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The 2012 AGS Awards


Datadog

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Seriously, though, I don't play enough adventure games to know how good Incinerations or VSB were in comparison to what is out there (commercial or no). All I know is I enjoyed them immensely. Let's hope at some point the creators of said games choose to make more - even if they aren't necessarily set in the SQ-universe.

 

Well, all I do know is that both stand up well in comparison to the games of the 1990s. Which is high praise.

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Seriously, though, I don't play enough adventure games to know how good Incinerations or VSB were in comparison to what is out there (commercial or no). All I know is I enjoyed them immensely. Let's hope at some point the creators of said games choose to make more - even if they aren't necessarily set in the SQ-universe.

 

Well, I'm working on a game you may have heard of. We're also still puttering away at the VSB talkie. I think Chris got a real job or something, so an Incinerations follow-up may be a bit longer in the making.

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Good point. The fact that Incinerations didn't at least win Best Animation is a perfect example of the drawbacks of using a popular vote for this kind of award. It's simply too difficult for a "smaller" game -- even one that may be creatively, artistically, or technically superior -- to compete with a massively successful commercial title.

 

Until the awards happened, I wasn't actually aware of Resonance's following, or how detached I was from the rest of the community. It's hard not to take a clean sweep personally when one of presenters doesn't even bother looking up my real name. And then I get bitter and eat some chocolate and kick myself in the face for being a terrible self-promoter and even worse team leader who really needs a hug. This is what I get for shutting myself away for six years trying to hide from C&D letters.

 

At least you guys enjoyed the game! It was meant for you, after all. You guys are awesome. But on the whole, I'm going to re-evaluate my approach to any future projects. That awards thing was rougher on me than the whole of SQInc's production put together. Explosions and robots alone do not spread word-of-mouth no matter what Michael Bay has taught me. Maybe I should go back to making Klik 'n Play games.

 

On the bright side, I'm grateful I wasn't the one who had to awkwardly give an acceptance speech every few minutes. I did not envy Vince for that.

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It's odd that there are so many members who believe that it doesn't change anything whether a game is freeware or commercial, and thus they're against splitting up the awards.

 

I think quite a few of us agree SQInc was snubbed merely because Resonance is commercial. And it's not just one fluke. I still wonder how the hell Gemini Rue could snatch up Best Background Art ahead of VSB.

 

I'm not getting a big head here, but in that thread, the AGS forum members are talking about the "objective quality" of game components. Do they not realise that Marty's background art could be argued to be objectively better because that of Gemini Rue largely looks like it does to cater to nostalgia?

 

'Least that's my verdict. If you can come up with any reason for making a 320x200 pixel art game that doesn't include the word "nostalgia", I'd like to hear it.

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If you look at the Oscars, they never split up the Best Picture category to separately honor studio and indie films. It makes sense not to split up freeware and commercial when it comes to the best games, especially if they're trying to promote the AGS engine.

 

The difference is that when the Academy votes, it's more political. Voters are trying to advance careers for the filmmakers and themselves. It's rare to see a clean sweep, but if Peter Jackson is scooping up all the awards, that probably means the voters want to butter him up for some future business deals. Likewise with "Argo" and "Life of Pi" this year - it's all about investing in the people.

 

AGS Awards, on the other hand, is all about spamming votes. I should know - I tried to do the same thing. In fact, my friends and I worked out a very similar system for rigging a weekly karaoke contest, but I digress. This method is less like the Oscars and more like the MTV Movie Awards where the voters aren't familiar with all the nominees and Kristin Stewart can win Best Actress. Comparing Resonance to Twlight aside (I'm not bitter!), this is where the publicity from being a commercial game can have its advantage.

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fan games

Explosions and robots alone do not spread word-of-mouth no matter what Michael Bay has taught me.

This pretty much says it all, IMHO. As awesome as the SQ fangames were, the fact of the matter is that they *are* fan games. Fangames are targetted at a specific, usually niche audience, and therefore almost never achieve the widespread recognition and awareness that an original game of the same quality garners. Non-SQ adventure gamers look at the SQ fangames and say "Oh, those are for SQ fans" and immediately ignore them, whereas a title like Resonance appeals to the entire adventure gaming community, of which the SQ fandom is only a small section.

 

You back a niche fandom, you have to expect to get ignored by the mainstream. Sucks, but that's how it is. <_<

 

And as Datadog said, any sort of award setup is invariably stacked in *someone's* favor. Elitist awards like the Oscars have politics and reputations as a driving force, while 'people's choice' is by its nature a popularity contest.

 

We're just a step away from loading Roger into a slingshot and firing him at some piggies.

Take a look at Akril's signature. Two words: Angry Astrochickens.

 

...somebody who knows Flash totally needs to make this happen as a fangame.

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