"; we're polling to see what the relative support of various options are, and it strikes me that the poll gives a clearer outline of that than the earlier discussion. And luckily, some issues that may come up in theory have in this particular case not turned out in practice. Based on the poll and thread, I believe there's a strong consensus on the third question (release date vs addition date), and that the consensual outcome for the second question (amount of categories) may well be to keep the current categories but discuss dropping/combining a few individual categories, i.e. a gradual change instead of a sweeping one. The main issue that apparently has no consensus is the first (commercial game categorization), so that would need further debate. Let's give it a few more days, of course, and then have further discussion on the issues that aren't settled yet.

selmiak

Quote from: Radiant on Sat 04/01/2014 07:31:49
The main issue that apparently has no consensus is the first (commercial game categorization), so that would need further debate. Let's give it a few more days, of course, and then have further discussion on the issues that aren't settled yet.

ORLY? Looks like (atm) 8 people want the same awards for commercial and freeware games while (atm) 33 people want seperate awards for commercial and freeware games. The tendency seems very clear to me, maybe have another vote between 1 catagory and many categories for commercial games where the 8 people voting against separation now can vote for what they think is the least evil. Less categories for commercial games is less clicky clicky when voting, but more categories honour different aspects of diffent games, and there are variations even in commercial games ;) When there are more commercial games coming imho it's nice to have some competition there too and look at the broad scope of games and what they have to offer too.

Radiant

Quote from: selmiak on Sat 04/01/2014 13:22:49
ORLY? Looks like (atm) 8 people want the same awards for commercial and freeware games while (atm) 33 people want seperate awards for commercial and freeware games. The tendency seems very clear to me,
Yes, there is a clear answer to the question of "should the awards make a distinction between free and commercial games". There is (as far as I can tell) no consensus yet on how exactly to do that, hence my suggestion that it needs more discussion.

Snarky

#83
Damn, I've been ignoring this discussion at my peril!

My top two cents:

There should be one single Best Game award for each year! Whatever we do about commercial and free games, I think there really must be a "top" prize, the one game we as a community hold up as the best thing created with AGS.
Games that missed the database submission in 2012 were explicitly told that they could compete in 2013. Whether or not this way of doing it is the best, it would be extremely unfair to disqualify them now.

Additional cents...

Categories in general:
  • The many categories is part of the charm of the AGS awards, and an opportunity to honor oddball achievements. But this is probably incompatible with splitting every category into commercial and free.
  • Should we add an award for best mobile/tablet (iPad/Android) release?  There aren't that many of them (explicit platform ports rather than games that can run with ports of the engine, I mean), and they're mostly Wadjet Eye titles, but this is such an important part of the future of adventure gaming.
  • I feel like I say this every year, but "Best Gameplay" is a confusing and vague category, and I'm not convinced different people interpret it at all the same. To me it's "the experience of playing the game, as determined by the balance of puzzles, exploration and other challenges and in-game activities", CaptainD couldn't tell it apart from "Best Game", and bicilotti's explanation sounds to me like "Best UI".
  • In addition to the game awards, we should still have the Lifetime Achievement and Innovation awards, obviously.

Commercial/free categories:
  • I tend to agree with m0ds that the awards are for honoring things made with AGS, and that separating commercial and freeware games is irrelevant to that purpose. Also, the separation isn't necessarily clean: You have commercial games that are later released for free (the Bakesale games, for example), free games that go commercial (The Shivah, The Journey Down - though not in AGS), games that raise voluntary donations through Kickstarter, IndieGogo or Paypal in order to fund a proper "commercial" development budget...
  • The number of commercial releases in any given year may not support having them compete in a whole set of independent categories, particularly if we keep the number of categories high. For this reason, I don't think the idea of splitting each category in two is workable.
  • I don't like the idea of disqualifying commercial games from every category except a special "Best Commercial Game" one. I think it would diminish the value of the other awards if some of the best games couldn't compete. Instead, if we're worried about commercial games squeezing out the free ones, how about just one category set aside for freeware games: "Best Free Game"?

