Something I have always done in my work on the Vidya Gaem Awards is reaching out to developers. Since our first show, developers large and small have been recognized at the /v/GAs, and have been so gracious as to give some of that recognition back to our show.
How Games Get Nominated
We open the Nominations for the Vidya Gaem Awards in the last two months of the year, either in November or December. When nominations open, we are at the earliest phase of our award show’s production. Content appears sparse on the main page, the categories look way different than last year’s show, and the only semblance of a “presentation” is some Web 2.0 looking website.
The open nature of the /v/GAs means anyone can nominate a game for any category that we offer. As a community project on 4chan, we create the categories and let the voting audience choose the nominees. No login or social media association is required to nominate. Users can submit as many nominations in a category as they would like — we list a dropdown of video games from the calendar year to help users find a specific title.
Although we do not limit the amount of nominations users can submit, we may disqualify nominees in limited circumstances, such as if they are outside the award year we cover, or if they are not applicable to the category.
Nominations are open for a period of roughly two weeks, with the start and end dates at the discretion of the show’s leadership. During this time, award categories may be added, removed, or have their title changed. Users can submit positive and negative feedback on the awards themselves, as well as suggest different names for them. In addition, users can suggest new awards at the bottom of the Nominations page.
After the nominations close, a finalizing process begins. A selection of what can be hundreds of unique nominees per category is reduced to the top 12 (or fewer) selections. Award staff check for misspelled nominations and verify each top nominee’s eligibility in a given category.
Once that process is done, the Voting phase begins and we send out official nominations to developers.
The voting process
It is always flattering to be nominated for an award at a prestigious ceremony, but when developers see a /v/GA nomination, some see it as the unexpected surprise one sees at his or her door. The Vidya Gaem Awards, being a project born ten years ago out of resentment for the state of award shows, can seem a little intimidating. However, our show isn’t as ominous as it would seem.
The categories in the Vidya Gaem Awards cross the spectrum. While we don’t have time to show every award in our visual presentation, there are nine “legacy” award categories that have been included every year the /v/GAs were held, and are especially important because they have been present in our award ceremony for the past ten years. They are:
- Hyperbole Award for best trailer
- /v/irgin Award For best new IP
- Aesthetics Award for best visual aesthetics
- Best Soundtrack
- Least Worst Award for Least Worst Game of the Year
- Most Hated Award for Most Hated Game of the Year
- Worst Writing
- Crimes Against Gaming
- Biggest Technical Blunder
Why have both positive and negative categories?
The Vidya Gaem Awards began in 2011 with the idea that games should be recognized for the good and bad things about them. When enough people in the gaming community nominate a game for an award, it’s a sign that the game merits inclusion in our show.
Inclusion in the Vidya Gaem Awards is special precisely because we do not impanel a jury of bloggers or industry veterans, but instead the public, who give these awards as much or as little meaning as they want.
The official nomination letter
When voting opens, we send studios a personalized form letter explaining the categories for which they or their game have been nominated, as well as a brief background about the show.
The 2015 Vidya Gaem Awards was our first year in which we established a process for contacting developers. From the outset, we went with an unconventional medium — fax machines.
In our first letter, which we sent via fax to Japanese developers, we mention the game nominated, our show’s name, the community we belong to (4chan’s /v/), and the categories the game was nominated for. We list the show’s stream month (March), and congratulations on being nominated.
We topped off the letters by stating 私の日本語がよくない ありがとうございます (“our Japanese is not good, thank you!”). It was humble as it gets.
In later years, we used contact forms, faxes, Twitter, and even snail mail to communicate with developers. However, emailing and Twitter have proven to be the most effective mediums of engaging with studios.
Here is the latest form letter we use:
Greetings [Developer],
The [nth] annual Vidya Gaem Awards is proud to inform you that [game] has received nominations in the following categories:
[Categories]
Each year, our team bands together to develop an award show recognizing the remarkable games, events, or people within the video game industry. No appearance or participation is required from you. Instead, we aim for these awards to be an opportunity to reflect on the state of the industry, as well as the quality of its products.
