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[Alec]

Finalists are up: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2011/01/2011_independent_games_festiva_10.html

Here's where you can make up conspiracy theories in an attempt to avoid feeling bad about not being nominated.  

[Sorano]

Awesome games.

Congratulations to all the nominees.

[mirosurabu]

Hey jury, what was on your mind when you nominated Cave Story for "Excellence in Visual Art" award?  

Oh, yes, it's a huge conspiracy!

Anyways, good luck to all nominated!

[Levin]

Oh, you f'ing conspirators!

You, Alec, you are a co-conspirator. And you, stupid Panda , you are a co-co-conspirator.



 

[Captain_404]

Congrats to all the nominees! This year was thick with great games.

The nominations certainly did not turn out how I expected, which is great. That's the best kind of surprise

And I'm still pretty psyched that I got an honorable mention for Feign in Nuovo!

[speeder]

To me it is obvious that the IGF is biased, even if non-intentionally.

It is kinda obvious that the nominated are the ones known here on TIG and other near communities, mostly because of media bias, a judge playing Super Crate Box for example probably already heard of it (specially after the nominations for best freeware of the year), Cave Story then is even more obvious, that game was popular, it is REALLY popular among the "indie" community (I mean, "indie" not in the sense of Independent Games), most judges probably even played or finished it.


But get for example some random game that noone ever heard from Africa... Unless it is 10 times better than any other games, it won't get nominated for anything, and will be played only by the judges that mandatorily had to play it (each judge receive a set of games to play, and they can play others if wanted, obviously lots of judges would play Super Crate Box, Bit.Trip, etc... but no judge would play that unknown african game).



But that happen in any competition, so I don't break a sweat over it.

[Movius]

Excellent nomination list from the games I've played. I expect that the ones I haven't played are equally good.

[konjak]

Cave Story then is even more obvious, that game was popular

And popularity is never justified.

I know I'm being very black and white, but if you pose your arguments they will always be nullified by the counter argument of "its popularity proves its worth". By the way, I was nominated for a game once I had never mentioned to anyone or released trailers for and it didn't have much fresh ways of gameplay. I'm just making the point people will always argue against each others tastes.

And congrats, people!

[Alexander Bruce]

And I'm still pretty psyched that I got an honorable mention for Feign in Nuovo!

Try again next year.

[speeder]

And I'm still pretty psyched that I got an honorable mention for Feign in Nuovo!

Try again next year.

I do agree that Cave Story popularity is warrented, that game is really great.

But Farmville is also hugely popular, you would award it a Seumas McNally prize?

[Hangedman]

No. And that's a poor example.

Congratulations especially to QCF and Vlambeer for rocking their way into the indiesphere!

...and into my heart. 

[Peevish]

Enh, most indie games get spread around on the internet and the internet is a meritocracy. There's no trick to getting on TIGSource or IndieGames.com, if a game is out and anyone likes it, it'll probably get coverage.

I'm actually gratified that Cave Story got the nom in Visual, since that's one of the things that's changed since the last version. I ha pegged Overgrowth for Technical, seems it's only getting an honorable mention, best of luck next year to them.

And congrats to all the nominees! Looks like a kick-ass fest is coming.

[AdamAtomic]

But get for example some random game that noone [sic] ever heard [of] from Africa

what, like Desktop Dungeons?

[Sairon]

Darn, was really hoping for a mention for Nimbus, especially as we've had a review average around 9 / 10 and almost universally had very kind words from the few who has played it. I think in our case it might have come down to not really excelling in any isolated department.  

Congratulations to those who did make it however

[speeder]

Internet is not meritocracy, and games don't spread as you think.


The internet, although covering the whole world, is still limited geographically.

You don't know most of the games made in China or Japan, even the ones that support english for example, unless you have a huge amount of connections to japanese and chinese people.


For example, here in Brazil we had a game that became ridicously popular, hitting top 1 download in several brazillian shareware sites, but I never saw that game becoming popular in the US.

Even if we have physical cables connecting everything, language, culture and actual interpersonal connections are still barriers.

And second, do you REALLY BELIEVE that Zynga games are better than the games that they copied? Internet is not about meritocracy, it is about marketing, with few exceptions... Yes, "Viral" stuff exists, but it is rare, and not always because of merit or quality.