Eligibility:
  • I personally think we should use database submission date as the qualifying criterion for nomination, since it gives us a "definite list" of released games to choose nominations from. If we don't like the idea of games being added to the database to compete years after the original release, we could add a rule that they are only eligible in the year they were originally released or the following one.
  • We need to require accounts for voting, because otherwise there's no telling the kind of ballot-box stuffing there might be. (And we the mods should probably keep an eye on suspicious voting patterns to see if there are any handpuppets taking part.)

Andail

I feel strangely compelled to agree with Snarky, probably mostly because of his usage of varying font sizes and bullet point lists.

Volcan

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 04/01/2014 15:23:52
Damn, I've been ignoring this discussion at my peril!

My top two cents:

There should be one single Best Game award for each year! Whatever we do about commercial and free games, I think there really must be a "top" prize, the one game we as a community hold up as the best thing created with AGS.
Games that missed the database submission in 2012 were explicitly told that they could compete in 2013. Whether or not this way of doing it is the best, it would be extremely unfair to disqualify them now.

Additional cents...

Categories in general:
  • The many categories is part of the charm of the AGS awards, and an opportunity to honor oddball achievements. But this is probably incompatible with splitting every category into commercial and free.
  • Should we add an award for best mobile/tablet (iPad/Android) release?  There aren't that many of them (explicit platform ports rather than games that can run with ports of the engine, I mean), and they're mostly Wadjet Eye titles, but this is such an important part of the future of adventure gaming.
  • I feel like I say this every year, but "Best Gameplay" is a confusing and vague category, and I'm not convinced different people interpret it at all the same. To me it's "the experience of playing the game, as determined by the balance of puzzles, exploration and other challenges and in-game activities", CaptainD couldn't tell it apart from "Best Game", and bicilotti's explanation sounds to me like "Best UI".
  • In addition to the game awards, we should still have the Lifetime Achievement and Innovation awards, obviously.

Commercial/free categories:
  • I tend to agree with m0ds that the awards are for honoring things made with AGS, and that separating commercial and freeware games is irrelevant to that purpose. Also, the separation isn't necessarily clean: You have commercial games that are later released for free (the Bakesale games, for example), free games that go commercial (The Shivah, The Journey Down - though not in AGS), games that raise voluntary donations through Kickstarter, IndieGogo or Paypal in order to fund a proper "commercial" development budget...
  • The number of commercial releases in any given year may not support having them compete in a whole set of independent categories, particularly if we keep the number of categories high. For this reason, I don't think the idea of splitting each category in two is workable.
  • I don't like the idea of disqualifying commercial games from every category except a special "Best Commercial Game" one. I think it would diminish the value of the other awards if some of the best games couldn't compete. Instead, if we're worried about commercial games squeezing out the free ones, how about just one category set aside for freeware games: "Best Free Game"?

Eligibility:
  • I personally think we should use database submission date as the qualifying criterion for nomination, since it gives us a "definite list" of released games to choose nominations from. If we don't like the idea of games being added to the database to compete years after the original release, we could add a rule that they are only eligible in the year they were originally released or the following one.
  • We need to require accounts for voting, because otherwise there's no telling the kind of ballot-box stuffing there might be. (And we the mods should probably keep an eye on suspicious voting patterns to see if there are any handpuppets taking part.)

We're talking about games they are released. The authors won't change their mind to turn their games as freeware/commercial than much later, maybe one year after their release.

IF a game in 2013 is a commercial and become freeware in 2014, the game will count like a commercial since it's a commercial game in 2013.

Snarky

Quote from: Volcan on Sat 04/01/2014 15:54:42We're talking about games they are released. The authors won't change their mind to turn their games as freeware/commercial than much later, maybe one year after their release.

IF a game in 2013 is a commercial and become freeware in 2014, the game will count like a commercial since it's a commercial game in 2013.

Oh, I don't know. I seem to remember The Shivah became commercial within a few months of its freeware release.

Quote from: Andail on Sat 04/01/2014 15:49:35
I feel strangely compelled to agree with Snarky, probably mostly because of his usage of varying font sizes and bullet point lists.
Attempt to emphasize main points and avoid "tl;dr", or timecube-like rantings of incipient lunacy? You be THE JUDGE!!!

