AGS Awards 2023 - The future of the awards

[Cassiebsg]

This suggestion is made out of the assumption that the nominations is the bottleneck, but if votes are as low in numbers as the nominations, then that may be based on a false premise.

This.
Do we have some statistics about number of people that nominate vs. people that vote vs. people that attend the ceremony.

Also for the nominations, another statistic worth taking into account: how many of those that nominate, take the time to nominate in all categories and nominate more than say 3-5 games per category?
do the majority try to nominate 10 in each category, or they just pick 2 or 3 or games per category and only in certain categories?

Then we can see if nominations might improve if they become simpler to do.

[Kastchey]

Is there any way to get statistics of games made in AGS per year, at least ones registered in database?
It may be curious to see the graph and compare how this number changed over the decade(s).

Actually, you made me curious... Here it is.

[cat]

These two quotes just gave me an idea to help streamline the nomination process.
What if the dropdown box for nominations, only includes the games that were posted in the "For Your Consideration" thread, and only for the categories that the person has listed in their post.

Then the organizers can fill out the list by adding any additional games that weren't posted in the thread, but that they personally believe should have the opportunity to be nominated.

It's not a perfect solution, but it might help get more nominations by streamlining the whole thing.

I would not go this route. This would only encourage authors to suggest their games in all categories and exclude those who might just be on vacation during nomination period who cannot post in the FyC thread.

However, we could try to make the list smaller, by only including games that are eligible in a certain category (e.g. only games with voice acting in "Best voice acting", only short games in "best short game" etc.). I can check with AGA if it is possible to restrict the list, if we provide the correct data. We could make this a community effort to set up those lists.

Do we have some statistics about number of people that nominate vs. people that vote vs. people that attend the ceremony.

Here are the numbers of nominating and voting people per year.

Year	Nominators	Voters
2022	36	45
2021	42	52
2020	39	48
2019	47	45
2018	35	48
2017	49	68
2016	46	53
2015	47	58
2014	56	87
2013	70	92
2012	79	112

So, it was stable low in recent years. However, we only got this number of nominations after I urged several times on the forum for people to nominate. In some categories, we almost didn't get 5 games with 5 nominations each (this is the minimum required for a game to be nominated). Maybe people tend to nominate less games? I don't have more detail who nominated for how many categories.

[LimpingFish]

Here are the numbers of nominating and voting people per year.

Well, what this shows me is that fifty people (give or take ten or so) has decided both the nominees and the winners for the better part of a decade. That is a shockingly small turn out, especially if we take into account that a percentage of those numbers are also potential nominees/winners. It would probably make more sense to have a jury of judges, rather than rely on the community. At least then, you wouldn't have to worry about nominee/voter turn-out. This would, of course, probably raise it's own problems, but at least we would have a smaller pool of people to wrangle, and it would make it easier for commercial developers to disseminate game codes and whatnot. Just something to consider.

Is there anything we can do to increase participation? Should we reduce the number of categories (e.g. best graphics and best animation could be merged, best gameplay could be dropped etc.)? Any other ideas?

I've argued it before, and I think it's more likely now that ever, that less/combined categories is probably the way to go.

Just of the top of my head:

Best Free Game
Best Commercial Game
Best Game Design (combines Puzzles and Gameplay) *Might also swallow the Best Programming category
Best Writing
Best Visual Design (combines all art awards)
Best Sound Design
Best Original Music
Best Non-Adventure Game
Best Short Game
Best Programming*

The awards I'd specifically drop would be Best Demo, Best Character, and Best Voice Work. And if we were to go with a jury system, I'd introduce a single award open to the public:

Community Game of the Year

I'd agree that maybe separating the MAGGIES is a good idea. I'm also leaning towards an overhaul of the "Innovation" and "Lifetime" awards, though I haven't decided what.

Less categories, it has to be said, would also shorten the actual time it takes to "perform" the awards on the night. I'd personally shoot for ten or less.

Another streamlining idea might be to reduce the presentation of nominees on the night to a single screenshot, instead of animations and audio. It's hard enough to get some developers to add their game to the database, never mind solicit media from them for the awards show. No disrespect to those developers who do manage to do it each year, but, as cat says, it's a big enough job just preparing said media for inclusion in the awards, let alone chasing up no-shows. If we're serious about streamlining the process, while keeping the client, this is one of the first things I'd look into making more manageable.

