- Yes
- Probably
- Don’t know
- Probably not
- No
0 voters
I don’t think I’ve played enough 2015 games to be able to vote in any category.
For the last couple years I made desperate sprints through the IFDB near the voting deadline. I don’t even know if the voting is over this year yet, but I’m not going to do so if it’s not. Instead, I’ll try to play a couple games that I really want to play, and I’ll try to post about them and/or review them.
I haven’t played enough either. Thing is–sometimes I just feel more comfortable sitting down and reading a book. Just being on a computer can sometimes tempt me into web browsing, and I’m on a computer enough.
However, somewhat selfishly, the XYZZYs are a great motivation to put out an update to my current works.
Voting is now open for the 2015 XYZZYs! New this year, you can vote for two games in each category.
I really hope you all vote (before it closes at the end of April). The nomination round is often under-attended, which can result in some pretty dodgy nomination lists (like last year’s Best Writing which only had two games, or Best PC the year before when Coloratura was the only nominee!) Even if you’ve only played a handful of games: if you liked them, nominate them!
There are some polls on IFDB with “short list” suggestions for games for each award category. Also, matt w has set up some blog posts to act as discussion forums for nominees. I plan to post my own shortlists there soon.
In any given “for your consideration” list, I’ve played maybe 1 or 2 games all the way through. I dunno. I mean, I suppose I could vote for the ones I liked, but I wasn’t sure it was in the spirit of things to vote when I’ve played so few of the games people seemed to like the best.
I was thinking about how you can vote fairly in spring thing if you can only play 1 or 2 games. If you pick games randomly then every game will get a fair chance.
Xyzzy nomination is similar. Play a random game on the short list.
I lost interest in these events. They used to be something I was looking forward to, but in the last couple of years, I stopped following them.
So, not voting 
Technically, you have to play at least 2 games to vote in SpringThing. But yeah, random works.
I think that makes sense for the finalists round; if you haven’t played most of the games in a category, then it’s probably a good idea not to vote (although part of the point of the finalists round is to give you a tractable list of games to play so you can vote).
For the nomination round, though, I think it’s fine to not have played a wide selection of games. In fact the only way that less-talked-about games can get into the finalists round is if a diversity of people with different tastes nominate the games they know and enjoy. If it’s only the superfans and prolific critics who nominate, then the finalists are going to be skewed towards their tastes, rather than representing the full breadth of IF.
Look at it this way: what’s the worst that can happen? You end up helping a game get nominated but it turns out it bumps off another game that you didn’t play but would have liked more if you’d played it? That seems sort of unlikely, and anyway there are always going to be overlooked gems that you’ll only discover later. Meanwhile, at least the game that you did help get nominated is a game that you liked, and you might help people whose tastes are similar to yours to discover a new good game.
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I agree, as I like to be on the lookout for stuff that slipped through the cracks. Everyone knows the big works, and they get their credit, and saying “but I haven’t played enough” isn’t quite the case. It’s hard to have played everything. You have to have faith others in the community have also done the same thing, but with a random assortment of other games. And if you give reasons behind voting, some people may say, yeah, I’d like to give that a look.
That’s sort of summarizing what you just said. I think at some point the worry about bumping something worthy off all by yourself is bigger than it needs to be. If another game is at risk of getting bumped off in the preliminary round, and it really is that good, I’d assume other people would drop in to upvote it.
In theory, yes, but in practice I strongly suspect that, in most categories, a game only needs 2-3 nominations to make the finalists round. 2015 seems like an especially voluminous year, with a wide diversity of good games, so I would expect vote-splitting to be even more of an effect.
To be honest I would be more comfortable with some sort of preference voting system rather than a simple two-rounds-of-plurality-votes. But the rating system on IFDB handles that fairly well, I think (though I would also like to see many more people rating games there too).
Me too. It can drag on for a bit. But when I read about preferential voting I remember this which is rather fun as a thought experiment.
Still I really agree with you that more people should rate games. I’d like to poke Mike Roberts about just letting us see what was most recently rated. Maybe there could be a separate page off the front page for that. Because I have to admit, I’d like to check recent ratings on my own games…but it’s hard even with 2 or 3. I remember Emily Short’s suggestion that we have snapshot quotes of various games.
Maybe if enough of us bug Mike Roberts we can do that. I think it’d just be good to have something like that, even with IFDB a lot more active than a year ago.
Okay, maybe I’ll put in at least a few votes for the first round, then. I think that’s what I did last year (voted in round 1 but not round 2). I just didn’t want to be unfair. I suppose it also counts for something if you start a game and didn’t like it enough to finish–like, if you didn’t like it enough to finish, maybe it makes sense that it wouldn’t get your vote.
Oh, wait. The ballot says this:
If you vote, you should consider games on their individual merits for each category, and don’t vote unless you’ve played at least a couple of the games in the category.
I’m having trouble parsing what this means, especially for round 1 voting.
[quote=“blue_green, post:15, topic:247”][quote]
you should consider games on their individual merits for each category
[/quote][/quote]
I read this as: if you’re considering a game in a certain category, rate it only with respect to that category. So, a game with great writing but mediocre puzzles should still be considered for the best writing category independently of its puzzles.
Since every game is in every category during the nomination round, I think you’re okay…
Thanks!
Since I voted “no” as soon as I saw this thread last month, I figure it’d be sensible to explain.
I just don’t like voting unless I’ve experienced all the entries, and that goes for everything, not just IF.
I am well aware that there is no official obligation to play every game, and that the rules actually encourage you to nevermind that because, hey, it’s a whole year’s worth of games! Just vote for the ones you did play which you think are suitable! Chances are, the games you remember the best are the ones best suited to this award anyway!
…regardless. It’s a thing of mine. I just don’t vote without considering all the entrants; I wouldn’t feel it fair otherwise.
From intfiction: “A little under two days remaining to vote. As usual, there are a bunch of tight categories: your vote absolutely counts.”
I voted. In some categories, anyway. I’m very interested to see what games get nominated. It seems like there were so many games this year.