AprilSkies

I think that if games that missed the database in 2012 were explicitly told that they could compete in 2013, then community should change the rules starting from next year. This is fair and reasonable.

www.apemarina.altervista.org

MillsJROSS

Quick question...what's the purpose of our AGS awards?

I ask only because their purpose changes how we should run the awards themselves. If the purpose is to...

  • have a bit of fun and award community members...then we might decide that more awards are great, and be more inclusive of games that might blur the line between this year and last year.
  • give an air of prestige to award winners for their hard work...then we might decide less awards are the way to go, and be more strict in our rules
  • a mix of both...then we will constantly be having these discussions to find the happy balance between meaningful awards and a bit of fun (this is probably the one we're most closely aligned with, right now).

By nailing down what we expect these awards to drive, I think it will help us to decide how best to tackle these issues.

miguel

Quotehow about just one category set aside for freeware games: "Best Free Game"?
After giving some thought I did support this option earlier on this discussion. Like Snarky says it is a clean way out of things.
Having this category we aren't "punishing" devs for making commercial games.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Abisso

I have to make a premise. Despite having been a member of this community for about nine years, I've rarely been very active. My post count is 320 and 90% of those posts I've made in the first couple of years. I've received probably more than I've given back, but independently from that I care for this community. I never voted nor participated in the Awards though, and I've never followed the results or the discussions about them. This is the first time I do, and the reason is someone asked me if my game was going to enter the competition or not and linked me to this and other posts. I don't like celebrations, usually, no matter if they're related to Cinema, to Music or to Games. Competition isn't just my style, I guess.
I ignored there were rules to be allowed in, and I've found I'm not even eligible. I didn't add the game to the database, but mostly because of laziness and not because I don't care for the community: I don't think that omission can be considered as such, anyway. But I doubt that I would have entered if I could. I'm against having a "Best Demo" category, and my game is more of a demo than a complete game (though none of the two).
Having cleared that I haven't got a personal interest in the competition, and all the rest, I find the discussion interesting and I feel expressing my thoughts can be a way to give something back to the community.

Admission to the Awards' Rules: any set of rule is fine (more or less), and it's mostly a matter of choosing one and don't allow exceptions. Rules suck, I know! But they help keeping the competition fair and the protests to a minimum. The only rule I feel the need to point out as completely nonsense would be giving precedence to the insertion date instead of the release date. Someone already pointed that out, but it just seems... illogical.

Commercial vs. Free: it all depends on the aim of the Awards. Most of the solutions and considerations I've read in this topic make perfect sense, as a matter of fact. In my opinion, if the aim is to celebrate games made with AGS, the fact they are commercial or not is irrelevant. On the other hand, if we want to focus on the indie, amateurish, "out of passion" aspects, then some kind of distinction is necessary.
Commercial games are not necessarily better than Free games, not even in some aspects that could certainly thrive from having money to be spent on (graphics, for example). A lot of AGS commercial games have graphics that are worse than some free ones, and some of them even have what I'd call "bad looking graphics" in an absolute sense. I won't make examples, but I have a long list in my mind.
It's also true that most AGS commercial games are just the efforts of small teams, but the problem is "commercial has no limits". If Tim Schafer one day decides to use AGS to make a game, wouldn't that be great as both a recognition to the engine's usability and the AGS fame? But would the resulting game be an honest competitor of other titles? Probably not.

Also, two alternative and mutually exclusive scenarios that might be worth considering are:

  • There's a decent number (the exact amount of which has to be agreed upon) of commercial games: in this case, let's keep two (almost) identical sets of awards for the two macro-categories (Commercial and Free). Voting doesn't require so much time, after all, and the data we can collect can help make a better decision in the future. What I mean by this last sentence is that if the Commercial Categories get just a few global votes, then they're probably not even worth being there.
  • There's a very low number of commercial games: I'd suggest to exclude commercial games from the awards once and for all OR leave just the "Best Commercial Game" as a special "exception".

