IGF - Creating a new Tier between Indie and AAA?

Another year, and another editorial by me slamming the way the IGF competition works, some things never change huh? Oddly it seems that every year the guys that run the IGF try to do more to make it a better competition and I have to continue to wonder, what makes these changes so much better?

Funding? What Funding?

Overall one thing that I have seen over the past few years the IGF has done this competition is that the IGF seems to be trying to create a new level of game developer, not quite AAA (ie. funded directly by a publisher) but not quite true Independent either (ie. truely self funded guys, guys in a basement making the game they want to make and hope to hell they won't lose their houses making it), instead they seem to be creating the "Quasi-Indie" as I will call it.

So what is a Quasi-Indie? Well in short they are teams that fall in between Indie and AAA. These are teams that are for all intents and purposes AAA studios but still label themselves as indies and are about to utilize their resources to play in both camps as well as skirt around the loose rules of the IGF. They can market themselves as indies, everyone loves an underdog right, but also have those ellusive contracts, contacts and resources that allow them to do things that normal indies could never do.

The Quasi-Indie is great for the IGF, since it allows them to market products that look like AAA games but weren't made by your usual run of the mill publisher and give everyone the facade that this market isn't controlled by a few publishers, but at what cost? That cost is that good, quality, truely independently made games are becoming more and more overlooked because very few are truely willing to stand up and give them their due too.

One way the IGF could correct this, nay needs to correct this, is to actually put some emphasis on how they judge the entries they recieve in their main category, both in the preliminary and most importantly in the finals. Create two categories based on funding or direct expenses that went into the game, low-budget and high-budget. This way you can ensure that games are fairly judged based what the developer achieved with the resources that they had at their disposal and not on the dollar value that was attributed to the product.

Categories

Second is that the IGF needs to adjust some of its categories.
* First up they need to return a full fledged "Web" category to its listings. The simple reason for this is that there are a plethora of great games that are under 20mb. In fact if anything these small 20mb games are what indies are best known for, so why the IGF gives a pittence of 1 category for these "web" games is stupid.
* Second, I have to ask again, why do they have such a large MOD category? and why do they limit entries to certain number of games? This category is dumber than dumb, I thought we were here to celebreate independently made games, not make AAA games more popular by promoting a mod. I also have to wonder why they limit mod entries to certain games, I know they're reasoning for it is that it makes judging the mods a lot easier, but they're also crippling this lame category by ensuring that not all mods can be entered, just certain select mods (gee kind of sounds like their main category where all the games with higher resoruces made it in). On top of that how exactly do you judge one mod from another, since mods are so integrally dependent upon the base game that they are running in? Finally, if you are going to keep this stupid category, just rate it 1, 2, 3 based on fan voting irregardless of what game its from.
* Third, remove the audience award's ability to vote online. Let the professional crowd that gathers at GDC choose the best Indie game at the show. Last years E3 Indie show did this and we honestly saw completely different results from the same games that were shown there as were shown at IGF. The reason for that is that people actually had to look at all the games before voting, they weren't told to visit a web portal and stuff the ballot box (I know because I did this when my game was in the IGF and I dammed well know most other teams did too).

Success Stories

The next thing the IGF needs to change are its Success Stories, profile all your entires, finalists and winners that have gone on to be successful. Theres a lot of pandering to promote name games like Darwinia and Alien Hominid, but where the heck are other success stories like GISH (the game that beat out Alien Hominid) or Venture Africa (true indie game that went on to be sold in retail boxes at BestBuy and WalMart)? Sure these games might be less known, but it makes your competition look better to promote and profile them and the teams that helped make them. You, as in the IGF, have a responsibility to be a leading voice of indie games if you want to keep running your competition seriously.

Judges & Critiques

One change the IGF did this year that I agree with is that anonymous critiques from judges will be sent back to you. Which is cool when you get a response like this...

Very unique title. Made me quite sad that I couldn't play more of the game. I love that you've approached the strategy game with the player as a semi-benevolent force of nature; it's a unique perspective for game-players, and one that I think works very well. Nicely done.

... but when you get a response like this...

The game just isn't done yet.

... I have to question who this asshat of a judge is and why he/she was picked in the first place to even help the IGF if their time is too limited and precious to give proper feedback how can anyone trust that they are judging properly too?

And for the record, no this isn't my games feedback, just feedback I saw posted by a peer of mine that I wanted to comment on and use as a point to comment on this critique system and judging.