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[PaleFox]

i'm sorry does that somehow mean that they shouldn't expect people to play their games

if i buy a falafel, surely some of my falafel funds go towards falafel production and falafel taxes but i still expect to get a falafel

[Christian Knudsen]

You asked what the $100 was used for, I answered. Also, it seems that the only examples brought up of people not having their game played at all haven't been corroborated (unless I'm missing something, which is highly likely, as this is a big thread). In fact, according to Matthew, one of them wasn't even at the IGF, but the IndieCade (again, unless I misread something).

I'm beginning to wonder how the Kale in Dinoland guys would have reacted if 5 judges had been assigned to their game and those five judges played the game exactly the amount of time that the judges that did play the game did. I'm willing to bet they wouldn't have complained at all. They seem awfully stuck on the fact that not all of the 8 judges assigned to their game played it -- instead of focusing on the five judges that did play it (two of them for 13 and 53 minutes, which seems pretty fair to me). Given that the organizers assign more judges per game than "required" for redundancy purposes, I don't really see what the problem is with not all judges playing an assigned game.

Honestly, the explanations I've read here and other places seem perfectly valid to me and have somewhat turned me on the subject. And I'm getting the feeling that some people are willfully ignoring them in order to stay outraged.

[Dragonmaw]

I play the games I'm assigned why are you so mean to me Crowe 

[Matthew]

sorry then what is the 100 dollars you pay to enter buying then

The IGF is the same as any competition.  Entry fees goes two places:

1) Running the event

2) Stuff the winners/finalists get

There's a lot of "stuff" beyond the cash prizes: Award show, booth space, GDC passes, etc.

But--like any competition!--if you enter and don't win anything you don't get anything. That's kind of how competitions work.  The people who view the IGF as some kind of $95 feedback service are terribly misguided.

[eyeliner]

Sorry, but this looks like shit. I wouldn't play this on account of this "art".

[PaleFox]

i think your opinion, matthew, might be slightly biased


but i think it's fair to expect people in a paid competition to put in an effort to view your game fairly compared to others

any comment on this? because as of right now that is not really what is happening -- most judges give a cursory glance to their games and just try out FEZ or OTHER EXCITING GAME THAT HAS BEEN HYPED

i thought the igf was about independent games, not games which already have highly hyped publishing contracts and funding

[Fallsburg]

i think your opinion, matthew, might be slightly biased


but i think it's fair to expect people in a paid competition to put in an effort to view your game fairly compared to others

any comment on this? because as of right now that is not really what is happening -- most judges give a cursory glance to their games and just try out FEZ or OTHER EXCITING GAME THAT HAS BEEN HYPED

i thought the igf was about independent games, not games which already have highly hyped publishing contracts and funding

WE RETURN TO THE BEGINNING

[AndySchatz]

Honestly, the explanations I've read here and other places seem perfectly valid to me and have somewhat turned me on the subject. And I'm getting the feeling that some people are willfully ignoring them in order to stay outraged.

Oh my lord, a breath of fresh air, thank you. Not for agreeing with me but for your humility and for not being a contrarian.

I also have been wrong about some things too.  I think the critics of the IGF are right in many ways and it desperately needs improvement in some ways.

[Paul Eres]

@mirosurabu - to believe that someone should do something is *not* to force them

i believe people should donate to charity, and brush their teeth, that it'd be good if they do so. does that mean i'm in favor of forcing people to donate to charity and brush their teeth? it's a completely different thing

so to be clear: i believe it'd be showing competent judging skills if judges spent more than 5 minutes with a game, and that judges who make a habit of not putting the effort into judging games, or who wait until the last minute and then play all the games at once on the last day before the deadline, should be spoken to or not be re-invited the next year. i have also said that the igf should not measure the time judges spend playing their games, that it'd be a violation of their privacy to do so. you can interpret that stance as "force" if you like

[ANtY]

i think your opinion, matthew, might be slightly biased


but i think it's fair to expect people in a paid competition to put in an effort to view your game fairly compared to others

any comment on this? because as of right now that is not really what is happening -- most judges give a cursory glance to their games and just try out FEZ or OTHER EXCITING GAME THAT HAS BEEN HYPED

i thought the igf was about independent games, not games which already have highly hyped publishing contracts and funding

+1 

[Manuel Magalhães]

I don't think that the IGF is "horrible" in everything and I think that the judge system is good. I don't agree with their taste on art, but that's just my opinion.