Amount and nature of Categories: I'm generally inclined towards the most variety possible, but I think the crucial thing is to avoid categories that overlap one another, except for "Best Game" (which, however, might simply be the game with the most awards). The reason I'd remove the "Best Demo" is that it seems unnecessary, and is not even an incentive at finishing the game (the exact opposite, probably). Things like "Best Comedy" overlap a lot of other categories and so seem bad as well. The only doubts goes towards "Non Adventure Game", but all in all it could be discarded as well. If we value the fact that it's made with AGS, then a game is a game is a game.
I'd keep all the other existing ones, and NEVER EVER put together sfx, music and voice-acting. They're so unrelated I can't even think of a reason why they should be inside a single category.
"Best Documentation" seems very important to me because, as someone already noticed, it's a stimulus to refine an aspect that's often neglected despite it's importance.
"Best Programming" seems just natural, as that is a crucial aspect in making a game good, much more than most of the others, I dare to say.
Welcome back to the age of the great guilds.

Ponch

I hope we keep the best non-adventure category. Some really good games have been made in that style.

Snarky

Quote from: Abisso on Sat 04/01/2014 18:55:55The only rule I feel the need to point out as completely nonsense would be giving precedence to the insertion date instead of the release date. Someone already pointed that out, but it just seems... illogical.

Using the games db to determine eligibility has some real practical advantages: It's one easy place to see all the games that could be nominated, it provides ready-to-use game profiles, screenshots and download links for players who want to check out the candidates, it makes it easy to make an awards page afterwards, and so on. If we agree that candidates should be in the database, the only question is whether the creators have to create the game profile within a certain deadline (in the past we've given them a grace period into January, I seem to remember), or whether the organizers should unilaterally add games that haven't been submitted.

I would be against the latter, because as you mention, some people might not want to compete. I guess the other part of the question is whether games that were released in one year but added to the database later should be eligible at all. I would say yes (possibly only within reason), because it seems unfair that just because someone didn't submit to the DB right away, their game would never be eligible at all.

Quote from: Abisso on Sat 04/01/2014 18:55:55It's also true that most AGS commercial games are just the efforts of small teams, but the problem is "commercial has no limits". If Tim Schafer one day decides to use AGS to make a game, wouldn't that be great as both a recognition to the engine's usability and the AGS fame? But would the resulting game be an honest competitor of other titles? Probably not.

If Tim Schafer made an AGS game and it was the best AGS game that year, why wouldn't we want it to win? In fact, wouldn't it be absurd, even perverse to exclude it?

Anyway, it's a moot point. Maybe commercial has no limits, but sadly, AGS does. Double Fine would never make an AGS game (other than maybe as a lark); not even the smaller Kickstarter projects like Larry Reloaded or Cognition seriously consider the engine. And it's not just for the obvious reasons like the limited resolutions and platform support; it's things like not taking real advantage of hardware acceleration (leading to poor performance on more graphically intensive games), outdated library stack, savegames breaking between game updates, lack of Unicode support (and layout-independent keyboard controls) for internationalization, limited support for source control and multiple coders, not dealing properly with the access-control security model in recent Windows versions, nonstandard scripting language with limited debug tools, and a project format with a binary sprite file that makes it necessary to manually re-import sprites each time they're updated. I mean, CW is doing a great job bringing AGS up to date, but this is not something that will be fully resolved any time soon, and pretty much every one of those issues is by itself enough to exclude it from consideration within bigger game dev studios. AGS was designed as a tool for small/one-person development teams, and as far as commercial projects go, it's going to be small indie teams mainly from within the AGS community for the foreseeable future.

Abisso

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 04/01/2014 20:21:37

Using the games db to determine eligibility has some real practical advantages: It's one easy place to see all the games that could be nominated, it provides ready-to-use game profiles, screenshots and download links for players who want to check out the candidates, it makes it easy to make an awards page afterwards, and so on. If we agree that candidates should be in the database, the only question is whether the creators have to create the game profile within a certain deadline (in the past we've given them a grace period into January, I seem to remember), or whether the organizers should unilaterally add games that haven't been submitted.

