2019 Atari Homebrew Awards Voting Information & Discussion

[+KaeruYojimbo]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

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?

There are collectors who have no interest in homebrews because they don't consider them "real" games, like they're the video game equivalent of fan fiction or something. There are others who are only interested in the games they loved growing up and are on tangentially aware of homebrew games, if they're aware of them at all. In the world of video game collecting, homebrews are a niche within a niche, so the low turnout doesn't really surprise me.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

14 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%.

I expected a much bigger increase in voting as well, the viewership of the livestream was exactly double (one off of double) of last year, which is amazing! People were definitely aware of the awards but didn't vote in them in the same numbers as they watched them. I wasn't alerted to anyone posting that they didn't have enough time to vote or go through the entries but I think a longer voting period will be helpful next year regardless, barring any technical issues.

 

Also I think that more exposure that the vote is taking place will be helpful. I contacted every homebrew FB page, forum, website and blog I could find to get the word out but I may have missed some. I'll ask for suggestions next year to make sure I don't miss any. ? 

Here's a couple of the websites that promoted the Homebrew Awards:
RetroGameNetwork

VintageIsTheNewOld

 

37 minutes ago, Lillapojkenpåön said:

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

That would definitely get the word out but not everyone on the forums are interested in Atari Homebrew and may be quite annoyed at the prospect of getting notified about it. I don't think I've ever got an unsolicited message from the forums so far.

 

- James

[+Nathan Strum]

43 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

I expected a much bigger increase in voting as well, the viewership of the livestream was exactly double (one off of double) of last year, which is amazing! People were definitely aware of the awards but didn't vote in them in the same numbers as they watched them. I wasn't alerted to anyone posting that they didn't have enough time to vote or go through the entries but I think a longer voting period will be helpful next year regardless, barring any technical issues.

I didn't have enough time to play anything, but I didn't post about it since the deadline and date of the show were already set and so close to each other I didn't see the point.

 

I think more time would help a lot. Sometimes you just can't find a day during a single week to sit down and play games (well, some of us anyway... there seem to be some people who can manage to while away two or three hours at a time, twice a week  ). I stopped participating in the High Score Club because I'd get to the end of a week and realize "Oh right... I was supposed to play such-and-such game this week." And that's just one game.

 

Something that would likely help, is to have the voting announcement/reminders on the front page of AtariAge. Also as a pinned item at the top of Status Updates.

43 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

I don't think I've ever got an unsolicited message from the forums so far.

I get spam e-mails from some guy named "Albert" whenever he has a sale. Some people. Sheesh.  

[Dan Iacovelli]

I also promoted the Awards sent out e-mails to yahoo groups had it  on the calendar on my website.
I'm always in favor of the 2600 homebrew community  thats why I started the Harmony games and using the winners helps the community even more.
I did try to play as many as I could as many 2600 games I can to vote on then my harmony crashed for bit and had to play some of stella(I don't have stella adapter so had to use keyboard(couldn't play paddles because don't know to set stella for it to use mouse and misplaced my paddles for the actual system when I got my harmony back up)

[ZilchSr]

5 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

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?

I've been an AA member for over a year, and am currently in the AA HSC. I was just made aware of these awards a few days ago, only after conducting a search for a homebrew title for which I did a video review, which yielded one of the 2019 Awards links, and it was only today that I discovered that VOTING was open to public participation. Perhaps some cross-thread exposure or coordination with the HSC moderators would have helped. It looks like there are about 50 or so Atari 2600 players in that contest alone. I, for sure, would have pitched the Awards voting opportunity on other sites where I am an active Atari 2600 competitor as well had I known about it ahead of time.

Edited February 6, 2020 by ZilchSr

[+TwentySixHundred]

20 minutes ago, ZilchSr said:

I've been an AA member for over a year, and am currently in the AA HSC. I was just made aware of these awards a few days ago, only after conducting a search for a homebrew title for which I did a video review, which yielded one of the 2019 Awards links. Perhaps some cross-thread exposure or coordination with the HSC moderators would have helped. It looks like there are about 50 or so Atari 2600 players in that contest alone. I, for sure, would have pitched the Awards voting opportunity on other sites where I am an active Atari 2600 competitor as well had I known about it ahead of time.