You may notice that some of our award categories are positive, while others are negative. If you or your game were nominated for a negative award, we ask that you not take it as a personal attack, but as constructive criticism that can guide you or your studio going forward.
With that in mind, we invite you to participate with your fans in our stream, currently targeted to air in February. We plan to send you a second email once we have finalized our stream date. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, we hope to see your games featured in our award show soon.
This form letter that we use in our nominations directly mentions the possibility of a negative award nomination — even if the actual nomination doesn’t include one. We do this to be transparent with the studios we are communicating with as we have both positive and negative awards in our presentation. Also, our negative categories are expressed the same as our positive ones, with both the award title and description given equal emphasis and formatting.
Do developers really notice their nominations?
Absolutely! Reaching out is the best way to let developers know they are nominated for an award.
As stakeholders of the award show’s presentation, developers should participate in the Vidya Gaem Awards, just as our voters and staff do. They don’t even need to be nominated to take part in our show, though some have.
In turn, it’s a common practice for award shows to notify a winner of a given award prior to the award ceremony, so that they may prepare a speech or video. However, we never did so consistently, with the last developer we contacted being Undertale’s Toby Fox during our 2015 show. We could always revisit doing this if we think it’s beneficial to our audience.
The voting process
While our nominations process is open to the public, we categorize and screen our voting process with the aim of counting the preferences of the community we represent —which is 4chan. The voting process is entirely fan-voted with zero election judges or jury panel influencing the success of a given game. Other sites, like Twitter, Reddit, or NeoGAF, may participate, but we do not consider their choices in our visual presentation or official winners page. Out of interest and amusement, we show these sites separately in our results and have done so every year since 2011. Here’s last year’s results page for reference.
Developers often look into our show after we contact them. One has even included us in their “Awards” section on their Steam page! (link is R-18)
Take a look at how some developers below have reacted to the Vidya Gaem Awards.
So many eyeballs. How can we be sure that the numbers are legit?
As the vote progresses, we monitor for brigading, which is permitted subject to our vote filter, and tampering, which is not. We define tampering as automated submissions or votes which spoof their point of origin. We have additional tools at our disposal to audit ballots and identify coordinated tampering.
Conversely, we have no problem with showing the proof is in the pudding, and how the results are votes legitimately cast by voters. Our codebase is open source, and it is updated frequently throughout our production year. Our results page uses data from the same year’s pairwise rankings, which evaluate voter preferences based on the Schulze method. In other words, it tells us how much people preferred X over Y and other candidates. We demonstrate the margin a top candidate is preferred over the next four (using a system we call “Sweep Points”) in our show since 2016.
I represent a small game studio. Can I be featured in your award show?
Definitely! There are a couple of ways to make it happen.
Since our 2017 presentation, we introduced /v/GA Premieres, an opportunity for video game developers to promote their games within our show. Our guidelines are pretty simple and there is no cost for a trailer to be included in the awards!
And, if you’re looking at being a nominee in the Vidya Gaem Awards… get ready to be extraordinary! As something that’s entirely fan-nominated and fan-voted, it’s not easy for games to be nominated, but it is still possible if you can make a name for yourself. If an independent game like YIIK: A Postmodern RPG can win five awards in the 2019 Vidya Gaem Awards, your title could as well. We wish you best of luck, and hope to welcome you to the nominees when the time comes.
In conclusion
The team behind the Vidya Gaem Awards comes together each year to make something special. Each year, we work hard in making our presentation both expressive and fair from start to finish. We take time to reach out to the folks who have made an impact in gaming, whether it be positively or negatively. And we try to give as much out as we take in.
Disclosure: I am the current Head of Outreach and the former Executive Producer (2013–2015, 2017) of the Vidya Gaem Awards.