I would be against the latter, because as you mention, some people might not want to compete. I guess the other part of the question is whether games that were released in one year but added to the database later should be eligible at all. I would say yes (possibly only within reason), because it seems unfair that just because someone didn't submit to the DB right away, their game would never be eligible at all.

I agree that the game database has its advantages: this wasn't the focus of my statement. I was just pointing out that the release date seems a much more logical choice if we have to set a rule for allowance. This doesn't mean there can't be extra rules, like, for example, the need to manually insert the game into the database. It doesn't seem very "necessary", though, and I believe the Awards would make more sense if they were independent from the author's will.
As a matter of fact, you misinterpreted my explanation about the reasons I probably wouldn't take part even if I could. I don't think it's an added value being able to decide if our own game must (or must not) be a competitor. If the game has been made with AGS (according this is the most important thing when it comes to the Awards) then it should be in by default, probably. Or at least being potentially nominated by someone else as well, be he a fan, another game-maker, a mod.
The author could be then free to "dis-attend" the ceremony and even ignore it completely, but this should be unrelated from the fact the product takes part. Just my 2 cents, of course, nothing objective.

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 04/01/2014 20:21:37
If Tim Schafer made an AGS game and it was the best AGS game that year, why wouldn't we want it to win? In fact, wouldn't it be absurd, even perverse to exclude it?

Maybe because with 3.000.000$ even a mountain gorilla would be able to do one of the best AGS game of the year? I'm not saying money creates good games by default, but you can surely afford to pay competent people to achieve a very good result. Not necessarily the best, but surely an (unfairly) good candidate.

With as "little" as about 10.000$ anyone could provide his game with top quality 2D graphics, for example. And I say that with 50.000$ you can create excellency in almost any aspect. But who would spend thousands of his own bucks to produce a non-commercial game? Sure, there are exceptions, and that's great! When you believe so much in a project that you're willing to spend money and time without any possible earning, it means you really believe in what you're doing.
Anyway, there will probably be more "medium-budget" free-games in the future, as crowdfunding allows reasonably low amounts of money to be raised quite easily.

And wait a minute... isn't Larry Reloaded the revamped version of the 1st LSL whose Al Lowe is working on? Are you calling that "smaller" with Double Fine as a comparison, or in a more generic sense? Cause I remember Al was asking for something like several hundreds of thousands of bucks for that. An amount with one zero more than what was necessary, definitely.

All this has made me reflect on something though... probably what matters most is the budget the game has required, not the fact it's commercial or not.
Of course, I repeat that if the only relevant fact is that the game has been made using AGS, then any game should be allowed as a participant. That's a possibility, for sure. Is there something like a Foundation Act, or the original discussions around the AGS Awards? What was its original spirit / objective? It doesn't have to stay unmodified forever, of course, but it could be a good starting point.

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 04/01/2014 20:21:37
Anyway, it's a moot point. Maybe commercial has no limits, but sadly, AGS does. Double Fine would never make an AGS game (other than maybe as a lark); not even the smaller Kickstarter projects like Larry Reloaded or Cognition seriously consider the engine. And it's not just for the obvious reasons like the limited resolutions and platform support; it's things like not taking real advantage of hardware acceleration (leading to poor performance on more graphically intensive games), outdated library stack, savegames breaking between game updates, lack of Unicode support (and layout-independent keyboard controls) for internationalization, limited support for source control and multiple coders, not dealing properly with the access-control security model in recent Windows versions, nonstandard scripting language with limited debug tools, and a project format with a binary sprite file that makes it necessary to manually re-import sprites each time they're updated. I mean, CW is doing a great job bringing AGS up to date, but this is not something that will be fully resolved any time soon, and pretty much every one of those issues is by itself enough to exclude it from consideration within bigger game dev studios. AGS was designed as a tool for small/one-person development teams, and as far as commercial projects go, it's going to be small indie teams mainly from within the AGS community for the foreseeable future.

Hey... don't talk about my friend like that! :(
But hey, I see your point and can't deny you're somewhat right. Is there an adventure-game engine that has produced more games than AGS so far, anyway? I'm honestly curious to know.