I used to play in HSC for a few years and was really fun, however finding the time nowadays with work and family life i struggle to squeeze in the time. By memory there was Homebrew week atleast once a season although, it wouldn't be a bad idea to mix it up with a few more homebrew. Especially when some of the seasons feature the same classics from the previous season. There is alot of good homebrew out there

[ZilchSr]

Just now, TwentySixHundred said:

I used to play in HSC for a few years and was really fun, however finding the time nowadays with work and family life i struggle to squeeze in the time. By memory there was Homebrew week atleast once a season although, it wouldn't be a bad idea to mix it up with a few more homebrew. Especially when some of the seasons feature the same classics from the previous season. There is alot of good homebrew out there

We did indeed have a homebrew week just 6 weeks ago and lasted 3 weeks covering 3 homebrew games, which is precisely what prompted me to do the video review of Ms. Galactopus. Unfortunately, not a single mention of the awards competition, not a link, or anything. A blown opportunity... but one that I will personally make sure doesn't happen next year. This awards event is the best thing ever, and I would love to see it become even more successful notwithstanding the fact that I have no affiliation with it, any developers, or even AtariAge other than being a member.

[+TwentySixHundred]

11 minutes ago, ZilchSr said:

We did indeed have a homebrew week just 6 weeks ago and lasted 3 weeks covering 3 homebrew games, which is precisely what prompted me to do the video review of Ms. Galactopus. Unfortunately, not a single mention of the awards competition, not a link, or anything. A blown opportunity... but one that I will personally make sure doesn't happen next year. This awards event is the best thing ever, and I would love to see it become even more successful notwithstanding the fact that I have no affiliation with it, any developers, or even AtariAge other than being a member.

Would have been a brilliant time to play through the games up for nomination as part of the HSC leading towards voting. That way it would have brought alot more awareness of the games and add some excitement. Maybe @Vocelli might consider this for the next HSC season, i'm sure James @ZeroPage Homebrew and or @Arenafoot would be more then happy to collaborate by providing any binaries and information needed.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

27 minutes ago, ZilchSr said:

We did indeed have a homebrew week just 6 weeks ago and lasted 3 weeks covering 3 homebrew games, which is precisely what prompted me to do the video review of Ms. Galactopus. Unfortunately, not a single mention of the awards competition, not a link, or anything. A blown opportunity... but one that I will personally make sure doesn't happen next year. This awards event is the best thing ever, and I would love to see it become even more successful notwithstanding the fact that I have no affiliation with it, any developers, or even AtariAge other than being a member.

 

Thanks @ZilchSr for the great collaboration idea! Playing through the nominated Atari 2600 games would not only provide great content for HSC but also bring awareness to great new homebrew games released in 2019 and some more interest in the Atari Homebrew Awards, that's a win win for everyone!

 

- James

[ZilchSr]

23 minutes ago, TwentySixHundred said:

Would have been a brilliant time to play through the games up for nomination as part of the HSC leading towards voting. That way it would have brought alot more awareness of the games and add some excitement. Maybe @Vocelli might consider this for the next HSC season, i'm sure James @ZeroPage Homebrew and or @Arenafoot would be more then happy to collaborate by providing any binaries and information needed.

That's a fantastic idea! We were fortunate to have one nominated game featured, Tom Furmanski's Dragon's Descent.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

11 hours ago, Lillapojkenpåön said:

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.

That might have been the case, yes. But like I said before, we will never find out.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

One more thing to add: A too short time/game favors games which are easy to understand, easy to play and throw everything they have at once at the players. More complex games, which may require reading the instructions and careful play and/or reveal their content step by step will suffer a lot on a short time slot and a high number of nominees. I think the results (nomination and voting) at least partially prove that.

