Like I said, the onus would be on the communities. They don’t have to write a game that literally WINS the overal “outstanding game” award, it’s a subset.
If you can’t get your community to write 5 games, get them on IFDB and tagged, and then amass a minimum of 9 votes spread across those 5 games, they have bigger problems.
Besides, failing to meet that threshold and having no award that year would be a major wake-up call for that community to redouble efforts the following year.
If the community itself can’t be bothered to meet those thresholds, then why is everyone outside of that community dutybound to worry about it?
Low-threshold access is granted, that should be enough.
If you’re really worried about it, let folks give 2 or 3 votes each for “outstanding game” poll. It would still go by total vote count and most people are conflicted on which is their favorite anyway. It would also prevent a personal conflict between wanting to toss a vote for your favorite PunyInform game while also wanting to vote for a TADS game that blew your mind. Vote for both. That game that transcends engine-loyalty will get votes all around and still come out on top, while other games/communities will still get recognition without winning the overall “outstanding game” award.
Having 2 or 3 votes to cast for “outstanding game” would fix this, no? There’s even precedent. If I recall correctly, this is how SpringThing’s “Best in Show” Ribbons are cast; everyone votes for (3?) games they thought were the best in show that year.
As a fringe benefit, it would make people more conscious of being good stewards of their IFDB listings, improving the end-user experience.
It also forms not only a rallying point for existing communities to prove their continued relevance and appeal, it creates space for new engines to prove mass-appeal.
If I make an authoring engine named the Pinkunzinator 5000, and then spend 2-3 years building a community and documentation, how validating would it be to cross that vote threshold on the IFDB awards for there to be an official “outstanding Pinkunzinator 5000 game” award given out? It would also bring the new system to the attention of the rest of the community as not so “homebrew” or “irrelevant” as they might have previously believed.
It grants a point of entry and acknowledgement for new things.
I’d be lying if I said this seemingly pointed reference hadn’t sent me scurrying off to IFDB to see if it was based on fact. But I’m pleased to report it is only half-correct, as I have in reality tagged all my games properly (naturally, the bit about me writing the world’s best Adventuron game(s) is quite correct and accurate; the “outstanding game” award, like my Oscar, must be delayed in the post).
I think there are about IF 100 platforms (? somebody made a document with them at some point) but of course, many are not used anymore. However, you cannot expect the all games to be playable in your favourite interpreter on in browser (unfortunately - maybe later). It is perfectly okay to be of the opinion that you require one of the above options but this also means that if you at some point read a very good review of a game, you might not be able to play it. E.g. Quest and ADRIFT games can only be played online in some rather problematic online runners. Realizing that it is quite easy to install e.g. Frankendrift on Mac to play ADRIFT games might open your eyes to e.g. a new author etc.
Yeah, honestly I think the fact that IFDB is crowdsourced makes it fairer, not less fair, than if the organizer (or the organizer plus a small group of volunteers) were responsible for putting together a list of all the IF works released that year. There’s a lot of stuff, spread across a lot of different sites/platforms, and inevitably stuff is going to be missed. But if you want to vote for a game that’s not there, or if you want people to be able to vote for your game and it’s not there, you can quickly and easily add it yourself.
