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It is true that a lot of high profile individuals get the lions share of attention and don't rate back (at least not with their account and they probably don't have an incognito jam participant account), just look at Dani for example. They are also usually the ones to "win", since they make games for a living. But on the other hand you have the whole least rated page where there is currently a wall of 2 ratings per game.

I do see a problem with your suggestion to give the people a random allocation of games to play. This system is sort of already implemented and and kicks of the rating period. It's the random filter. Unfortunately it then devolves into the r4r system when reviews for your game start flying in. We are subconsciously inclined to return the favor. You can't change that.
It would create a lot of problems if we were to "lock" the games and say: "here dear jammer are 20 games you need to play and rate them in 14 days".

Lets suppose RNGesus gave you the following:

  •   10 garbage games that weren't compiled properly or are outright just some random source code text files (I rated one such game) or simply a "sorry couldn't finish"
  •  5 games that look fine but have only been compiled for mac and you're too poor to have one in your household and have no idea how to set up a virtual machine (since you only started doing fancy stuff)
  •  4 decent games with no problems
  •  1 good game by a pro

More then half of what you got (and such a spread could occur given enough people) you can't even play. Guess it's overtime for the mods that will have to assign you new random games that are hopefully playable.

But what if you don't have time? Ok 20 games is doable on a weekend, but you can't expect that everyone is going to do 20 ratings, should this disqualify them and who will replace the missing ratings?

Lastly, what if you want to play your friends game. Will you have to wait until the jam is over, or will you just be forbidden to rate them?

Or what if you played a game and it was just ok. The most generic game. There is nothing bad to say, but also not a lot to praise. Will you be forced to write a comment?


Honestly the current system works ok, but dose require honesty and the willingness of people to play random games. It is important that we have enough quality raters, that play as many games as possible, but you also need moderators that keep an eye out for troublemakers. I think TheDutchMagikarp removed a bunch of unplayable games the other day for example, so it's definitely not the wild west out here.

You make a lot of good points and there are definitely holes in the "here take 20 games and review them OR ELSE" approach. I guess the point I was trying to get at was that it would be great to see everyone get some constructive feedback back from their games. Now I realise how difficult this is given over 8000 people entered and there are thousands of projects out there, and you're right, if you get an allocation that is barely playable, then it renders this a bit pointless. How about having a rating system that doesn't have a "winning goal" but instead just provides an indication as to the quality of your entry? Just ideas, and I think, as you said, this system works. 

In the end we just have to hope that everyone is being upfront and honest (I think for the most part they are). In the end we're all winners, imo. 

Well, aaaannnnd now we have come full circle and reinvented the wheel. The ratings are supposed to be an indication of quality. There is no prize, but the friends we made along the way :) and the lessons we learned.

Agreed, friend! :) NOW RATE MY GAME. 

That was just a joke... 

agreed and i also think that the game randomizer could have worked well but in these cases where there are more than 1000 games only the most popular games will be rated the most and that would not be good

but above all we have made friends  along the way and we have learnt our lessons :)

Amen to that! All the conversations I've had on here have been amazing, as have all the games I've seen so far. Truly, we're all winners here. 

EXCATLY!

The gamedev community is always the best! Everyone here knows how hard it is to make a game and everyone can appreciate your effort and is willing to help wherever they can.

(Didn't expect a discussion board about cheating to end up in such a wholesome thread, but I for sure don't mind some positivity)