Blue Lemma wrote:The awards aren't about putting games and people down, but rather giving credit to those that stand out the most.
This was my point, actually - the awards do not treat all games equally. Now you may say that neither do individual reviews/comments and personal rankings on blogs, but the difference is that the Lemmys are a community award, and in fact mean that the community doesn't treat these games equally.
The reason why I'm going on about this is exactly that - I don't think that the community as such should rank or recommend - the LSF's most outstanding projects like the Ren'Ai Archives or NaNoRenO were both non-competitive. And I'll say it once again - I believe there is nothing wrong with being a community which pats itself on the back, avoids harsh criticism, does not encourage its members to try harder and is biased towards its own works.
Chronoluminaire wrote:That's one focus [non-competitive motivation etc...] - and it's clearly traditionally been one of the greatest foci of the community. And the community should clearly work to keeping that focus. But it's clear that that's not the only focus for everyone here. I think the popularity of the Lemmys has shown that the community are interested in some other goals as well [...]
The question is whether those two foci (competitive vs. cooperative) aren't interfering with one another. The obvious answer to that may be that there should be some form of balance between those two, but as much as the "middle way" is the smart thing to say, balance in this case also means a loss of direction, taking or at least diluting LSF's defining feature.
JQuartz wrote:I think even if it isn't for the competition, people will still judge the games they're playing. [...] It is the default mode of humans.
There is a difference between individual judgment and judgment by the community (see above). Plus, even if judging and comparing is the default mode, is it really so out of place to try to get people to let this go and (at least) try to appreciate the game for what it is, without thinking of top lists?
dreamer wrote:Jake wrote:In short: if people want to make arthouse VNs, or VNs just for themselves, or to stick to their grand creative vision, then that's fine - more power to them. But those people can just ignore the awards if they want to. If it changes anyone else's creations, then it's just evidence that those people didn't have the same goals as you in the first place.
Point well-taken, Jake. Frankly, using your logic, I don't think the Lemmy's is really bad for the community. It justs set it more towards a direction that I don't approve of. I don't think it's a bad direction, either... but I personally don't like it and never will.
I agree with the fact that Lemmys will (if they become an all-community event) change the direction of LSF. Like a few others, I don't like this direction. Sure, nothing is "bad", but isn't this why we post these discussions in the first place? Because we feel it actually IS a bad direction, that the positives don't outweigh the negatives?
I understand it can be difficult and tiring to defend the community's cooperative and non-competitive heart against people who say it sucks in all its parts and it will never be like the Japanese doujin scene anyway. I understand it is exhausting, having to listen to complaints about not being good enough and constantly explain that no, things that you do do not need to be motivated by the desire to be the best, to be better than someone else, or to be the most popular. Some of these complaints even make you feel bad about simply taking a game and wanting to enjoy it, deliberately setting your mind only on the positives.
But I think this should be the point, the community shouldn't be afraid to admit it's not willing to judge, it should be able to admit it's protective and biased towards its games, and when playing looking first and foremost to enjoy the work, rather than analyze it. No, it isn't rational or objective, it isn't even strictly speaking helping people to "improve", but why can't LSF simply be proud of this, being a community that for once ISN'T like every other one? I admit this is really difficult to understand, but all that it takes is that one day you will have a game that you'd like people to see in a specific way, and admit that you really want people to like it, and you know that based on the common judging, there is no chance of that (you can't express your thoughts very eloquently in writing, you can't draw very well,...) - then you'll perhaps wish for a community that makes an active effort to like things, that gives you a chance. Let
others judge the works that the community makes, let others write objective reviews and top lists - don't make the community itself be the judge.