Planning for awards season

[SSH]

Well last year it took an age to get the awards done. Just to try and be a bit more organised this year can I ask the question:

Who is running the AGS Awards this year?

and... AGA... can you confirm that you are indeed going to run the FOREGOs and that it wasnt a moment of inebriated rashness on #ags when you said you would.

[Radiant]

On a related issue, last year there was some discussion about how nominations should work. In particular, some people tend to nominate what they like for each and every category even if that's not appropriate. There have been some suggestions on doing things differently that may be worth looking into.


Quoting Pumanan... (from this thread)

Regardless of this particular case, there is a debate to be had about the nominations process in future AGS Awards. The problem we seem to get, and it happens every year, is that a group of 5 games tend to be the same nominees for all the main awards.

It probably happens because people think to themselves "oooh, I liked game X" and then proceed to nominate it in every category.

The idea has been floated that the nominees could be selected by a committee rather than by the public, and then the public would just vote on the winner. Obviously that's a decision that will need to be made for next year.

[SSH]

While we're at it, has anyone got the old FOREGO and ERGO results? Darth's site for the former is no more, although last yearsresults are in a thread here, the year I did it is lost and I dont have them on my comp any more...

I just thought it would be good to have the old results in the Wiki...


Funnily enough, the usual fanboy problem may not occur this year anyway as AGDI, Yahtzee and the Schlapfers haven't released anything new (give or take upgrades or space trading sims)

[Radiant]

Funnily enough, the usual fanboy problem may not occur this year anyway as AGDI, Yahtzee and the Schlapfers haven't released anything new (give or take upgrades or space trading sims)

True, but that means that this is an excellent opportunity to fix it for next year.

[GarageGothic]

So who would the nomination committees consist of? People who had won that category previous years? Or anyone who had bothered actually playing everything that came out during the year?

[ManicMatt]

"..some people tend to nominate what they like for each and every category even if that's not appropriate."

What about giving a multiple choice to select from?

[Vince Twelve]

Matt, you don't seem to understand the problem.  They're discussing the nomination process, not the voting process.  Nomination takes the list of every game that has been released during the year, and whittles it down to the "multiple choice" for the voting.  The problem is how to choose which five games most deserve to be nominated for each particular award.

And it's probably a discussion that needs to be had, but first, as SSH suggested, it needs to be decided who will run the awards.

[Gregjazz]

Funnily enough, the usual fanboy problem may not occur this year anyway as AGDI, Yahtzee and the Schlapfers haven't released anything new (give or take upgrades or space trading sims)

Hmmm hmm hmm...

[Nikolas]

What? What? What? Is there something we should know? At least give it to us before ?Christmas! :

[Kinoko]

Can I add the suggestion that the people to choose should be people who really do play everything, or at least most things that come out. People who have been around awhile, too. I'd be useless because I play almost nothing that comes out these days. It really needs to be people who see it all, and people who specialise in different areas, too.

Pretty useless advice as I can't offer any suggestions as to who but that's my 2 cents ^_^

[Ishmael]

The few last awards have apparently been game voting (and nominating) rather than actual category voting, as some games have swept all the awards. I think something should be done about that.

[AGA]

Simple answer: we make CJ choose all the nominees.

Uh, joking aside, yes, I will take care of any and all awards no-one else is interested in organising, SSH.

[Radiant]

It would probably be best to get some knowledgeable people in each area to make the selection. For instance, "best art" should be judged by some of the most active people in the C&C forum because they should know what they're talking about.

In the spirit of fairness they could hold the discussion open on the forums, so that other people know why their fave game was not nominated for each and every category.

[Andail]

I think the idea of having an "expert" panel deciding the nominees, and a then a popular vote to decide the winner in each category is fair and good.
I'd volonteer for the best background art panel, if one will appear

[Nikolas]

I could volunteer for the music awards. Of course this means that I would have to play all games? Or probably most of them, right? Well, nothing bad in playing some games...

[Pumaman]

The other question is, should game authors have to enter their games to the awards, or should all games be automatically entered as has happened in the past?

Looking at the list of games that have been released this year, there's about 150 of them and expecting the nomination judges to have played all 150 is unrealistic. So should each game author have to nominate their own game, or should we have a thread dedicated to where people can suggest good games for each category, that the panel would then look at and decide the nominees from?

[Nikolas]

That's a question.

You're right. Maybe it's not a bad idea to have the creators of the games nominate their games for nominatios. But of course if you have a team, you would have to let the guy who actually did the graphics to nominate the game for the graphics.

A thread would be a little bit wrong imho cause this way you get people voting from the very begining. There is no need for nominations this way. Just open a thread, with the best games of 2005 and there you go! You have the awards.

I hope that the game creators will have the common sense to know what's going on with the rest of the games and not propose a game that has absolutley no chance. And since it is up to the authors then this does make sense. BTW, is there some kind of rules, where music (especially music) and characters/BGs and generally art, cannot be ripped?

[Andail]

Nikolas, obviously you have to take into considerations such things as art or music being ripped or borrowed or whatever, when you cast your votes. There are no officials rules regarding the nomination procedure, mostly because there haven't really been a proper one; simply a two step popular vote.

So, to clarify.
Previous system:
1. Nomination (members vote on games/persons for nominations in certain categories)
2. Final election (from the the top five entries in each category, each member will vote for one favourite)

Suggested system this year:
1. Registration (someone (either the author of the game, or simply anybody) registers a game/person and make it receptible for nomination.
2. Nomination (a special board of trusted people will choose five games/persons for each category. These people will be required to give every game an equal share of attention, and make their non-biased decisions based on their respective expertise in each area)
3. Final election (a popular vote will decide the winning entry for each category.

[Nikolas]

I think the system this years sounds better. But on the 1st point (the registration), I woud think that only the author or people that actually worked on the game, would be able to register the game, not just anybody. Anbody couldcreate chaos...

[Pumaman]

I disagree -- it might be that the game author isn't around for some reason, or that they don't think that their game is award-worthy -- but that shouldn't stop someone else who really liked it from registering it for nominations.