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[phubans]

[jonschubbe]

ya, it didn't even get an honorable mention, even though it has like a team of animators and better animation than most AAA games

Wait, I thought one dude made the entire game. How many animators were there?

[Rob Lach]

Aren't you paying attention?

Nope

[Schoq]

i just want to point out that this game got an honorable mention for visuals, whereas dust or the iconoclasts both didn't:

fader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spP_2qVWG80

c.f.

dust: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmSAQwbbig8
iconoclasts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv8-RZ3vljw

my theory is that the visual jurists are mostly modern artists; there can't be any other explanation

Wow.
I try not to make useless posts but I can't help myself this time. I just need to say that this is irredeemably stupid and discredits the visual award forever. What a fucking joke!
Why even try to make your game look good?

[dEnamed]

I actually took the time to read through this thread and mother of god, what a mess it is. I won't comment on the issues at large. Sure, I've got my opinion about it but I'm not an Indie Dev so "stfu" applies.
There's one point I have to comment on however:
More Popular, more well known Games being more likely to win.

I actually think that in a way that is a good thing. Now obviously less known games deserve a chance too, but I feel that Indies need to learn the lesson of Advertisement the hard way. Assuming that popularity is a direct result of advertisement. Browsing through the list of entries, I see a lot of games which look and sound really nice. Great! Promising stuff, my wallet is going to suffer. But in the majority of cases, I haven't heard about any of them (estimating, I only know about 20% of the games on that list).
You could say "well, you're an uninformed gamer" but keep in mind I go out of my way to search for indie games, I frequent Indie Forums, follow Indie gaming and Indie friendly websites and I still haven't heard about more than 20% of them. For the love of it, get some exposition, get out there, make your game known. There are enough sad developer stories like those of Azteka or The Spirit Engine already.

Having a really great game just isn't enough. I'm sorry. So if you're concerned about popularity winning those contests, don't complain about it, yes it sucks, but get out there and get your game to be more popular.

[Manuel Magalhães]

I agree that advertisement is important, but that's irrelevant to the judging. Judges need to check "if game A is better than game B", not "if game A is good and it has great advertisement then don't care about game B because it has no advertisement". In fact that's one of the reasons why people want to participate on the IGF: To gain notoriety.

[dEnamed]

I've worded my post badly. Yes, Judges should try out all games. But let's say a Judge played Game A just as long as Game B. The brain will most likely still favor the one the judge knew beforehand. It's a malfunction in the human brain and I don't think you can rule it out.

/edit:
well that post made even less sense, let me reword it, brb

[baconman]

That's true, and last I checked was the entire POINT of having awards - to reward truly astonishing - if somewhat underpromoted - feats of accomplishment by GIVING them that notice and resulting advertising.

[Christian Knudsen]

Also keep in mind that a lot of the games submitted to the IGF aren't complete -- they're still in development. Most indie developers can't afford (time/money) to have a marketing campaign running alongside development (it's also foolish to kick your marketing efforts into high gear before the game is actually available for purchase).

[dEnamed]

I've worded my post badly. Yes, Judges should try out all games. But let's say a Judge played Game A just as long as Game B. It's a problem in humans themselves that they will favour what they know and which seems familiar to them.
Even if a judge means well and wants to be as objective as possible, subconsciously the brain is trolling that very intention. I doubt it's possible to really change that. And if you can't change the system (humans) see what you actually can change and to me that answer is: do advertisement for your game. It sucks it has to be that way but I doubt it's possible otherwise.

And I'm not talking full grown ad campaigns here. There's quite a bit of room between zero percent and hundred percent.

That's true, and last I checked was the entire POINT of having awards - to reward truly astonishing - if somewhat underpromoted - feats of accomplishment by GIVING them that notice and resulting advertising.

That's funny. That "somewhat underpromoted" part somehow never was part of award definitions in the dictionary. Maybe I've got the wrong dictionary. Should the IGF focus on the underpromoted? That would mean excluding Indie Smashhits like Bastion for example.

(it's also foolish to kick your marketing efforts into high gear before the game is actually available for purchase).

High gear? Perhaps. But it's not foolish to make your game known before that. You might even get early feedback and input from people that way which could work to improve your game.