If we were to drop the client altogether, which is a perfectly reasonable choice I might add, I'd probably go for chat Discord over IRC.

We could also produce a short, standalone awards announcement "game" for after the chat ceremony, similar in style to the awards client, but just announcing the nominees and winners, like SSH did back in the day?

[Crimson Wizard]

Here are the numbers of nominating and voting people per year.

Well, what this shows me is that fifty people (give or take ten or so) has decided both the nominees and the winners for the better part of a decade. That is a shockingly small turn out, especially if we take into account that a percentage of those numbers are also potential nominees/winners.

I have the same impression. AGS games today may be found all around the gaming platforms (Steam, GOG, itch.io etc), and I'd speculate that most popular ones are played by thousands of players in the end (might have to ask the devs for the sales number though). Yet the AGS Awards remains a business of a sort of a "closed club" on AGS forums.


Given the two tables, I see the obvious decline in interest to AGS engine in the last decade. The mid-2000ies were "golden age" for this engine, where people probably did not bother about commercial success and just made simple games for enjoyment. Today people would likely use Unity 3D for the same thing.
But I digress...

[Stupot]

I pretty much agree with what @LimpingFish said. If the wider community were only asked to vote for one or two awards, it might make it feel less daunting and will encourage more voters. It might be worth trying once anyway to see how it goes.

The only issue I can see is realistically expecting a panel of jurors to have played all of the games. Plus there could be more risk of bias, if one of the jurors is close friends with (or a massive Stan of) a particular dev.

[cat]

A panel of jurors is not going to work. This would require a dedicated group of at least 5 committed people who play all games and then enter discussion and decide on a result.
It's hard enough to find people to be part of the committee that decides on best innovation and lifetime achievement (and I do not want to give up on those two awards).

[heltenjon]

Actually, I don't think 50 people deciding the awards is all that bad, if it's compared to other websites giving out awards where it's done by a small committee. I wish more people would participate, of course.

My gut feeling is that the AGS crowd are pretty fair in their ratings, even though some of us are friends or "fans" of each other's work. This could be due to us being mostly adults by now. I see a tendency on other sites that (younger?) people will vote either 1 star or max amount, and they may also feel an obligation to rate another product with five stars if the author of that game gave their game the same. At least to an extent, I see this in some game jams and on google play. (My own theory is that this is due to these people using game rating the same way they use social media.) But I digress.

In theory, artists should be more interested in nominating games in the art categories, not to mention more capable of recognizing good art than those of us don't know what's the front end of a pencil. Same would go for programming, writing, music and most of those categories. I wouldn't mind if someone with a talent in one of these fields were given a big blue nominate button, to be able to give the nominations out where they are deserved. Thus if a game doesn't get the five nominations necessary, it could be nominated as a "Expert's pick" (I'm sure someone could make up a better name for it) instead.

Again, I'm working out of an assumption that may be wrong, namely that we choose which games to play out of our field of special interest. For example, if eri0o makes a game with some programming magic, that other expert coders are likely to check it out to see what he did and how he managed to accomplish it. But I fear many of us don't really play many games at all.

[Kastchey]

Having a selected panel of judges to nominate or reveal winners is an appealing idea in many aspects, but it probably wouldn't work in our small, semi-active community. Like cat said, it's enough of a challenge to find 5 community members willing to discuss the committee awards for the given year, where the only requirement is basically "be a fairly active community regular, capable of civil communication"

I would definitely like to try making the nomination and voting process somewhat easier to digest. Scaling down the amount of awards is one way to do it. It would also yield an extra benefit of having the ceremony time, the amount of presenters required, and the number of resources to be collected and prepared significantly reduced.
There are some problems tied to it, e.g. less awards means less games get the spotlight, and an even higher chance the awards would be dominated by a single game. But maybe we could think of a way to address these specific potential issues.

