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[mr. podunkian]

i think there's a problem when almost every discussion of the nominations contains one or more of the judges trying to justify their selections.

[Craig Stern]

Congrats to all the nominees! One of these days, I'll have to actually enter something.

[Guert]

I want to chime in on something real quick, because I'm seeing a lot of mentions about the repeat nominations.  We don't choose the finalists; they are simply the top-scoring games in each category.  There is no editorial control (we can't look at a category and say, "Oh, we should pull Game X because it's already a finalist in A and B").  The judges' scores are the sole determining factor in who is and isn't a finalist.

True. And quite frankly it's the kind of thing that can happen when many judges feel the same way about a specific game. It also happens in other entertaiments too. It's not uncommon to see a movie win multiple awards at a show for example. Are you planning on expanding the amount of finalist next year though? The 300+ entrants was kind of a surprise from what I have read here and there, are you thinking about changing the rules for next year? Maybe it's too soon to talk to, IGF 2010 hasn't even been held yet!

On a side note, it must have been hard to coordinate all the judges needed to play all those games. Kudos to the organizers

[MikeDee]

Any guesses for the grand prize winner ?

I'd say Joe Danger, super meat boy looks epic but I didn't like the original flash game that much so I have mixed feelings about that one.

[Reiss]

Yeah, this year's selection looks pretty good.  It's hard to avoid repeats when finalists in multiple categories are chosen by score aggregates: as a judge, what are you going to do -- mark one game down artificially, because you think it'll win elsewhere?  And then if you do try to play the system like that, you could get burned: there's no guarantee that other judges will score the game you like high enough in the category you thought it would win, and so your artificially low score brings it down elsewhere where it could've won.  Considering the number of entries, I think this is just what we have to expect -- there won't be perfect editorial control over finalists, but the games that do make it to the final round will be generally good, solid games.

On a different note, Monaco looks great.  Is this one of the first multiplayer games to have done so well in the competition?  It seems like multiplayer co-op games are really starting to hit their stride lately, even outside of the indie scene.

And congrats to all the nominees.   

[ionside]

Huge congrats to the finalists! I'm a little sad a couple of games I was rooting for didn't make it in. But excited for the few that did!

[aeiowu]

Any guesses for the grand prize winner ?

I'd say Joe Danger, super meat boy looks epic but I didn't like the original flash game that much so I have mixed feelings about that one.

Monaco

[___]

I gotta root for Meatboy, because if Tommy doesn't get a trophy this year, we're all in danger.  Joe, Danger.  SHIT.

[Alec]

i think there's a problem when almost every discussion of the nominations contains one or more of the judges trying to justify their selections.

Heaven forbid that people explain why they have certain opinions.

[Craig Stern]

Heaven forbid that people explain why they have certain opinions.

God just called. He says that people explaining why they have certain opinions is now forbidden. THANKS A LOT, ALEC. Geez.

[Alec]

Heaven forbid that people explain why they have certain opinions.

God just called. He says that people explaining why they have certain opinions is now forbidden. THANKS A LOT, ALEC. Geez.

I guess God didn't invent sarcasm.

[jeb]

I guess God didn't invent sarcasm.

... or it's time to read the Bible in a new light.

Aaanyways... It's interesting to see that one game that I gave a 100 to, didn't end up as a finalist. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the nominations.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

I want to chime in on something real quick, because I'm seeing a lot of mentions about the repeat nominations.  We don't choose the finalists; they are simply the top-scoring games in each category.  There is no editorial control (we can't look at a category and say, "Oh, we should pull Game X because it's already a finalist in A and B").  The judges' scores are the sole determining factor in who is and isn't a finalist.

Thanks for clarifying this, the transparency with the voting process is really appreciated.

[Alec]

Yeah, that needs to be repeated. It seems like some folks believe there is an "IGF God" that makes judgements on who deserves which spot, but really its just a sum of a whole pile of votes from a whole bunch of people.

Hence results that might seem inconsistent if they came from one person.

[aeiowu]

Yea I fell prey to that. Thanks for the clarification matthew.

[Alex May]

I wonder if it would be worth holding the entries for longer (i.e. pushing back the submission date) to give each game more judges? It's pretty tight as it is... I took a week-and-a-half's break from the internet over the xmas period and completely missed the student judging process as a result.

[mirosurabu]

I gotta root for Meatboy, because if Tommy doesn't get a trophy this year, we're all in danger.  Joe, Danger.  SHIT.

Super Joe, Danger.

[havchr]

Congratulations to all the nominees!

When is the student nominees revealed?
I have some friends who's in it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I wonder if it would be worth holding the entries for longer (i.e. pushing back the submission date) to give each game more judges? It's pretty tight as it is... I took a week-and-a-half's break from the internet over the xmas period and completely missed the student judging process as a result.

i think this is true. however, it seems a lot of the judges were pretty awful when it came to rating games, i've heard some waited until the last day or so before the deadline to play any of them (and then complained when they were too long to play in one day!). if they had 6 months to judge games instead of 6 weeks, they might just wait until the last day before the deadline again. i think higher quality judges is as important as more judges, or more time to judge.

[Guert]

Then I shall ask this question: how does one become a judge?

So, in other words, I'm pretty sure it was quite hard for the IGF comittee (or whoever decides who judges)to find enough judges to look at all those games. I mean everyone is busy. And I'm pretty sure judges aren't paid to do this job. Unless I'm wrong of course.

So yeah, the IGF is a bit the victim of its own success on that topic but the guys and gals behind the event know what they are doing. There's also the fact that when you don't get picked, you tend to find ways to explain your rejection aside from admitting "the game wasn't good enough". I was rejected. My game wasn't good enough to beat 305 other games. Next year, we'll see. (of course I'm aware that some games I would have loved to see picked as finalist but that's an opinion and opinion are quite personal. but as Fish mentioned somewhere, there are some close calls and perhpas 30 or 50 other games barely made it, as non-judges we don't have all the scores that were given to all the games.)