 

So that's another reason for reducing the number of nominees and increasing the time slots (for nominations and voting).

[Arenafoot]

13 hours ago, ZilchSr said:

We did indeed have a homebrew week just 6 weeks ago and lasted 3 weeks covering 3 homebrew games, which is precisely what prompted me to do the video review of Ms. Galactopus. Unfortunately, not a single mention of the awards competition, not a link, or anything. A blown opportunity... but one that I will personally make sure doesn't happen next year. This awards event is the best thing ever, and I would love to see it become even more successful notwithstanding the fact that I have no affiliation with it, any developers, or even AtariAge other than being a member.

I'm on board! Just ask me whatever you need!

 

 

 

[CapitanClassic]

11 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

One more thing to add: A too short time/game favors games which are easy to understand, easy to play and throw everything they have at once at the players. More complex games, which may require reading the instructions and careful play and/or reveal their content step by step will suffer a lot on a short time slot and a high number of nominees. I think the results (nomination and voting) at least partially prove that.

 

So that's another reason for reducing the number of nominees and increasing the time slots (for nominations and voting).

On possible way to alleviate some of that is for the developer to link to a video of a Long Play, showing all the content, or provide a ROM with a level select or some way to cheat and easily see all the content.

 

i know that with the Pony game on Atari 800, I couldn’t get past the first screen because I didn’t understand how the teleporter worked. It wasn’t until ZPH played the game that I was able to progress.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

On 2/7/2020 at 1:21 AM, CapitanClassic said:

On possible way to alleviate some of that is for the developer to link to a video of a Long Play, showing all the content, or provide a ROM with a level select or some way to cheat and easily see all the content.

But that would take away the fun of exploring the game. I remember how addicted I got to Cosmic Ark back then, because I wanted to see all different beasties.

[+Andrew Davie]

On 2/7/2020 at 10:21 AM, CapitanClassic said:

On possible way to alleviate some of that is for the developer to link to a video of a Long Play, showing all the content, or provide a ROM with a level select or some way to cheat and easily see all the content.

 

i know that with the Pony game on Atari 800, I couldn’t get past the first screen because I didn’t understand how the teleporter worked. It wasn’t until ZPH played the game that I was able to progress.

 

I disagree with Thomas's view. I don't think that it is fair to game authors to expect all those judging to be able to have the skill to find, or the hours to spend, in evaluating a game for all its features. A long-play video makes it fair for all entries, and allows people like ME - who would rather just look than play - to see exactly what a game is presenting. 

Having said that, I'm not someone who voted, as I have a philosophical objection to this whole thing anyway.

 

[Dan Iacovelli]

On 2/6/2020 at 12:00 AM, ZilchSr said:

We did indeed have a homebrew week just 6 weeks ago and lasted 3 weeks covering 3 homebrew games, which is precisely what prompted me to do the video review of Ms. Galactopus. Unfortunately, not a single mention of the awards competition, not a link, or anything. A blown opportunity... but one that I will personally make sure doesn't happen next year. This awards event is the best thing ever, and I would love to see it become even more successful notwithstanding the fact that I have no affiliation with it, any developers, or even AtariAge other than being a member.

I also like the idea of HSC of the nominees to give people more time to figure how to vote. I started the Harmony games which also help promote the homebrew scene for the 2600, at first it was players pick the games and that was too much work, last year I decided to use the winning games of Atari Homebrew Awards  and continued to do that for this and so on.  as for me doing what @ZilchSr said might be hard for me to configure because of so many games and have to figure the gameplay rules and such,but if somebody who runs 2600 HSC I'll be sure to play as long the rom is available to play.

[+Karl G]

I have another possible suggestion: maybe it would be good to bring back the technical achievement category, but not in the form of a public vote for a winner, but just a list of demos, hacks, utilities, innovate coding practices, etc. from the community for that year that the nominating committee wishes to honor for the awards ceremony. It seems like a good way to have some inclusion for things that don't easily work for votable categories, but that still deserve some recognition.