So here's a very minimalist version, built upon LimpingFish's suggestions:
Best Game Design: Puzzles, game mechanics, GUI design, game flow, overall enjoyment.
Best Visual Design: Backgrounds, GUI graphics, animations, sprites.
Best Sound Design: Music, sound effects, voice acting, how it all plays together overall.
Best Original Story and Writing: Story building, world design, character design, dialogues, writing quality.
Best Non-Adventure Game: (unchanged - it still feels distinctive enough to keep).
Best AGS Game of the Year: (unchanged - the alternative might be splitting into Freeware and Commercial like LF did).

Thoughts? I do realize this looks like a rather radical change, but more generic categories are also easier to interpret and understand (Best Gameplay and Best Puzzles, I'm looking at you two!).

[Stupot]

While I do see the logic in putting programming in with game design for streamlining purposes, it does seem a shame not to shine a spotlight on those games which do incredible things under the hood, especially if a game has a dedicated coder who isn't the lead designer.

One way to approach this could be to have another panel award called something like 'Best technical achievement in a game" to acknowledge a particularly great bit of programming. I realize there could be a bit of crossover with Best Innovation, but that mainly deals with things related to the engine/editor or the website/community, whereas a "Technical Achievement" award would only pertain to a game or part of a game.

[Snarky]

Best Original Story and Writing: Story building, world design, character design, dialogues, writing quality.

Why "Original" in this category and none of the others? Do we have any AGS games where the story and writing are not original? (Remakes, I suppose.) And what will these new categories mean for the rule about original music?

Best AGS Game of the Year: (unchanged - the alternative might be splitting into Freeware and Commercial like LF did).

I think the best thing for these categories is to keep the current system: One "Best AGS Game" that is open to both freeware or commercial titles, and one "Best Freeware Game" that excludes commercial entries, even if the categories will sometimes be redundant.

I think it's important to have one grand prize that all games can compete for, and while it makes a certain amount of sense to have a special category for freeware games, to preserve the hobbyist traditions of AGS, I don't see the point of a "protected" commercial category.

@Ali Usually, the ceremony WAS live-streamed on Twitch/YouTube. I know some people were either watching the stream live or afterwards the recording when they couldn't attend.
The problem is, that content that is streamed, has to be created somehow...

I take it that means you don't think you're the person to create the content/host a ceremony livestream in a more typical Twitch/YouTube format? So should we rule out this alternative?

If so, does it also rule out the "Discord call with a PowerPoint presentation" option, or is that easier to prep/host?

[cat]

So here's a very minimalist version, built upon LimpingFish's suggestions:
Best Game Design: Puzzles, game mechanics, GUI design, game flow, overall enjoyment.
Best Visual Design: Backgrounds, GUI graphics, animations, sprites.
Best Sound Design: Music, sound effects, voice acting, how it all plays together overall.
Best Original Story and Writing: Story building, world design, character design, dialogues, writing quality.
Best Non-Adventure Game: (unchanged - it still feels distinctive enough to keep).
Best AGS Game of the Year: (unchanged - the alternative might be splitting into Freeware and Commercial like LF did).

Thoughts? I do realize this looks like a rather radical change, but more generic categories are also easier to interpret and understand (Best Gameplay and Best Puzzles, I'm looking at you two!).

I don't like the "Best Game Design" category. This is too similar to "Best game" and I think both awards would go to the same game. Instead, I would keep "Best puzzles". It's about adventure games after all.
I would also, as @Snarky said, keep the commercial/non-commercial "Best game".
Not sure about "Best short game" (my favourite). While I think this is a very important category for game makers, the lack of votes in recent years shows, that it is maybe not important to players.
I'm all in favour of dropping "Best character". The free text field is really hard to fill in for voters.

Not sure if we have to change the categories radically. Maybe some small improvements, together with an easier voting page, would go a long way?

So, my suggestions would be a mix of yours and @LimpingFish

Best Free Game
Best Commercial Game
Best Puzzles (combines Puzzles and Gameplay)
Best Writing
Best Visual Design (combines all art awards)
Best Sound Design (sound, music, voice acting)
Best Non-Adventure Game
Best Short Game
Best Programming* (often the same as non-adventure)

I take it that means you don't think you're the person to create the content/host a ceremony livestream in a more typical Twitch/YouTube format? So should we rule out this alternative?

