2019 Atari Homebrew Awards Voting Information & Discussion

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Besides that I would suggest that Best Packaging should include hacks and 7800 and 8-Bit games too. The effort which went into the hack or the technical platform are quite irrelevant here.

[+Karl G]

Will the polls get unhidden, or will we be able to see the vote breakdown by other means eventually?

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

5 hours ago, Karl G said:

Will the polls get unhidden, or will we be able to see the vote breakdown by other means eventually?

You bet, we will unhide the vote breakdown soon, just like last year. ?

 

They're now all unhidden with the results of the vote.

 

- James

Edited February 4, 2020 by ZeroPage Homebrew

[+sramirez2008]

29 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

They're now all unhidden with the results of the vote.

 

- James

Pretty cool to look at.  The Atari 8-Bit/5200: Best Homebrew category was pretty close.

 

Congrats again to all the nominees and winners!

[+KaeruYojimbo]

LOL! I voted myself off the podium in the <4K category.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Interesting results. And good to know that voting for my own games wouldn't have changed the top 3.

 

Amoeba Jump won by a landslide, about the same for Rally Racer (but we know why now). I did not expect Aardvark to win Best Graphics by that margin. And too bad that Caverns didn't do any better. From a developer's perspective it is brilliant for just 2K. 

 

Overall votes have increased over last year, which is good. But I had hoped for a larger increase than just 10 - 20%.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

He are the vote counts for the identical categories of 2018 and 2019 compared.

 

	2018	2019	Increase
Atari 2600: Best Homebrew	119	134	+13%
Atari 2600: Best Music & Sound	80	94	+18%
Atari 2600: Best Packaging	101	127	+26%
Atari 2600: Best Graphics	101	117	+16%
Atari 2600: Best WIP	115	102	-11%
Total	516	574	+11%

 

It is quite obvious that packaging increased above average. Which indicates some manipulation. But was it decisive? Lets do some math.

 

Without Best Packaging, the votes would have increased by 8% on average. Using this increase on Best Packaging would have resulted in 109 total votes. Which means statistically ~18 (127 - 109) votes are questionable. Rally Racer won by 34 votes. So there is a good chance that Rally Racer would have won anyway.

BTW: Any idea why the Best WIP vote count was against the trend?

 

[RodrigoAB]

4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

He are the vote counts for the identical categories of 2018 and 2019 compared.

 

	2018	2019	Increase
Atari 2600: Best Homebrew	119	134	+13%
Atari 2600: Best Music & Sound	80	94	+18%
Atari 2600: Best Packaging	101	127	+26%
Atari 2600: Best Graphics	101	117	+16%
Atari 2600: Best WIP	115	102	-11%
Total	516	574	+11%

 

It is quite obvious that packaging increased above average. Which indicates some manipulation. But was it decisive? Lets do some math.

 

Without Best Packaging, the votes would have increased by 8% on average. Using this increase on Best Packaging would have resulted in 109 total votes. Which means statistically ~18 (127 - 109) votes are questionable. Rally Racer won by 34 votes. So there is a good chance that Rally Racer would have won anyway.

BTW: Any idea why the Best WIP vote count was against the trend?

 

Thanks Thomas, i was here doing the same math and got the same conclusion.

I was really intrigued by that about WIP as well.

[chavert]

What worries me is:

 

who played the games before voting ? ?

 

p.s : I find it a shame that the votes are hidden. I voted :

 

Atari 2600: Best Homebrew : Aardvark by Oscar Toledo Gutiérrez "nanochess" and Thomas Jentzsch (design and coding), Nathan Strum (graphics and packaging).

Atari 2600: Best Graphics : Aardvark by Oscar Toledo Gutiérrez "nanochess" and Thomas Jentzsch (design and coding), Nathan Strum (graphics and packaging).

Atari 2600: Best Music & Sound : Wizard of Wor Arcade by Champ Games (sound by Mike Haas with Ross Keenum) .

Atari 2600: Best Packaging : Wizard of Wor Arcade by Champ Games (packaging by Dave Dries).

Atari 2600: Best Homebrew ≤4K :  Ms. Galactopus by Ric Pryor "KaeruYojimbo".

Atari 2600: Best WIP  :  Robot City by Thomas Jentzsch

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

There are no indications that people did not test the games before voting. 

[KevKelley]

Maybe the WIP category didn't excite folks as much. Maybe some found the the choices too hard to pick one so opted out of the category completely. I am looking forward to some of the releases but from reading the forums, it kind of felt like there were some highly anticipated games in the previous year... But when you are talking about a dozen votes it may be hard to say.

 

Maybe this just means we need to up our development game for 2020.

