An idea for AGS Awards 2013

[Radiant]

I like the idea of giving 'silver' to the runner-ups.

[blueskirt]

Back from reading the thread, and that got me thinking, you know, time, just like money, is a resource too. Should a game that took eight years to make be allowed to compete with games that took eight months to make? It ain't fair for the eight months games because the eight years game probably got more effort poured into it. Same goes for games made by one person competing with games made by teams. And what about commercial games that have to compete with Kickstarter backed commercial games?

No, the solution isn't in more categories, it's in valuing up nominations and runner-ups, like some suggested.

Also, I disagree about the redundancy of Best Puzzles and Best Gameplay. Best Gameplay to me encompass interface, intuitiveness, learning curves, the way the game plays, that sort of thing, while Best Puzzles is more about creativity, originality, logicality (I can't believe that's a word), the way hints and puzzles are presented... To take an action game example, in the Action Game Studioâ,,¢ Awards there could be a Best Gameplay award, but also, Best Level and Best Boss Fight. To me it's not redundant.

And now I'm going to bed, I keep finding typoes, misplaced words and badly syntaxed sentences, my brain's just not following anymore.

[Ponch]

I like the idea of giving 'silver' to the runner-ups.

Barn Runner-ups, you mean! 

[dactylopus]

Since I am fairly new here, and didn't play all of the games, I didn't participate in the Awards this year.

That said, I would like to voice my support for the concept of individualized awards.  The artist should win for the art, the programmer for programming, etc.  Also, a Best Sound category could encompass both music and effects, and Best Gameplay could include puzzles.

But anyways, congratulations to the winners (and nominees) this year.  To be honest, while a 2nd (or even 3rd) place award seems nice, being a nominee is prestigious in itself.  I'll agree with blueskirt when he said "players use these results to decide which games to play or not."  That includes the list of nominees.

But to the point of the original post, I don't think there needs to be an altogether different set of awards for commercial games.  If anything, perhaps Best Game could be awarded to 2 winners: Best Game (Commercial) and Best Game (Freeware).  This way they are essentially the same award.  Marking each game in the awards list as (Commercial) or (Freeware) would be helpful, mostly to the players who are looking for games to download.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I haven't had a chance to read through this thread, so I'm going to assume no one has mentioned this yet.

I don't like how the nominations work with the top 5 per vote total. So if the majority of the people who nominate never actually played any game BUT Resonance, it sways the votes quite a bit. Many single nominations towards the overly popular game will kick out any chance the less popular game has (even if the less popular game is more deserving - it just wasn't played by many).

It's almost as though there should be a "I've played this game" checkbox which is used to calculate the weight of all nominations. I certainly don't play every game in the database when I nominate. No one does. There's always that gem that hasn't gotten popular yet. It's definitely not a very solid system that we currently have.

Edit: Basically if the less popular game was played by 100 people and nominated by 50, it should be higher up the nomination list than Resonance - which was played by 200 people and nominated by 55 (random figures).

Of course you'd have to add a better formula. You wouldn't want a game played by 5 people and nominated by 4 to beat Resonance (which it would if the system wasn't designed properly).

[miguel]

Well it is good that we are talking about this. We should.
Many of us are trying to grab the momentum of (Indie) Adventure Games becoming again popular and profitable. I believe 2013 and 14 will produce many more commercial games than we are used to. This is the time where many of us are seriously considering investing (time or money, or both) on a game that can achieve monetary return.
For this we have to thank the ones that opened the door before us. How?
- Showcase those commercial and acclaimed games in our site/forum. We owe this to the game makers. Without their believe in AGS we would be probably missing the train.
- Showcase and praise our Engine in a proud way. People/gamers must relate Gemini, Resonance and the rest to the AGS engine.
- Really invest on the AGS awards - pictures, trailers, make it big!

- But, please separate freeware from commercial games. It's a ocean apart. Commercial games will always win over freeware. Our big event of the year should be the Awards but have freeware games to be the core and joy of our community! Let them win, make those game makers proud and ready to go one step beyond.
- Commercial AGS games should have separate awards because those games should compete with similar productions.

[Stupot]

As much as I prefer having one big best-in-show award, I could be swayed to the idea of having separate awards for freeware/commercial, if only because I think having runners-up silver prizes is an even worse idea.  For me, being shortlisted IS the runner up prize.  If people are worried about the freeware nominees being overshadowed by the commercial ones, then lets together make more of a push to publicize the entire shortlists, before the award ceremony.  Maybe we could even invite people outside the AGS community to vote.  It depends if we want an open, public showcase of all that AGS can offer, or a small family loveletter to her freeware roots.