If so, does it also rule out the "Discord call with a PowerPoint presentation" option, or is that easier to prep/host?

I cannot do a Twitch/YouTube livestream ceremony. I have no experience with that. Maybe I could do the Discord call thing, I never did this but it sounds more feasible.

[CaptainD]

I hesitate to mention this because it has inherent issues, but...

What about the idea of opening voting to anyone, not just forum members? (Maybe not the nomination stage, but just the voting.)

I do realise this could be open to abuse, even if something like IP address logging could be used. But I'm curious as to what others would think of the idea, and I don't think I've seen it mooted before (apologies if it has).


In terms of assets, in line with LimpingFish's suggestion about just using a screenshot, I had also been thinking of suggesting the same thing, not least because it could be obtained from the game page without having to wait for a dev to respond.

I also agree with the reduction in number of categories, and broadly-speaking agree with what Cat's posted above (although, not sure if "Best Puzzle" is a typo? As "Best Puzzle" and "Best Puzzles" would be very different categories.)

Finally I would like to say that it's apparent that a huge amount of work goes into the awards each year and, while this is very much appreciated, a reduction of the burden seems appropriate.

[heltenjon]

Hmmm...I actually like the best character award, but I think it's rather difficult to do by popular vote as we do now. But I do think it could be done by a small committee. Suggestions could be posted in the FYI thread, like others, in case there's a great character in an overlooked game.

I guess when it comes down to it, the people who organize this will have to draw the lines and determine how much work they want to do and how they are going to do it. The rest of us will have to accept that and rather try to support where we can.

[Crimson Wizard]

I wonder if it would be possible and make sense to make special awards done by popular demand without a category, for games with outstanding features.

Then the "interesting character" award could be among these.

[Kastchey]

While I do see the logic in putting programming in with game design for streamlining purposes, it does seem a shame not to shine a spotlight on those games which do incredible things under the hood, especially if a game has a dedicated coder who isn't the lead designer.

I get that and I agree, but streamlining isn't the only reason. Best Programming is one of the awards that seem difficult to judge for the general audience, and while real programming gems do often get nominated, they rarely if ever win this award.

Why "Original" in this category and none of the others? Do we have any AGS games where the story and writing are not original? (Remakes, I suppose.) And what will these new categories mean for the rule about original music?

Remakes, demakes, fan games. But it wasn't my intention to suggest any changes to this part of the rules, it's just how I happened to word it. What I intended to suggest was a set of compact, more generic awards.

I don't like the "Best Game Design" category. This is too similar to "Best game" and I think both awards would go to the same game. Instead, I would keep "Best puzzles". It's about adventure games after all.

That's a sensible and viable approach, too. I personally like the more generic category better (maybe "Best Gameplay" if "Best Game Design" sounds too much like a Best Game duplicate), but that's just me.

Not sure about "Best short game" (my favourite). While I think this is a very important category for game makers, the lack of votes in recent years shows, that it is maybe not important to players. If everyone is strongly in favor of Best Puzzles - sure, why not.

I do love both Best Short Game and Best Character, yet I think they don't (or no longer, perhaps) work well enough. As you noted, Short Game is getting very little interest during the nomination stage and Best Character is kind of like Best Programming - categories that (in my perception, perhaps I'm wrong) get more default voting that others. Maybe it's time to kill some of our darlings for a healthier voting and ceremony prep process..

[Tomags]

My two cents.

For what is worth I also like the best character award, it helps to highlight games that have a specially charismatic characters.

But I wouldn't be able to tell if it is problematic for the voting, you know more. From my point of view both options sound good (popular voting as now, or restricting it to an award given by critics).

Regarding reducing the number of categories by merging some that intersect, I'm happy with it too.

Tomas

[RootBound]

With regard to not getting enough nominations, would it cause any problems to reduce the number of required votes from 5 down to 4? Or would that result in too many nominations?

[LimpingFish]

Oh, I agree that it would probably be nigh on impossible to actually fill a jury (well, maybe not impossible, though difficult), but my comparison stands; it's a relatively small number of community members who currently decide not only the noms but the winners too. Regardless, I think we need to concentrate on two points @cat made earlier: reducing the work needed to produce/host the awards and actually getting people to engage with the process.