But I'm going off topic now.
Welcome back to the age of the great guilds.

Ghost

Quote from: Abisso on Sat 04/01/2014 22:09:06
I'm not saying money creates good games by default, but you can surely afford to pay competent people to achieve a very good result. Not necessarily the best, but surely an (unfairly) good candidate.

But how can any game be unfairly good? That means,literally, that after reaching a certain quality, I should feel really really bad about submitting my game because it could win!

Abisso

#95
Quote from: Ghost on Sat 04/01/2014 22:27:37
Quote from: Abisso on Sat 04/01/2014 22:09:06
I'm not saying money creates good games by default, but you can surely afford to pay competent people to achieve a very good result. Not necessarily the best, but surely an (unfairly) good candidate.

But how can any game be unfairly good? That means,literally, that after reaching a certain quality, I should feel really really bad about submitting my game because it could win!

Let's make an example to make my point more clear. A graduation / degree thesis for your Physics degree. You can pay Stephen Hawking 1.000.000$ to do that for you, or you can do that by yourself. If you choose the first option, and then the University is so happy with the resulting thesis that decides to publish it instead of another one did by a single student with his hard work, can you be proud of yourself? This is what I call being "unfairly good".
Another example: would it make sense to allow a Ferrari to compete in a race against home-made cars?

But, once again, the point is if we only care for the final result, or if we care for other aspects as well. Either is acceptable, according that there's a convergence of opinions, but the choice is not irrelevant.
Welcome back to the age of the great guilds.

Ghost

#96
Quote from: Abisso on Sat 04/01/2014 22:36:41
Another example: would it make sense to allow a Ferrari to compete in a race against home-made cars?

I see your point but it doesn't hold up. In this case, we have people with pretty much the same background competing, using the SAME ENGINE. The defining quality of a great AGS games can never be the engine but the skill I have at using it within its limits.

Pitting (for the sake of example) my own Chance of the Dead against a commercial AGS game like, say, Primordia *is* fair game, because both games were made by semiprofessionals. It's more like putting two home-made cars against each other where one of the drivers simply has more skill at driving.

Pitting the same Chance of the Dead against (again, for the sake of example) Deponia, that would be unfair. Deponia has the better engine, a huge team with years of experience, and so forth. That'd be Ferrari against mode-made cart. (Just to make it clear, Deponia would be the Ferrari!)

KodiakBehr

#97
Stratifying commercial games unfairly assumes that they're all made with meaningful commercial budgets.  We retail Conspirocracy, but it was made with $1000 and a blowtorch, and almost of the revenue went straight to charity as promised.  In spite of that, we're lumped in the same category as anything Double Fine makes, rather than the category of something like Donald Dowell or Breakage, which we'd feel more akin to.  I'm willing to accept that, but I don't think it represents anything close to the reality of our situation.  I would prefer this competition to be all-inclusive, so we can avoid such categorization and focus on the important thing -- showing off the great things that can be done with this engine.

Or we can get really into this sh*t and start putting games into tiered divisions.

Radiant

Quote from: AprilSkies on Sat 04/01/2014 17:59:52
I think that if games that missed the database in 2012 were explicitly told that they could compete in 2013, then community should change the rules starting from next year. This is fair and reasonable.
Could Bicilotti and Dualnames please confirm this is the case, because their earlier remarks in this thread don't mention this? As far as I'm aware no public statements have been made about this a year ago.

See, the issue I have with the database entry date is that people have been known to make mistakes with that in the past, whereas the release date is a plain and simple fact. If anything, we sometimes adjust the database date to match the release date; clearly it's not possible to change a game's release date afterwards. So the release date is the most straightforward approach; everything else is bookkeeping. And bookkeeping is important, mind you, but bookkeeping keeps track of the facts, not the other way around.

Dualnames

Imma de-notify myself from this. :grin:

As far as I remembered the eligibility was the date. I asked bici in irc if that's still true, he said yes, I explained the situation, he said fine by him, i added the game to the database to win all the awards and then brag about it on my twitter.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

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