However I think that the situation that happened with Dinoland was bad (that said they didn't behave very well on not talking to the IGF staff), and that IGF should find something to fix it, like not inviting the judges again if they don't play their games without a valid reason or give the money back in some conditions. Guys like Brandon just retweet an article saying fuck you and stay like that. So I hope that Venus Patrol fails because of his pretentiousness, something that I wouldn't even desire to FEZ. So it's that bad.


I do respect that Matthew and Andy and any of the IGF insiders are giving us information about how the IGF works. I still think that IGF isn't perfect due to not having obligatory feedback and some "punishment" to not working judges, but it's preposterous to think that they don't want to improve and I respect these guys for being way more civilized than that blogger-that-I-can't-recall-her-name-that-said-fuck-you-at-the-final.

So I thank Andy and Matthew (and other IGF apologists) for giving your time here. I might reconsider participating on IGF since you guys surely give a fuck about it.

[Fallsburg]

I don't think that the IGF is "horrible" in everything and I think that the judge system is good. I don't agree with their taste on art, but that's just my opinion.

However I think that the situation that happened with Dinoland was bad (that said they didn't behave very well on not talking to the IGF staff), and that IGF should find something to fix it, like not inviting the judges again if they don't play their games without a valid reason or give the money back in some conditions. Guys like Brandon just retweet an article saying fuck you and stay like that. So I hope that Venus Patrol fails because of his pretentiousness, something that I wouldn't even desire to FEZ. So it's that bad.


I do respect that Matthew and Andy and any of the IGF insiders are giving us information about how the IGF works. I still think that IGF isn't perfect due to not having obligatory feedback and some "punishment" to not working judges, but it's preposterous to think that they don't want to improve and I respect these guys for being way more civilized than that blogger-that-I-can't-recall-her-name-that-said-fuck-you-at-the-final.

So I thank Andy and Matthew (and other IGF apologists) for giving your time here. I might reconsider participating on IGF since you guys surely give a fuck about it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd guess that a lot of the "contrarians" or whatevs feel this way.

I know the process is never going to be perfect.  And it seems like there are more controls in place to prevent bad things from happening than I expected.

That being said, it seems like a lot of those controls are insufficient.  And I feel that Brandon handled this horribly, taking a bad situation and making it worse.

[AndySchatz]

I don't think that the IGF is "horrible" in everything and I think that the judge system is good. I don't agree with their taste on art, but that's just my opinion.

However I think that the situation that happened with Dinoland was bad (that said they didn't behave very well on not talking to the IGF staff), and that IGF should find something to fix it, like not inviting the judges again if they don't play their games without a valid reason or give the money back in some conditions. Guys like Brandon just retweet an article saying fuck you and stay like that. So I hope that Venus Patrol fails because of his pretentiousness, something that I wouldn't even desire to FEZ. So it's that bad.


I do respect that Matthew and Andy and any of the IGF insiders are giving us information about how the IGF works. I still think that IGF isn't perfect due to not having obligatory feedback and some "punishment" to not working judges, but it's preposterous to think that they don't want to improve and I respect these guys for being way more civilized than that blogger-that-I-can't-recall-her-name-that-said-fuck-you-at-the-final.

So I thank Andy and Matthew (and other IGF apologists) for giving your time here. I might reconsider participating on IGF since you guys surely give a fuck about it.

