AGS Awards 2023 - The future of the awards

[Danvzare]

I feel like this conversation has taken the kind of turn where I should keep my nose out and let the adults talk.
But I want to add my two cents anyway. 

Considering people have to purchase a commercial game in order to play it, and people generally don't vote let alone nominate a game that they've never played. I've always thought that commercial games are at a severe disadvantage compared to their freeware counterparts. The fact that they make up for this disadvantage with much more polish (aka professional graphics, music, ect), in my mind, puts everything on a somewhat level playing field.

And besides, there's different levels of commercial games.
I mean compare Captain Disaster to Unavowed. Both are great commercial games, but it's a bit unfair to only compare them just because they're commercial games. 
(What I'm trying to say is that some commercial games are made by just one guy in his spare time, not unlike most freeware games, while some commercial games are made by a team working full time.)

[CaptainD]

Agree with basically all the above. "Commercial" just means that whoever made it has decided to sell it for a price rather than give it away for free, which massively reduces the user-based (albeit with the limited number of people who nominate and vote, the effect is greatly reduced). It's also a fair point that commercial can mean a team of people with professional artists and voice cast, or... not! But that's also (maybe not to the same scale) true of freeware games. Some people are professional artists / coders / VAs making something in their spare time, so they bring those skills to their free project. (FWIW my co-dev on Stomping Boots had been a professional developer before and without his help I would probably never had been able to complete the game, nor would it have been anywhere near as good. I would like to think that over the years I've acquired these necessary skills.)

I think the only fair way to judge any games is simply against the criteria of the award, whether it be gameplay, graphics or whatever. Which is what I think we all do. I think the "Best Game" and "Best Freeware Game" could easily be combined onto just "Best Game" if people wanted them to be, but I rather like the possibility of the possibility of having two different winners. But does it unconsciously prejudice people to think that "Best Freeware Game" means it's probable that "Best Game" should be a commercial effort? I guess that's possible but I'm not entirely convinced.

[TheFrighter]

I was thinking that "commercial" and "freeware" could be temporary status, because if a commercial game after some years is no longer available on platform such as Steam then the developer could re-release for free!
Yes it's rare but could happens! 

_

[CaptainD]

I was thinking that "commercial" and "freeware" could be temporary status, because if a commercial game after some years is no longer available on platform such as Steam then the developer could re-release for free!
Yes it's rare but could happens! 

It could happen but probably irrelevant for the rewards themselves, as the game is only eligible for the year it's added to the database. I just checked and on the AGS game database page itself, you can still tick / untick the Commercial box if you do update. So in a sense, it is actually a temporary status, because it can be changed by the developer.

[LimpingFish]

Yes. Heroine's Quest is and has always been free. (I believe there are some copyright issues that would make it difficult if not impossible to charge for it.)

I've changed the database entry to reflect this, to avoid further confusion. So three it is...

In the AGS Awards? Yes!

That was clumsy on my part, and I should have been clearer. What I meant by "regardless of engine" was in relation to one commercial game over another, AGS or other. If I pay...checks steam...14.99 for Unavowed, I'm going to want my value for money, just as if I payed 14.99 for a game by another developer, whether said game uses a comparable engine or Unreal 5. It doesn't matter that Unavowed is an AGS game, I'm going to judge it in the commercial arena, against other commercial games. I guess it's a consumer point of view. Paying that 14.99 is going to influence my opinion of any game that I have to rate, something that doesn't enter the equation when dealing with freeware titles. That's what I was trying to get across when I said there is (to me) a fundamental difference between judging "commercial" and "freeware" games, AGS or otherwise.

In a contest about which AGS games have the best pixel-pushing and voice work? Yes!

Maybe I'm trying to emphasize "fairness" to an unobtainable degree. That's probably on me. But judging, say, a commercial game's graphics over a freeware game's graphics means, to me, ignoring the commercial game's need to be competitive in a different arena to the freeware game, one that requires a level of polish that the freeware game doesn't necessarily need to aspire to. It's less about punishing the commercial game, and more about not punishing the freeware game, at least, as I said, to me. But as I also said, maybe that's just not feasible.

I think the only fair way to judge any games is simply against the criteria of the award...

I honestly don't have a major problem with that, despite the need to note my own personal hang-ups. 

I think we should drop the topic.

Agreed.

[Kastchey]

Setting the question of what is fair and what is not aside, I think the biggest practical issue is that while trying to distinguish between "commercially competitive" and "hobbyist" games may be easy in some cases, it will become highly arbitrary in others.

If we want to try streamlining the process to make the client quicker to produce for the Awards team and the nominations easier to digest for the community, we probably want to steer clear of anything that requires heavy moderating or in-depth research, and is very prone to be disputed.