unforum

[SirQuady]

[Idea] ARG People's Choice Awards

[QBKooky]

I remember this being done for ilovebees.... not a reason we couldn't do it -again-, I suppose... but just thought I'd toss that out there.

[Puppy_Zwolle]

Best player ?

[SirQuady]

My own thoughts were that giving awards to players might cause undue fighting or such. Hmm, perhaps that's not the best way to put it. I think that there are too many awesome players! (and yeah, "best player" or "best unfictionologist" or such might cause antagonism. But of course, that's just my thoughts)

A sort of-alternate idea i had was the "Lifetime achievement award". This would be awarded to a person, any person, who contributes extensivley to the ARG community, in ways that are impressive, uplifting, etc! This could be awarded to a player, or a PM, or whatever! (ex. Dave Sz. = Awesome PM + Player!)

Ok, since a number of people have mentioned that they like this idea, i wan't suggestions for this year's (yes, i'm making the foolish assumption that this would become a yearly event ) categories:

For sure, methink's we're gonna need:

-Best grassroots ARG of the year
-Best professional ARG of the year
-Best timewaster/puzzle trail of the year

what else? (from my ideas or you'rs?)

[imbri]

Some ideas of categories and whatnot might be had from taking a look at the Lockies.

[jamesi]

The only problem I see here, and maybe it's only my problem, is that by declaring the Alternate Reality Gaming Awards, and then only allowing Unfiction members to vote, would some across as... I don't want to use the word elitist, so instead, I'll use arrogant. Sure, UF is the largest ARG community out there (prove me wrong!) but surely it is not the only ARG community out there.

Maybe changing the name would appease some of the... friction that may arise from this sort of idea?

(By the way, the Lockies were great.)

[Phaedra]

[jamesi]

[imbri]

[Ehsan]

IMO awards based on voting do not work, because they rely on quantity rather than quality.

If the Academy Awards were based on popular votes, Snakes on a Plane would get all the Oscars. But in reality voting is by invitation only to become a member of the panel, where only 6000 or so make the decision based on studio lobbying and influence, and the opinions of millions of movie-goers are ignored.

Yes, they do come out to be elitists as jamesi put it, but that ensures more often than not a good movie doesn't just win because "OMG Tom Cruise was in it!!"

Of course it's a little bit of a stretched analogy, considering that a similar approach here would scale to a panel of 3 judges and the selection of nominees is somewhat lacking.

Have ARGs achieved the critical production mass which merits awards? I believe not, especially if the end of year comes and you are faced with only 1 or 2 notable grassroots efforts... do you give the award to the best ARG which is also the second worst?

Another point jamesi mentioned was the friction, but instead of being worried about friction with other ARG communities I believe there is enough internal friction within this community to worry about, as we would never agree on the "best" ARG. (And that is not necessarily a bad thing)

Going back to the movie analogy, with 100 movies out, and each one of those being someone's favorite movie, you only have a 1% probability of getting your favorite movie picked out, and even if it isn't you don't take it personally because you're part of the majority 99% "losers".

But when we only have 2 major ARGs, then the fans of that game constitute 50% of the selection and thus you risk offending half of the community who do not overlap between games. If we had 20 ARGs a year, then yeah, maybe you can say it was a very close call at the top without naming second place... but with 2 or 3 games, why not give them all awards.

Ultimately, we all have different tastes, but neither the number of players nor the number of games produces consitutes a critical mass necissary for this to produce anything meaningful without offending people. It can be a fun idea, and even if marketed that way you can be sure we'll take it to heart and butcher the selection because something or another wasn't fair (for example, Heist was an amazing game with 10 active players and ILB2 was an ARG ripoff with 1,000,000 players... can you guess who will win?)

Sorry for being negative, but I see more harm than benefit in doing this at this stage on a community level encompassing all games, players, and PM teams.

I've been trying to wrap my head around similar concepts, such as an ARG review site with game rankings, only to backtrack and avoid such ideas because one of the things that make this place great is the spectrum of conflicting opinions and personal tastes targeted towards a common platform/architecture of delivery. For now, there is no "best" or "worst", but merely some excellent efforts to create enjoyable experiences for evolving ARG communities.

[konamouse]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Good efforts or exceptional efforts rather than "best" or "favorite" may be a good idea. "Groundbreaking" is another possible category - something new (i.e. first use of .......).

What ever is done, there is a strong need to keep it FUN and NON-competative.

[Phaedra]

[aliendial]

Take a look at the Perplex City video awards for a great example of "everybody wins (something)!". Meaning plenty of kudos were spread around although they did ultimately have to pick the top placers. If you click through you'll see tons of not only honorable mentions but also runners up with specific kudos applied. More work, but more warm feelings when we take the time to pick what's good about all the entrants. Where at least minimally possible, of course. Um, do I hear nominees for "Best ARG Meltdown?" See, we can find something nice to say about just about anything!

http://www.perplexcity.com/community/competitions/video/index.qbuild

[Rolerbe]

I think that if you wait until sufficient critical mass has been achieved (either in number of ARGs to have a sufficient pool to award from, or number of voters to have a relevant sample size) you would likely find that someone else has already damned the consequences, gone ahead, and staked out the awards turf.

So I say give it a go, but start off in fun/lighthearted way that has also been suggested. As time goes on and volume builds, seriousness can follow if seriousness is ever desired at all.

Not allowing for popular vote would, I think, lessen general interest due to bias and cronyism concerns, etc. Controlling the voting to prevent ballot stuffing, etc. is a little problematic, but could be restricted to the current UF memberlist, perhaps with a number of postings level (e.g. 10 posts and above) to eliminate frivolous account creation (the number of shills willing to create an account, postwhore the required number of posts just to get a vote in should be fairly small...)

There may be other active ARG groups (but they must be well hidden). Noone would be claiming that these awards were somehow the last word, just the ARGN sponsored popular (and lighthearted) results.

[SirQuady]