Hello, it was my first jam, so the ranking and everything is totally new for me, but here are my ideas for future jams (I don't know if they are possible to do, or not, but I'll share them anyway :P)
- only participants should vote
- if it's still public voting, there should be an option to switch between the final rankings by the public votes, and the participant only votes
- only those should be able to vote, who registered before the jam started
- if you vote, you need to give written feedback as well
- your star rating should be visible under your written rating, to prevent those who write nice things in their comment, but give 1 star for everything
- the previous might be only visible for the person who gets the ratings, not everyone, and they could report it, if they think something is shady
- it should be mandatory to vote for at least 10 (or other amount of) games, since it's a community event, those who didn't do should be excluded from the final rankings
- at the end of the voting period, there should be an extra day to vote only for those games that have less than 10 (or other amount of) votes
- if a game still didn't get at least 10 (or other amount of) votes, than it should be excluded from the final rankings
- it's hard to check if someone really played a game or not, but people shouldn't be able to vote for a game until they actually download it or play the browser version
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Those are good aplicable ideas and it would make for a fair game jam.
But the "only participants should vote" rule would turn it into an even that is folded on itself. Not that it is bad, but it's almost a political choice at this point. And I think it is up to Mark Brown to make that choice as it is, after all, his jam.
Personaly I believe that getting "normal players" to play my games and discuss about it is more interesting than only doing it with devs. Ultimately games are meant to be played, for the players, getting to give feedback is fun and is an incentive to participate. It's more important than the contest that goes along with the jam.
Yes, I understand that, but an open voting has a chance to turn into a "who-has-a-bigger-following-base-on-random-social-media" contest. But even if they can't vote, they could still play the game, so you are able to get valuable feedback. And at the end of the day that's what matters anyway, that's why I like that there are no prizes , it's mainly for learning and get to know other devs.
good point.
And I guess there's always gonna be some cheating in one form or another. But I doubt the few cheaters who might participate in game jams would end up being the talented geniuses who win anyways, as long as the actual best games win. So I'm not so sure chasing them is as relevent as focusing on electing the best games and ideas wich should be the games and ideas players love.