Adventure Gamers - Forums

The Last Guardian was another game that caused us great deliberation. But ultimately we felt that the amount of action and degree of difficulty were far more manageable in TLG than in other twitch-based games we excluded.

Of course anyone is welcome to disagree, but I don’t bother with such arguments over specific games. As I’ve said many times over, every decision is a matter of degree, and endlessly hashing out how much action is too much action or how hard is too hard (for example) is absolutely pointless.

We take such decisions very seriously, but if someone’s line in the sand is different than ours… so be it. These sorts of silly debates just suck all the life out of what is supposed to be fun event.

Oscar - 11 February 2017 02:58 PM

So it’s a popularity contest? That would explain a lot. Although odd for a site which concedes that there do exist “better” games.

No, it’s not a popularity contest either. Are you only able to think in black and white terms? That’s why we have a reader poll.

(How, exactly, you think a popularity contest “explains” how games like Maize, Wailing Heights, Event[0] and POLLEN got nominated is baffling, but makes no difference.)

Time for a bit of transparency, I think.

The degree of self-entitlement in that statement is astounding. But as a courtesy, I’ll explain that each person on staff nominates one or more games for each category they feel has a deserving candidate, after which other factors are given due consideration, including the number of people who have played each game. Given the relatively small staff size and the enormous number of games in total, there is no such thing as a level playing field. So we do our best to account for that, with actual cases being made for lesser-known games.

It’s not a science; it’s a matter of real people in a group communicating to reach reasonable (though always subjective) conclusions.

As for what games are considered adventure or not, that usually happens at review time, and for obvious reasons the reviewer has a very prominent say (though not always the only one). But once that decision is made, that’s the end of it. I’d rather poke my own eyeballs out than argue the point ever again.

Oscar - 11 February 2017 04:48 PM

It’s slightly more nuanced than that. A website like this is always reliant its community and it is in its own interest to listen to it. Alienate the viewer base and the advertising revenue goes down. It’s a mutual relationship. Just like any business can tell all of its customers to “f- off” - of course they can do it, but it’s not going to be very good for business.

All that aside, I’m fairly sure the feedback is appreciated. We all want the site to do well and stay alive.

I might be wrong, but I’ve got a feeling that the people who are in the forums are a small minority of people visiting the site.

I generally agree with D and, there’s already one way to get yourself heard, it’s the reader’s poll.

I personally would love to have an award for almost adventures but we can always vote for that ourselves in the forum if we want to.

Wow, I’m honored and humbled to see Kathy Rain included on this list!

Advie - 12 February 2017 05:04 AM

on other hand (and please try to take this with a good heart) Jack you mostly neglect and do not agree with anything said from members whom are not from AG staff, some things were put with light words and consideration, but sometimes people here can get desperate and push their suggestions or comments up the wall breaking some decency along the way because they know (expect) they won’t (their comments) be considered.

I don’t even understand what you’re trying to say here. I’ll consider any good idea, reasonable suggestion, logical argument, etc. regardless of its source. Like I used Kurufinwe’s post, earlier in this very thread, as a catalyst to reconsider 1/P and 3/P instead of traditional/non-traditional. (May or may not happen, but I’ll think about it for next year.)

Presumably what you mean is that generally the only times I feel compelled to respond is when there are things that clearly need to be clarified or countered as it relates to AG directly. Normally I don’t say anything, and I’m 100% happy for you lot to argue amongst yourselves.

I ultimately “agree” with my staff because we’ve gone over all the arguments ahead of time to arrive at our decisions. I rarely hear anything on the forums that hasn’t already been carefully considered, so having people second-guess our decisions after the fact isn’t going to have any effect.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, so moving on.

Simon_ASA - 12 February 2017 06:12 AM

I have only one question if you allow me: why isn’t there a “best puzzles” category?

There really wouldn’t be enough to distinguish Best Puzzles from Best Gameplay. They aren’t exactly the same thing, but puzzles tend to be the primary gameplay element considered. And the best puzzles are so intertwined with story and exploration that where does one even stop and the other begin?

Where are you supposed to vote?
For the past few years I’ve waited to see some sort of poll appear in one of the forums, but never found one.

crabapple - 13 February 2017 10:32 AM

Where are you supposed to vote?
For the past few years I’ve waited to see some sort of poll appear in one of the forums, but never found one.

http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/32151

Glad The Last Guardian was eligible, made the voting very easy

Going through the list of eligible games in the poll reminded me of Love You to Bits. Why did that game not even get a review? It was pretty much my second-favourite adventure of 2016.