To the latter, as everyone is almost in agreement with, I think reducing/simplifying the categories is a definite step in the right direction.

On that note, while I agree that puzzles are (mostly) key to adventure games, "Best" could mean different things to different people. A game might have easy, straightforward puzzles, which some people might enjoy solving quickly, freeing them up to continue the story, or it may have complex, intricate puzzles, which other people might enjoy mulling over for extended periods of time. If "Best" equals "Most Intricate" or "Most Cleverly Constructed", then why not just call the award something like that? But if we're looking to move away from such granular categories, I think it makes more sense to roll puzzles in with gameplay, rather than vice-versa. It doesn't have to be called "Best Game Design", but I think a singular category is the way to go.

Also, and to be honest, I've never been a fan of "Best Programming". How is the lay person (myself included) supposed to have the knowledge to judge what is and isn't "good" programming? And, really, what is the best kind of programming? Clean, but boring, error-free code? Expert, but buggy, coding that manages miracles within the confines of AGS? A mixture of both? Again, who, except knowledgeable programmers (with access to the source-code of each nominated game) could point out one script over another as being "best"? I know it might be popular among those of the community interested in coding, but...I'd cut it, or at least roll it into something else. In fact, I'd be likely to include "Best Character" over a programming category, as (imho) it has more potential for community-wide interest.

Having said that, while we know which categories see the most votes, we don't really know why people vote certain categories over others. If programming sees a lot of votes, is it because people are really judging programming merits, or are they just voting for the game the liked playing the most? We can guess, but we can't really be sure. Which is why general, less granular, categories are probably a good way to hedge your bets. Everybody knows when they see something they like, everybody knows when they hear something the like, everybody knows when they're having fun, or enjoying a story. Not everyone can tell what good programming is, or even what a good puzzle is, though.

To break it down even further (titles not-withstanding):

Game
Freeware Game
Visual
Audio
Writing
Gameplay/Design (however we define it)

I think these are the key awards, and, though past numbers might prove me wrong, the ones most likely to pull in votes. I can see "Best Short Game" being removed, if it's not doing the numbers, even though I too quite like it. I would probably keep "Best Non-Adventure Game", though I don't think its key.

All of the remaining categories (with the exception of "Best Demo") could fairly easily be covered by one of those key categories I laid out.

With that in mind, and adding in the "Lifetime" and "Innovation" awards, I count nine categories, ten if keep "Best Short Game"...

[Laura Hunt]

So the hot issues seem to be:

Reducing the number of categories:

I agree that reducing the number of categories will probably help streamline the awards (some of them like "Best programming" were kind of absurd, for reasons already stated by others), although it's depressing that writing the name of a character in a simple text field seems to be "too hard" for some people. But if that's what it is, then I guess that award should go too. Shame, really.

Streamlining the nomination process:

I know this might not be a popular opinion, but the way the nominations are set up right now is probably the most optimal way it can be done without dumping any additional work on anybody (site admins or devs). Yes, it can be quite daunting to open a drop-down menu and find every single AGS game added to the database that year listed there, but at least this method is automated and fair, as it ensures that no game is left behind and it doesn't depend on devs adding their games themselves to the "for your consideration" thread, which could be an issue in the case of holidays, illness, unexpected circumstances, etc.

Also, definitely start the process earlier. Nominations in the first two weeks of January, votes until late January at the latest, ceremony (or results) in the first week of February.


Streamlining the voting process:

I like the idea of opening the voting process to non-forum members, as long as there is some anti-cheating measure available (recording IPs or using cookies, or both), BUT the problem with that is that the most popular, commercial, better marketed games would be the ones to always win, whereas if the vote stays within the AGS community, the process is likely to be more neutral. I think the community here cares more about whether games are good than whether games are popular, and that's pretty valuable.

The Ceremony:

Like many others, I love the ceremony, but if the organizers feel that the turnout is not worth the work, then it's absolutely their call to "retire". And there is no need to have any kind of ceremony: a simple forum post would probably do perfectly.

I don't believe I've said anything that hasn't said before, but I wanted to at least chirp in. A lot of people put in a lot of work every year for this to happen, and it's only fair that we try to find a solution that works for everybody (but especially for them).