[Arenafoot]

6 minutes ago, KevKelley said:

Maybe the WIP category didn't excite folks as much. Maybe some found the the choices too hard to pick one so opted out of the category completely.

Ditto here.... my (with programmer Ross Adkin) WIP homebrew game "Mardi Gras!" didn't even make it pass the nomination committee.

[+Nathan Strum]

8 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

And too bad that Caverns didn't do any better. From a developer's perspective it is brilliant for just 2K.

I think much of this is down to how well a game is known. I wouldn't have known of Caverns at all apart from ZeroPage playing it on their show. It had only been around six months, had only seen one update (and therefore few thread bumps) and didn't have a physical cartridge release. Doodle Jump had been around for an additional year (at least, including its previous incarnations as Doodle Jump and Poodle Jump), and had a full, well-advertised release at PRGE.

 

Also, I think some of it comes down to how easy a game is to pick up. Caverns is a difficult game which takes some effort to get into. There wasn't much time for people unfamiliar with it to get into the game during voting. Difficult games, even if they're very good, are a turn-off to many people.

 

Finally, I don't know what the ratio of developers to casual players is in the voting, but I suspect it's quite small.  

Quote

Overall votes have increased over last year, which is good. But I had hoped for a larger increase than just 10 - 20%.

I'll admit I didn't even vote this year. I couldn't find the time to play through the games. First, there were just too many nominees in each category (17 in Homebrew of the Year is ridiculous). Second, only having a week to get through them all meant I couldn't realistically spend any time learning a game, and it takes time to give all games a fair look.

 

I'm hoping James will consider trimming the number of final nominees down at least a little next year (especially if the number of categories goes back up), and allow at least two full weeks (including two weekends) from the time the ROM packs are available, until the voting concludes. I think that would increase the number of voters significantly. It will push the date of the awards back, but I think it would improve the voting process.

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Without Best Packaging, the votes would have increased by 8% on average. Using this increase on Best Packaging would have resulted in 109 total votes. Which means statistically ~18 (127 - 109) votes are questionable. Rally Racer won by 34 votes. So there is a good chance that Rally Racer would have won anyway.

What can't be taken into account though, is how many people didn't vote in that category due to the controversy. Also, none of the other games dedicated their own threads to promoting their packaging.

Quote

BTW: Any idea why the Best WIP vote count was against the trend?

Fewer well-known games, I would suspect.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Nathan Strum
Just to make people wonder why I edited it.

[KevKelley]

38 minutes ago, Arenafoot said:

Ditto here.... my (with programmer Ross Adkin) WIP homebrew game "Mardi Gras!" didn't even make it pass the nomination committee.

My criteria for a work in progress were considering the progress made in the year, the originality of the gameplay/theme/graphics, anticipation for where it will go, possibly the technical aspects and ambition of the game, and last but not least, the fun (with some being weighted more heavily than others). I think many in this category scored highly by my criteria and it was a hard choice to make. I had personally voted for my own game but I tried to apply my criteria to my choice and I was close to picking Zookeeper over Bag Boy. 

 

To me the WIP category is the one I am most interested in because there is a lot of great things being developed. While all projects may not be actualized, I think they help lead to bigger and better things. They help get more people involved and help contribute to growing the community.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, Nathan Strum said:

I'll admit I didn't even vote this year. I couldn't find the time to play through the games. First, there were just too many nominees in each category (17 in Homebrew of the Year is ridiculous). Second, only having a week to get through them all meant I couldn't realistically spend any time learning a game, and it takes time to give all games a fair look.

 

I'm hoping James will consider trimming the number of final nominees down at least a little next year (especially if the number of categories goes back up), and allow at least two full weeks (including two weekends) from the time the ROM packs are available, until the voting concludes. I think that would increase the number of voters significantly. It will push the date of the awards back, but I think it would improve the voting process.

Fully agreed on both points. IMO even just 5 nominees would do. And more time for nominating and voting would help too (though I doubt the results would have changed a lot). I understand that James doesn't want to delay the awards too much (I wouldn't mind), but this year it felt pretty rushed.

 

BTW: The 17 homebrews must have come from a big tie of at least 8 games which must have had very low nominations (1? 2?). IMO it doesn't help to inflate the nominees that much.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+Muddyfunster]

25 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

IMO even just 5 nominees would do.

I agree and I said something similar after the 2018 awards, I felt 10 + in some categories was too much. 5 feels like a good manageable number for folks to play through and test.

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

I agree and I said something similar after the 2018 awards...

And you were not alone.  