I agree the blog post was terrible.  I'll admit that I sympathize with frustration (I think that's pretty obvious) towards those that want to watch the IGF burn and don't discuss it in mature ways, but to say that entrants are shit is never something I would imply.  I think entering the IGF is an awesome thing to do whether you have a big game or a small game, a perfect one or a broken one.

I am personally suspicious of the Kale thing because of their apparent bitterness towards the IGF.  I'm not so sure they were treated unfairly and it kinda sound like they are more interested in making a stink rather than solving a problem.  So I don't 100% trust their motives.  That said, they may be entirely on the money... I simply don't know enough one way or another.

I agree that some games get short shrift.  I think that the IGF awards too many well known games and not enough unknown games.  Not because unknown games are more deserving by nature, but because the system creates an unfair bias towards well known games.  Part of the solution to this problem is getting more minutes (or hours) with the entire set of games.  But this solution can only take us so far, and it dependent on prodding judges to change their behavior, which is a difficult thing to do when you take into account that the judges are volunteers and are generally in positions that keep them very busy with other matters.

As for people having different taste in games, for instance the argument that Iconoclasts or Dust should have been nominated: there's a couple of issues here.  One is just of taste.  I don't care to argue taste, especially in the visual arts category which is judged by some amazingly talented and influential artists.  The other is with platform.  Dust was an XBLA game that proved very difficult for some jurists to properly judge simply due to setup problems.  While I don't know for sure that this is why it wasn't a finalist, I do know that games that require niche hardware will AND ALWAYS WILL have an inherent problem in a competition like this.  It's not worth nitpicking on this issue, it's the plain and simple truth.  Paul, if you argue this point I will strangle you.

And so I think the main solution is one of process and judging architecture.  How do we help to flatten out the judging so that we remove unwanted biases.  Keep in mind that some biases will exist, simply due to the tastes of the judges.  This is natural.  You dont have to agree with the judges tastes.

So, in conclusion, yes, it's a problem that some games don't get enough play time by the judges, but only in that it prevents certain games from rising to the top that otherwise would have if they were given more time.  If we can solve that problem, by one means or another, then we're golden.  I believe the best way to solve this problem is by changing the social backend of the judging technology and by tweaking how the juries are given the results of the first round of discovery.

I have a hard time sympathizing with people wanting their money back when I personally tried so many games that were broken.  I do believe that it's the entrant's task to make sure this doesn't happen.  In a few extreme cases, I can see sympathizing with someone who wants their money back, but to be honest, the IGF is like a big lottery, unless something wildly egregious and indisputable happens, you can't expect value when losing in a contest.

[AndySchatz]

I should also say that I was also frustrated by some games not getting enough time -- but the key difference is that I'm fine with games that are nowhere close to being finalists only being given a short amount of time.  But I did feel that more unknown games in the top 20 after the first discovery round were quite likely to slip through the cracks.  And so the the FTLs of the competition are what we should be worried about, not the Kale in Dinolands.

[Paul Eres]

@antyschatz - did you mean that there was some problem with getting dust to run besides not owning an xbox? you didn't make clear what the issue was with playing it. did fez have the same issue? fez was also an xbla-exlusive game, and it is a finalist. there have been lots of xbla-exclusive games that were finalists and/or won categories in the past, such as limbo, fez again, spelunky hd, insanely twisted shadow planet, probably a dozen more... was there some problem running it that those games didn't have?

i also wonder about why you asked for examples of great overlooked games and claimed we had no case because we could not name any if you were just going to dismiss them on the basis of taste anyway -- which is why i originally said it was pointless to name them and that they are irrelevant. the main controversy is over the fairness of the judging process, and the treatment of igf judges/staff towards indie developers, not the end result

did you play kale in dinoland, as a curiosity? i haven't, but from the trailer, it looks really great, so i'm not sure what the problem the judges had with it was that caused most of them to stop playing before finishing the tutorial was? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCre42oGpQM -- at the very least, it has a huge amount of production values put into it

also, regarding the fees 57k/53k issue, yes the igf does have sponsors: http://www.igf.com/05sponsors.html