I would personally propose sitting tight for a couple of years to see how things play out. Resonance was a massive, massive achievement.  I am a bit of a fan-boy, but I genuinely think this year's awards reflect that fairly.  I certainly don't really think we need any kind of 'handicap' system. Occasionally in any award ceremony, you get your Titanics and your English Patients, and then things go back to being a bit more open for a few years until the next biggy comes out. That's fine with me.

[Tabata]

I am not a big fan of the runner up awards because all in all it would be a bit too much for my taste.

Also the runner up's should already be awarded because of their nomination!?
... and if you cancel the nomination awards and "only" do runner up awards instead to avoid this, there will be less games with awards in the end 

[Igor Hardy]

- But, please separate freeware from commercial games. It's a ocean apart. Commercial games will always win over freeware.

That's nonsense - an idealization of commercial products. You can make any piece of crap commercial. Just as well there are freeware games in the database I still count amongst the very best AGS games ever created. Also, some full-length AGS games like Time Gentlemen Please! turned almost freeware - the decision to go commercial was made very late in production.

[miguel]

Well, sir, your idealization of freeware products is just that - an idealization. Your idea among others that a game is a game and that's it, is pretty subjective. And a very romantic view of things, pardon my nonsense.
You seem to have misread my post and only focus on the phrase you quoted, but I'll say it again: good freeware games made here, some are even classic AGS games with sequels and done by very talented people don't stand a chance with games designed to be commercial.
What I do wish, is to give this guys a chance and for them to be able to win a best game award. Just that.

If I say testicle, now that's nonsense.

[Igor Hardy]

Sorry if I offended you with the word "nonsense", miguel. I just wanted to express my strong disagreement with the notion that freeware titles are weaker.

Your way of helping the underdogs is a double-edged sword - you're turning them into games of lower-standard by definition. I'm not even sure what you mean by "designed to be commercial". In terms of quality I would agree that a designer working full-time on a game has a great advantage over someone working on on their project only in the spare time. But neither Gemini Rue, TGP! nor Resonance were created with that advantage - perhaps with the exception of final stages of production.

Also, I don't believe in what you claim, that freeware games don't stand a chance against commercial games in the AGS Awards. In fact many of the commercial games will always be underrated at the Awards, as there are commercial games made in AGS that relatively few people here buy, and consequently never vote for them. Resonance, Gemini Rue and Time Gentlemen Please! were bought by many of the forum members, because of their history with the forums and because of the personas of their creators. However, not every commercial release will get that many buys here - simply because we usually don't have the money to buy them all.

Overall, I find the dichotomy between commercial and freeware games to be superficial. We had a couple of really well-loved commercial AGS games in recent years, but it had little to do with the fact they were commercial.

If you want to help the smaller, more modest productions I'd suggest the addition of categories like "best full-length game" and "best medium-length game" instead. That would be much more fair to all, and would create more appreciation for designers who take the time and energy to build really long, complex titles.

[Paul Franzen]

To go back to something that was said earlier--one vote AGAINST cutting Best SoundFX. (We're voting, right?) ...But that's only because right now I'm killing it with the soundFX in my game and I think I have a real shot of it.

[miguel]

Sorry if I offended you with the word "nonsense", miguel.

You didn't, I was being a wiseguy.

Still, we have different opinions. To me, a freeware adventure game may lack (and often will) features that are mandatory on a commercial game, and still be considered a hell of a game. But that's art in its pure essence. We the gamers, the community, award a freeware game and its creator for the global concept of his game. It doesn't matter to us if the guis were standard engine ones, if the characters don't even have animations, if there's only a single tune playing, etc...etc... Because we are experiencing the beauty of having some free, entertaining game.

Then comes a different type of game maker, the one that feels he can deliver the same satisfaction but is willing to produce/pay for original interface, animations, and so on. It is expected that his final product is much more polished and according to the videogame standards. There's going to be demos, trailers, voice actors and blah,blah,blah.

When the gamers vote, they will consider all the aspects of the game, and the final package of a commercial game will always beat a freeware game. That's what buyers or voters do, in the supermarket or in a site.

We also don't have the same opinion towards the best AGS games in the last years. To me, it is clear that the commercial ones were way better than the freeware ones. Look at Nelly, for example, it was clear from the moment that it was launched that it had all the potential to become commercial, and it will become in the sequel. TOTK was the exception, in my opinion, and would have been commercial if the market was like it is now.

There's a certain type of humour and specific atmosphere that sticks to ags free titles that we should preserve. I am defending the guys that still make that kind of games and wish that they get awarded for that. That's all.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I have no problem with a logical distinction being made between games specifically targeted for commercial audiences and those where often a single person is creating a labor of love without concern for payment.  A commercial product has a different set of goals and requirements to achieve vs a freeware game and I think it is often very unfair to force the two to compete.

This isn't saying that freeware games are inferior, merely that they have different expectations associated with them and therefore should be judged separately from commercial games...in the opinion of someone who has worked on his share of both.