 

And asked to nominate 15 entries in each category seems even more disproportionate. IMO the nominations should be equal to the number of nominees.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+D Train]

My "concern" with reducing the number of nominees is that people really seemed to be jazzed about being nominated, even if they thought they had no chance to win.

 

maybe the solution is a two step nominating process.  First the nominating committee does a first pass and whittles each category down to 8 or 10.  This is a list of "honorees" or "commendations" or something.  So these are the people whose work was considered outstanding.

 

Then, the nominating committee goes back and selects five from each category for public voting.  This is the list of "finalists".

 

When the categories are released, the entire list is announced withe the finalists given special attention.

 

In doing so, the process would publicly acknowledge contributions from people who ostenstibly deserve acknowledgment, but also reduce the number of entrants that are actually being voted on.

 

This might make it more cumbersome, but it preserves some of the excitement and good feeling that people get from seeing their work appreciated.  It would be a shame to see that go.

 

just a thought!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

34 minutes ago, D Train said:

maybe the solution is a two step nominating process.  First the nominating committee does a first pass and whittles each category down to 8 or 10.  This is a list of "honorees" or "commendations" or something.  So these are the people whose work was considered outstanding.

I would rather make it in one step. And then list the games which just didn't make the cut.

[+Nathan Strum]

2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

And asked to nominate 15 entries in each category seems even more disproportionate. IMO the nominations should be equal to the number of nominees.

When I was on the nomination committee the previous year, I only nominated games that I felt were good enough to be considered for each category. If I couldn't find enough, then I just nominated fewer games.

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I would rather make it in one step. And then list the games which just didn't make the cut.

I think that's a good idea. List the top 5 (or maybe up to 7) games, and then list the rest which would've been in the top 10.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

And more time for nominating and voting would help too (though I doubt the results would have changed a lot). I understand that James doesn't want to delay the awards too much (I wouldn't mind), but this year it felt pretty rushed.

 

I agree that more time overall would be good for both the nominations and for the voting. There were a delays on both so I've already started a list of Atari 2600 games for the 2020 Awards so there's less panic at the end of the year for verification of credits/games. There shouldn't be a delaynext year for the voting software now that both the forum and voting plug-in are both updated. ? 

 

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

 

BTW: The 17 homebrews must have come from a big tie of at least 8 games which must have had very low nominations (1? 2?). IMO it doesn't help to inflate the nominees that much.

 

Yes, 17 homebrews is at least 7 too many and it was a result of a 8 way tie. This was a factor of not having enough people on the nomination committee to spread out vote count. Unfortunately some people from last year were not able to participate this year so I'll be boosting the numbers for 2020!

 

- James

 

[Lillapojkenpåön]

7 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

He are the vote counts for the identical categories of 2018 and 2019 compared.

 

	2018	2019	Increase
Atari 2600: Best Homebrew	119	134	+13%
Atari 2600: Best Music & Sound	80	94	+18%
Atari 2600: Best Packaging	101	127	+26%
Atari 2600: Best Graphics	101	117	+16%
Atari 2600: Best WIP	115	102	-11%
Total	516	574	+11%

 

It is quite obvious that packaging increased above average. Which indicates some manipulation. But was it decisive? Lets do some math.

 

Without Best Packaging, the votes would have increased by 8% on average. Using this increase on Best Packaging would have resulted in 109 total votes. Which means statistically ~18 (127 - 109) votes are questionable. Rally Racer won by 34 votes. So there is a good chance that Rally Racer would have won anyway.

BTW: Any idea why the Best WIP vote count was against the trend?

 

You're not accounting for what I said, that the Brazilians was made aware that the packaging voting count discrepancy had been noted while you could still vote, and probably tried to fix it by voting for the others to, and since you have to log in and out, saved the links in a document but forgot wip..

 

Dave Dries sabotaged for himself by making two equally awesome boxes  it distributes the votes so no one wins, very common political tactic by the keystone kapers, I mean capstone keepers.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Lillapojkenpåön

[+sramirez2008]

13 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Overall votes have increased over last year, which is good. But I had hoped for a larger increase than just 10 - 20%.

Me too. We have so many members on AA, yet so few voted. Makes me wonder how many play, or buy homebrews?  Perhaps the third year will be the charm?

[+Karl G]

6 hours ago, chavert said:

What worries me is:

 

who played the games before voting ? ?

 

I think most people played the games before voting, at a guess. That may be related to the low numbers - we didn't have a bunch of people voting without putting any thought into it. @mvo and I did a fast and furious playthrough of all of the entires one night, whether they were ones we had played before or not. It was a lot to go through, but also a lot of fun.   . It's a good excuse/opportunity to play a collection of excellent games for the year.

[Lillapojkenpåön]

I think if a pm was sent out to every member it would increase