/edit:
Damnit, look I don't want to defend the IGF. After reading this thread, it looks like a collection of spoiled rich kids to me. A lot of things went wrong and were handled less than stellar. I'm just saying that something like a perfectly impartial judge is impossible.

[Manuel Magalhães]

I could be wrong, but I didn't heard anything about any of the Visual Art finalists until the IGF nominations (except for Dear Escher which I heard on Twitter). Being someone that goes to indiegames.com, goes to the TIGSForums regularly and follow many devs on Twitter I find strange not knowing any advertisement for any of these games if there's any. Dust and The Iconoclausts in another hand I've heard them in Kotaku, so they do have publicity.
Even the visual arts devs are unknown for me, so I can't someone having interest from the games by their creators' names. (unlike the main prize finalist Gunpoint, which I didn't saw much publicity but I knew that was made by a famous game journalist (Tom Francis))

So I agree with your publicity point, but I don't think that the judges are biased with that.

[Christian Knudsen]

(it's also foolish to kick your marketing efforts into high gear before the game is actually available for purchase).

High gear? Perhaps. But it's not foolish to make your game known before that. You might even get early feedback and input from people that way which could work to improve your game.

Of course not. Which is exactly why I said "high gear". You were specifically talking about a game being so well-known that it would affect the game's chances at the IGF -- you weren't talking about getting feedback from people to help improving the game.

I have a blog myself where I post updates on my game's development. But I also have plans for a larger marketing campaign that I won't put into effect until the game is finished. Ben Kuchera recently talked about how indie developers shouldn't waste a lot of effort on marketing before the game is available for reviewers to play and/or customers to purchase:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiqyFfsSUDA

But this is all off-topic. The point remains that a lot of games in the IGF are still in active development and will be so for a while, which is why you haven't heard of them -- and why a game's popularity really shouldn't affect its chances or how it's judged.

EDIT: Just wanted to point out that I'm not saying that a game's popularity does affect its chances or how it's judged (though an already popular game might have a better starting position than an unknown game when judged). I was just responding to your post.

[baconman]

Quote
That's true, and last I checked was the entire POINT of having awards - to reward truly astonishing - if somewhat underpromoted - feats of accomplishment by GIVING them that notice and resulting advertising.

That's funny. That "somewhat underpromoted" part somehow never was part of award definitions in the dictionary. Maybe I've got the wrong dictionary. Should the IGF focus on the underpromoted? That would mean excluding Indie Smashhits like Bastion for example.

Not if the title deserves it.

[Paul Eres]

I've worded my post badly. Yes, Judges should try out all games. But let's say a Judge played Game A just as long as Game B. It's a problem in humans themselves that they will favour what they know and which seems familiar to them.

i don't think anyone thinks that can be fixed. but what *can* be fixed is judges being encouraged to only play a game for a few minutes, rather than giving games more of a chance. we're not trying to revolutionize the human mind here, we're just trying to avoid cases where a game is not played by judges at all, or not played for even a single level

also, being conscious of biases like that and consciously working against them is a good idea, even if they can never be totally eradicated. so merely pointing out the bias doesn't imply that one believes there's some utopian solution for it

[AndySchatz]

I've worded my post badly. Yes, Judges should try out all games. But let's say a Judge played Game A just as long as Game B. It's a problem in humans themselves that they will favour what they know and which seems familiar to them.

i don't think anyone thinks that can be fixed. but what *can* be fixed is judges being encouraged to only play a game for a few minutes, rather than giving games more of a chance. we're not trying to revolutionize the human mind here, we're just trying to avoid cases where a game is not played by judges at all, or not played for even a single level

I played far more games than you can expect most judges to play, in any sort of reasonable world. I spent many more hours than what you are suggesting Paul.  But I didn't play most of the games for a full hour.  Judges simply need to prioritize their time.  A flat hour for every game is just not realistic.  Judges MUST prioritize their time, and the social element (judges talking to each other about which games are worth trying) is how the discoveries of less well-known games are made.  Your suggestion that all games be played by 15 judges for an hour is not even close to feasible or productive.

I agree that theres a bias towards well known games and I think its a problem, but you are barking up the wrong tree in terms of a solution.